Heuliez: Anatomy of a French failure

Curtain. This time, is nearing completion of Heuliez, this SME of the dos-S poor become one ann are the symbol of "lame ducks" Governments trying to save whatever happens. As you might expect, is condemned to the tribunal de commerce de Niort, on Monday, September 30, the liquidation of the company of car body and install Cerizay.

The activity has been extended (e) a month, the time to complete the pending orders. Then the company will be ray e card. Will remain only in the activities of the three room which were outside the turn of Heuliez: electric cars Mia Electric, vehicles without permission JDM v and h with respect to EADS cabins in helicopter. They will be added, perhaps, a public entity destination e Server pr tool industrial settlement permission.

In total, about 400 people, hand work Heuliez or l reached 3,000 employees in 2004. Return of a spectacular route d stacking the weaknesses of the "industrial fran ais mod".

Family capitalism d FahadIn 2007, when Heuliez is located in backup, the company is at the end of the roll. The manufacturer of trucks in 1920 by Henri Heuliez was inventive in step, its rubber wheels for cars of horses to their opening for the convertible roofs. Staff shop comp, good quality equipment. But the case, led by the son-in-law of the founder, G rard Qu calf and his son Paul, e g e are the first.

The EMS is an office of studies, a subcontractor for Opel, Citro n and others and a builder of some series of v s small vehicles. With the crisis, builders repatriate as much as possible the activity in their factories. And play competition for tasks confi partners, especially with the countries of the East.

Fragile buyersFran AIS nors T, as Bollor, did not want the record, are groups of second class presented. Some serious s. Other less, attracted by the prospect of r s Cup rer for nothing a soci t int interesting to collect donations and disappear at the time of the promised money to inject. This is what happens with the first "Salvador", Indian Argentum Motors, then with the entrepreneur Louis Petiet.

BGI, the last assignee, they, kept his promises. But this small group Fund by an ex - ing NIOR of Heuliez had sufficiently strong to resurrect a company ab m e by two successive bankruptcies kidneys. Its first revival has only half ussi r and BGI would not return to the pot.

Public authorities all ts pr For employees, this ball of buyers, brightness of three bankruptcies in four years, was testing. All his d Lord to save the company, the Government and the commercial court were indeed wanted to believe all the possible tracks, such as ' Bill Gates Turkish '. To blindness.

"It is one of the most beautiful moments of my political life," is are so enjoy making goal S Royal, pr Chair of region r Poitou-Charentes, in December 2009, when Louis Petiet ensure finally will bring the promised representative pr million, a copy of a good wave of subscription. Money obviously impossible.

"Most often, this type of intervention only delays the inevitable in and encourages the workers not retrain, suggesting that [policy] may oppose the forces of the market", believes now Augustin and David Thesmar in 10 Id is flowing France (Flammarion, 160 pages, € 13). "In the case of Heuliez, we made no error. Mr. Petiet probably was not a good buyer, but it was one or immediate closure of the imm. "Hundreds of jobs have been maintained during the is ann", assumes Jean-François Macarius, one of r widely read regional charg of the folder. The region r there will have lost at least 2.4 billion euros in aid that Heuliez never reimbursed.

A blurred doctrineor? Stop, has decided to Arnaud Montebourg, September 23, i - l: t "are not l put scarce money on companies that have no future". Once again, the Lady Royal, pr invest to €650.000 in a company of mixed economy that would be b buildings and machinery after the liquidation, to encourage a red tick home mortgage.

These dissonant speeches show how the doctrine about the rescue of the soci t s in difficult remains diffuse. In 2009 and 2010, a long clash had opposite strat strategic investment fund for reading in the opportunit to sustain Heuliez. On the refusal of the ISP, is finally the region r that is the gateway to the capital of Mia Electric. A company that is still fragile and is looking for investors.

Auctions: A Deco Confection, Flamboyant and French

The car, chassis No. 50023, had been acquired in 1963 by Henry Browne de Kilmaine, a pioneering car collector who helped start the Circuit de la Sarthe museum at the track where the 24 Hours of Le Mans is held. The C25, then black with a tan interior, was displayed at the museum in 1963-2008, according to Gooding.

“But before that, we really don’t know where the car was,” David Gooding, the auction house’s principal, said in an interview on Monday. “Mr. de Kilmaine, however, suggested he had information the car had originally been displayed by Voisin at the 1934 Paris auto show.”

This much, however, is certain: since the museum years it has undergone a makeover as complete as if it were entering a witness protection program.

The C25’s flashy coachwork, which included a novel retractable roof with four airliner-style portholes, was inspired by Gabriel Voisin’s background in aviation; he spent the early part of his career designing and building some of the world’s first airplanes. 

If this C25 is indeed the Paris car — and there seems to be no one claiming it is not — it at some point lost the two-tone paint scheme seen in period photographs. And incredibly, it survived World War II, when many luxury cars vanished — stolen, destroyed, vandalized or cannibalized.

“We have known of instances where cars were buried, hidden behind false walls, even disassembled and smuggled away in pieces,” Mr. Gooding said. “We have no idea how this car survived, or in whose possession it was during all of those years.”

But how did it come to be painted black? “We hope when we put these cars out there that we will hear from people who might know additional information and be able to help us fill in some of the blanks,” Mr. Gooding said. “It has happened before.”

After de Kilmaine died in 2008, his collection was sold off and the black Voisin ended up in England, according to the Le Mans museum. The new owner ordered a full restoration. It was painted midnight blue and gray, with a rococo blue interior using fabric from the mill that originally supplied Voisin. Mr. Gooding said the new motif was inspired by the Paris show car.

It now looks very much like the C25 that won Best of Show in 2011 at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance. That car is owned by Peter Mullin, a noted collector of French cars.

“I am not personally familiar with this car, but I knew of its existence,” Mr. Mullin said in an e-mail. “These almost never come up for sale.”

Locating a Voisin like this is like finding a lost Rembrandt, he offered.

Mr. Mullin is credited in recent years with raising consciousness and appreciation within the collector car fraternity for not only forgotten Voisins, but also for other French Art Deco designs, including those from Delahaye and Talbot-Lago. His collection includes 16 other Voisin automobiles.

Voisin’s recognition as a featured marque at Pebble Beach in 2006 also helped to bring attention to the marque — and increased the prices they brought. Before 2006, no Voisin had ever sold for more than $1 million, Mr. Mullin told The Los Angeles Times. The C25 in his collection might be worth $5 million or more today, he estimated.

Gooding has placed a presale estimate of $2 million to $3 million on No. 50023.

The 1934 Paris show was a showcase for other groundbreaking French offerings, including the Citroën Traction Avant and the Renault Aeroprofil.

Voisin was known for his exotic creations, but the C25 Aérodyne was the topper; it suggested the limitless artistic possibilities of automotive design, even though the extreme costs associated with bringing it to life probably helped to doom the company.

By 1934, the handwriting was really already on the wall for Voisin’s somewhat quixotic dream of designing the world’s most perfect automobile. Chronically underfinanced — a condition worsened by the Depression — Gabriel Voisin had already let go many of his top people. He was unable to upgrade his smoky 6-cylinder sleeve-valve engines.

But there was no scrimping on the design.

Voisin’s cars employed construction methods, and lightweight materials like aluminum and magnesium, developed for use in aviation. The company used airplane-style fender struts to reduce body flex, aerodynamic wheel covers and a fastback profile with an integrated trunk.

Evolved from the C24, the new Voisin was brimming with revolutionary curiosities — a retracting sunroof, fold-down rear seats, a shortwave radio and even rudimentary turn signals.

According to Gooding, the C25’s price of 88,000 francs — as compared with 70,000 francs for a Bugatti Type 57 — marked the C25 as a car intended for an elite clientele. Movie stars, politicians, artists and architects ordered them. In total, just 28 examples were built in 1934-37, of which no more than eight were fashioned with the extreme Aérodyne coachwork.

That wasn’t enough production to sustain the company. Voisin tried to soldier on, despite the economic headwinds of the times.

Then, Voisin noted in his autobiography, “a certain Hitler unleashed the regrettable chain of events that French people are all too familiar with.”

And so, Avions Voisin passed into history; decades would pass until the survivors would be rediscovered.

French Vogue

The 1935 Avions Voisin C25 Aérodyne. The car, chassis No. 50023, had been acquired in 1963 by Henry Browne de Kilmaine, a pioneering car collector who helped start the Circuit de la Sarthe museum at the track where the 24 Hours of Le Mans is held.