“I like to present you again a very fine story from one of our CHB readers. After yesterday’s D8 Fernandez et Darrin (only details shown) we will now take a look at a true barn find D8. Is it the same D8 as yesterday’s…? Sadly not. There was no photograph attached to this story, but I found a stunning D8-120 roadster Devillars, a one-off, that might come close to the D8 of today’s story. If you know the car of the story below then please let me know in the comments”. – RAV

When I was a high school boy, in the mid to late 50s, we lived in a town called Stanningly near Leeds in West Yorkshire. In this town, there was a local auto wrecking yard and they had a shop on the Main Street where they sold popular spare parts. Some times they would show cars there that they were trying to sell, rather than scrap. I used to ride past there regularly on my bicycle and one day I noticed a strikingly beautiful pale blue car standing outside the shop…

I stopped to take a closer look at this car and wondered at its beauty. It looked rather down at heel, the tires were very soft, the paint was faded and dirty, but the shape was just awesome. It had a really long bonnet and flowing wings and had huge headlamps with a Marchal badge in the center of the lenses. The body was a 2 door drop head coupe, with a long flowing rear section. It had two side mounted spare wheels and a row of small vent doors along the bonnet sides. The tarnished radiator had a badge on the front proclaiming it to be a Delage. At that time the owner of the shop, Mr. Bill Austwick, came out asking me what I wanted. I asked him about the car and he told me a little about it. I am not sure what year he said it was, maybe 1934, 35, or 36, but anyway it was a Delage D8. It had been in storage since before the war and would no longer run. I asked him how much he wanted for it and he said 25 pounds.

I had enough money in my savings account to buy it, so I pedaled home to tell my father. My father was not thrilled by the idea and said that it was a stupid idea. He said that I wasn’t old enough to drive and it would be much too big and too extravagant a car for me to learn on, even if I could make it run. Furthermore, he didn’t want his property cluttered up with an old wreck of a car that would no doubt distract me from my scholastic studies. So that was that. I saw it being towed away a few days later, but I’ve never forgotten it.

Story by Mally Gates

“If you have such a nice story to tell, don’t hesitate to share it with CHB. Especially the barn find stories are always a great pleasure to share”. – RAV

Photos courtesy: LVA