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TalbotTalbot is an automobile brand, whose history is one of the industry's most complex.
Clement Talbot Ltd was founded in 1903 under the patronage of the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot to import the popular French Clement car into Britain. From 1905, Talbots were also produced in London and the marque was very successful in competition and sales in the years leading up to the Great War in 1914.
Its greatest success occurred in 1913 when Percy Lambert drove a 25hp Talbot 100 miles within an hour at Brooklands race track in Surrey.
The first truly 100mph car!
Talbot was taken over by the Paris based, but British controlled, Darracq company in 1919 and in 1920 this joint company amalgamated with the Sunbeam company to form STD Motors. (This being the origin of the present club name: "STD Register").
After the Great War the Talbot company, operating out of its factory at Barlby Road in London, had a rather lean time and its survival rested with a small 970cc ohv engined car called the 8/18hp. This was later expanded slightly to become the 1074cc 10/23hp both of which models were relatively successful at the luxury end of the small car market. Talbot's survival however probably owed more to the support it obtained from the much more successful Sunbeam part of the STD combine; a situation which was to be reversed 10 years later.
Sunbeam's designer Louis Coatalen was in overall charge but the Talbot fortunes were really turned around in the late twenties by its Swiss chief engineer Georges Roesch who designed the 6 cylinder 1665cc 14/45hp model which was introduced in 1927. From that he developed a string of successful cars including the 75, 90, 105 and 110 models.
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