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Winner of the 2023 Royal Automobile Club “Motoring Book of the Year” award!
Marcel Pourtout: Carrossier
by Jon Pressnell
Pourtout is a name often mentioned as one of the greats of French coachbuilding. It was the company behind the rakish Darl’mat Peugeots of the 1930s and the famous ‘Embiricos’ Bentley. From modest beginnings, founder Marcel Pourtout – latterly working with designer Georges Paulin – created a respected business that bodied some of the world’s finest and most interesting chassis.
When bespoke coachwork became a thing of the past, Carrosserie Pourtout was one of the few companies to survive. It moved on to fresh areas of activity. Quick on its feet, it thrived in a newly dynamised post-war France, whilst remaining a family business under the direction of Marcel Pourtout’s second son Claude.
Extravagant publicity vehicles, notably for the ‘Tour de France’ cycle race, replaced special-bodied Hispano-Suizas and Delahayes. Then Carrosserie Pourtout became involved with ALM, for whom it created a cab body that redefined the image of the company’s rugged trucks, these becoming a staple of armed forces around the world. Finally it became France’s leading converter of Peugeot light vans and a sub-contractor for the aircraft and oil-prospecting industries.
Written by award-winning author Jon Pressnell, this is the first history of Carrosserie Pourtout and has been compiled with the full and generous support of the Pourtout family. Using surviving documentation from the archives held by Kévin Pourtout, it tells the complete story of this enterprising small business, from its inception in 1925 to its demise in 1994.
- 488 pages
- 754 photographs
- 290mm x 219mm
- Hard cover with dust jacket
- ISBN: 978-1-85443-286-5
- 20 MyRewards points with purchase
"Like" the Pourtout Facebook Page
Click here to view sample pages
Interview with Jon Pressnell at the 2022 Retromobile event
Jon Pressnell was interviewed for the "Les Amis de Darl'mat" magazine.
December 2023
Jon Pressnell's book, "Marcel Pourtout Carrossier", awarded two prizes in England (Best automobile book by the RAC and Montagu prize from the Guild Of Motoring Writers), is an essential bible for anyone interested in beautiful French bodywork comfort and to those who spearheaded it. The Friends of Darl'mat met him to discuss this reference work.
Click on the above image or this link to download a PDF in French.
Thank you, Crankshaft magazine, for the review
December 2023
 - Crankshaft mag - DEC2023.jpg)
Congratulations Jon Pressnell! Marcel Pourtout: Carrossier has been awarded the "Suzuki Award for the Montagu of Beaulieu Trophy" from The Guild of Motoring Writers
Pourtout is "Book of the Month" in Octane Magazine's November issue.
Congratulations Jon Pressnell! Marcel Pourtout: Carrossier
is shortlisted for the Royal Automobile Club Motoring Book of the Year
Awards, "Books About Motor Cars & Motoring With No Price Limit" *** UPDATE: Winner!!
Now in its ninth consecutive season, the
Royal Automobile Club Motoring Book of the Year Awards recognise and
celebrate the best automotive books, authors and publishers – and the
announcement of the 2022 shortlist proves that this has been a truly
vintage year.
www.royalautomobileclub.co.uk/motoring/trophies-and-awards/motoring-book-of-the-year/
Review from German magazine, Austro Classic, February 2022 issue: Translated text:
Carrosserie Pourtout - founded in 1926 - soon became
one of the leading French coachbuilders - Darl'mat Peugeot and Embiricos Bentley
were just two of the famous creations. After the war, advertising vehicles,
truck cabs and aircraft equipment were scanned.
On good 480 landscape-format pages, this book, the first
on the subject, presents the well-known and lesser-known creations that were
made up to 1994 in words and pictures. A separate appendix is dedicated to the
surviving vehicles.
Book of the Month, May 2022, Classic & Sports Car:
(click to view at full size)
Book of the Month, Octane (Germany):
(click to view at full size)
Translated text: It is admirable how the US publisher Dalton Watson always has the entrepreneurial courage to unearth previously undiscovered topics and then produce them in high quality print and with an enormous amount of research on the part of the author. The most recent example: Jon Pressell's magnificent landscape-format work on the coachbuilder Marcel Pourtout. With the help of Kévin Pourtout, great-grandson of the founder and keeper of the company archives, the Briton living in France traces the chequered history of the coachbuilder's workshop founded in 1925 in the western Paris suburb of Rueil-Malmaison. Initially, there was no clearly defined Pourtout style, but this changed with the arrival of Georges Paulin and his steel folding roof, which could be completely retracted into the boot and for which a patent was applied for in 1932. Ideally implemented in Peugeot's Éclipse models. In the six years before he was shot by the Gestapo in November 1940 (Paulin had joined the Résistance), his designs for the Darl'mat Spécial Sport helped Peugeot to a high reputation, as did the "Embiricos" Bentley, two D8-120 Delage Coupés and four "Teardrop" Talbots. With larger series for Lancia and Renault, the necessary small change also came in. Marcel Pourtout, whose factory was partially blown up by the German occupying forces during their withdrawal, handed over the management of the company to his son Claude after 1945 and, in addition to his office as mayor of Rueil, devoted himself to his hobbies (fishing) and his growing family of grandchildren. When the World War 1 participant and bearer of the Cross of the Legion of Honour died in 1979 at the age of 85, he left behind nine children, 29 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. His company lived on into the 1990s, with promotional vehicles, especially for the Tour de France, bodies for Peugeot vans to Unimog conversions and even mobile test stands for jet engines. As Pressnell sums up: "Pourtout's greatest merit was to have survived for so long."
Pete Vack of VeloceToday.com reviews Pourtout:https://velocetoday.com/marcel-pourtout-carrossier...
Review from magazine, Rare & Unique Vehicles:
Please click to view at full size.
Review from Malcolm Bobbitt and the Society of Automotive Historians newsletter:
Please click to view at full size.
Automobilia Resource Review
by Jon Pressnell
February, 2023
Click image to read full review
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