Topic: Whaddyacallit #9 - SOLVED- Dommartin Cross Country Vehicle

[Ray B.]

Know what it is?

Please, respond below and let us know the make and model designation of the car posted here.

Also, please be sure to check out our other puzzles, and, please post a puzzle of your own if you'd like - the more, the merrier.

Thanks!

[max]

Wheels look Morris 8 / Z Van type.  War Office reserved number plate?  Some sort of light aircraft tug?

[Ray B.]

Wheels: I doubt it. Would it be, that wouldn't help you much.
Plate: no.
Aircraft tug: no.

[Allan L]

Interestingly it's right hand drive but the number plate/rear lamp are as they would be for right hand rule of the road.
If it's a UK number WO=Monmouthshire
That looks like a silencer across the back, and that may be a cooling fan exit above it, so perhaps it's rear-engined

[Ray B.]

You're right about 2 things out of 3. Of course you couldn't be right on all of them.

[Ray B.]

A clue seems welcom:

The only car ever produced by the company who built this one was a racer. Only 1 copy of it, and it never got to race.

[Otto Puzzell]

Is it Russian?

[Ray B.]

Old continent, but not Russian

[Otto Puzzell]

Ukranian?

[Ray B.]

No, an not from any part of the USSR

[Tifosi]

Was WW ll a factor in the car never racing?


Dan

[Ray B.]

Not quite. The racing car mentioned (not the one above for sure) did race before WWII, but under a different form and with a different name. In its second avatar, after the war, it eventually didn't.

[Ray B.]

Another clue: I couldn't find THIS car on the internet. The racer mentioned above is somewhere on the net.

[Ray B.]

Looks like this puzzle needs a clue.
Clue 1: Would a front view help?
Clue 2: The racer that never raced.

[Ray B.]

This puzzle is beginning to feel lonely.
Another clue maybe?

The several mishaps of the racing car above was a tough blow for french pride.

[Allan L]

Perhaps the racing car is the SEFAC, designed by Emile Petit.
According to Chris Draper, Petit went on to design a military cross-country vehicle but he tells us no more than that, and there's no picture.
Perhaps that's what it is though?
Just found a photo of the SEFAC and it's not that!
In that case, how about CTA Arsenal, a racing car designed by Lory and made by the French government armaments factory and which didn't even managed the one racing lap that the SEFAC did.
In that case it's a military vehicle made by the Arsenal.but perhaps not designed by Lory.

[Ray B.]

Are you sure this is not the SEFAC ?
Read what I wrote above.

[D-type]

It doesn't look like the SEFAC to me.   The SEFAC later became the Dommartin which never raced.

[Ray B.]

It doesn't look like the SEFAC to me.   The SEFAC later became the Dommartin which never raced.

Did you try to search that one?

[SeaLion]

http://www.forix.com/8w/6thgear/neverraced.html

1947-'48: Part two of the disastrous pre-war French SEFAC project, which was created as a rival to the all-conquering Mercedes and Auto Union, except that the SEFAC conquered nothing but ridicule. The SEFAC ran once, at Pau in 1939, and resurfaced in 1947, when an engine company called Dommartin started rebuilding it. The company gave it a new body, bored the engine out to 3.6 litres and removed the supercharger. Then the money ran out and the car never ran.

The Dommartin race car.

About SEFAC: <<< link removed >>>

SEFAC pictures: <<< link removed >>>

[Allan L]

As I said, and D-type did too, it doesn't look like the SEFAC!
OK so is that the Petit-designed cross-country vehicle?
Can't think what it could be called as SEFAC was Societe d’Etude et de Fabrication d’Automobiles de Course.
When in doubt guess Salmson (particularly if it's a Petit design!).

[Ray B.]

All right, this is kind of bits and pieces but we can consider this one solved:

Yes, this is the cross country vehicle designed by Emile Petit, as Allan L found. And there are these two pictures of it, whatever Chris Draper says.

Yes, the make is Dommartin. I don't understand how none of you came to that conclusion when Dommartin was quoted by D-type and SeaLion,  but there is no sense in going on forever. But, as usual in case of multiple answers, I can't make up my mind about who gets a point, besides Allan.

EDIT: having re-read all the answers, the second point should go to SeaLion who saw that the racecar picture I had added was in fact the Dommartin.

[@re]

This is what I associate with Don Martin:

[Ray B.]

I don't know what's goin' on on AutoPuzzles.com... Once a day someone makes me laugh myself unconscious !

[Arunas]

Any more details about "Dommartin Cross Country Vehicle"? The pictures seems to have come fron nowhere, maybe source is available? 

I REALLY NEED to get information about this car!