De Marçay

De Marçay was a short-lived Paris cyclecar marque established after the First World War by aviation industrialist Edmond Charles Marius de Marçay. A factory advertisement in Excelsior on 15 December 1920 names Edmond de Marçay & Cie, gives the address 100 avenue de Suffren and offers an immediately available 7 HP voiturette-cyclecar. De Marçay's wartime aircraft works and later SAECA or Construction Aéronautique de Marçay concerns share the founder and location but are not all proven to be the same legal company; their aircraft do not become car models and their later operation does not extend the automobile badge. Only one road-car family is defensible. The open two-seat cyclecar used an air-cooled Anzani V-twin, detailed references giving 987 cc while period advertisements rounded it to 1,000 cc. A three-speed gearbox and shaft or Cardan drive, emphasized as neither chain nor belt, gave unusually conventional car practice for the cyclecar class. Later sources report 2,300 mm wheelbase, 1,110 mm track, about 300 kg, 70 km/h, 650 x 65 tires and a 5,750-franc opening price. Electric starting, dynamo lighting and five-wheel wording in used advertisements represent equipment and a spare wheel, not new models. Three De Marçays entered the February 1921 Paris–Nice reliability trial, including future champion Robert Benoist as a test driver. Benoist and Pullin received gold medals, but contemporary results do not support the later simplification that Benoist alone won outright. The event's 1,100 cc category ceiling is not another engine size. Hard evidence covers 1920–21, while standard references extend manufacture through 1922 and third-party bare-chassis sales appear in 1923. The catalog uses a qualified 1922 endpoint and no production total. One 7 HP Cyclecar row exhausts the passenger and competition program; 7 versus 8 HP, 987/1,000/1,100 cc and the three race numbers are source variants rather than additional cars.

Text adapted from “De Marçay” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗