Born 1902 in a working class section of Paris, Paulin was a pioneer of aerodynamic design and innovative coachbuilding, with the most notable one being the world’s first retractable hardtop system, which he dubbed 'Eclipse'.[1] in 1934, a Peugeot 401D Coupé transformable Eclipse, with coachwork by Carrosserie Pourtout, designed by Paulin, on a chassis provided by prominent Peugeot dealer Darl'mat, became the world's first coupé-convertible. In 1935, Peugeot purchased Paulin's patent, and the Peugeot 402 Eclipse, with Paulin's roof design and system, became the world's first factory production, power retractable, hardtop convertible car.
Paulin worked as lead designer & stylist for leading French coachbuilder Pourtout from 1933–1938, and then worked for Rolls-Royce-Bentley, designing amongst others the 1938 Embiricos Derby Bentley (B27LE), and the 1939 Bentley Corniche prototype.
In 1940, once World War II had begun, Paulin became a spy for the British. He was however betrayed, and arrested by Nazi Germans in 1941, and executed in 1942. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance by the French government.
In 1925 or 1927, while looking out the window of his dental practice during a major downpour, Paulin saw a Delage driver wrestle in vain to get his soft-top up, before the rain destroyed its expensive interior. His neighbor's mishap got Paulin thinking about a retractable hardtop roof that could quickly and easily be erected or stowed.[2]
With support and collaboration of a friend who was a mechanical engineer,[2] he started developing his revolutionary idea of a convertible car design with a reverse-hinged rear deck-lid, under which an elegantly styled, low and aerodynamic, coupé-type roof could be mechanically moved and stowed.[3] Paulin made his idea known, and applied for a patent in 1931, and despite the expenses and complexities of the French patent system, received patent number 733.380 on July 5, 1932.[2]
Paulin presented his 'Eclipse' convertible roof system to one of France's premier custom coachbuilders,[2]Marcel Pourtout, who was impressed by the beauty and elegance of the design – both its style, aerodynamics, as well as the mechanics, in which the roof was counterbalanced by a pair of long elastic bands.[1] Being manually operated, the simple top could be manipulated, to raise or lower, by one man.[4]
When Pourtout got an order in 1933, to build a custom coach on a Hotchkiss Coupé chassis, he saw the first opportunity to apply Paulin's Eclipse roof system.[2] Financial disagreement however led to aborting the first Eclipse build.[3] Paulin nevertheless became the chief designer / stylist for Pourtout, and left his dental practice. Until 1938, the two men created designs for various brands,[3] including Bentley, a Delage D8, a French-built Lancia, a Panhard coupe, a Unic cabriolet, the "water drop" Talbot-Lago, and the Darl'mat provided Peugeot roadsters used in 1937 and 1938 at Le Mans.
Emile Darl'mat was a premier Paris Peugeot-dealer with his own car body business, who gained prominence as a low volume manufacturer of Peugeot-based sports cars in the 1930s. Darl’mat was very enthusiastic, and kept collaborating with Pourtout and Paulin in creating the revolutionary Eclipse roof, the first power-operated retractable hardtop. Paulin and Pourtout created a second prototype on a Peugeot frame provided by Darl’mat, and they subsequently launched small-scale production, based on Peugeot's 401 and 601, modified by Pourtout.
In 1934 it was first presented in the form of the 401D Éclipse Décapotable, a low convertible coupe.[5][6] Until World War II, Paulin and Carrosserie Pourtout produced Eclipse versions of the Peugeot 301, 401, 601, 302 and 402, the Lancia Belna, and models from Hotchkiss and Panhard.
Richard Adatto, author of a book on French aerodynamic styling of the era,[7] wrote:
"Paulin became the leading French stylist of the time... Everything he touched was designed with aerodynamics in mind. He was very conscious of fuel efficiencies and the aerodynamic efficiencies that could be created by the lines of the car. You could go faster, which meant you could put a smaller engine in the car and it could go faster even though it was a small car."[2]
In 1935, Paulin sold his retractable hardtop design and patent to Peugeot,[4] and Paulin proposed a new system for the 302 and 402 Eclipse which remains notable, for the retractable hardtop does not encroach upon the volume of the trunk.[3] Once Peugeot launched the 402, they were free to manufacture a version with Paulin's Eclipse retractable hardtop themselves. Again, Paulin had a financial disagreement, and sued Peugeot, but they now owned the patent on the design, and Paulin lost the law-suit.[3] Until World War II, Peugeot built some 470 of the 402BL Éclipse Décapotable, of which ~30 survive, according to research by Raymond Milo, a Los Angeles dealer in collectible European cars.[4] In the words of Milo:
“The Éclipse was a milestone design and perhaps the most attractive example of Art Deco design applied to automobile coachwork, ..”
Art auction house Sotheby's called the Eclipse top, for its simplicity and swiftness of operation, superior compared to the later, mechanised hardtop of the late 1950s Ford Fairlane 500 / Galaxy Skyliner retractable.[1]
The New York Times estimated the value of a well restored Peugeot 402BL Éclipse at $250,000 in 2006.[4] In early 2015, the 1934 Lancia Belna Eclipse by Pourtout sold for €212,800 including fees by Sotheby's of Paris.[1]
1939 Bentley Corniche prototype recreation
Fifteen years after Paulin's death, the 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 / Galaxy Skyliner became the first retractable from a large car manufacturer to be built in somewhat larger numbers, and was also the first to feature a hardtop split into more than one segment. Only after the success of the late 1990s Mercedes SLK retracting convertible, did Peugeot reprise Paulin's invention, with the Peugeot 206CC.
Additionally, he designed one of the most significant pre-war Derby Bentleys, the Embiricos Bentley B27LE,[7] built again by Pourtout. This car departed from standard Bentley practice, by not using the standard Bentley grille, in favor of hiding it behind a streamlined grille. Amazingly this car was entered in the 1949 Le Mans 24 heures du Mans where it finished 6th overall and entered the two subsequent races finishing 14th and 22nd, with over 120,000 miles on the odometer.
From an automobile, purchased in 1993, and initially restored as a 100 point chassis, Gary Moore from California created a roadster, based upon Paulin's design B25GP, hoping to display it next to its predecessor at Pebble Beach in 2019, Bentley's centennial. This automobile took over 14 years to complete with some of California's master craftsman weighing in with buck fabrication, metalwork, chrome and interior finishing.
Georges Paulin dedicated plaque
World War II resistance
In July 1940, while he was an engineer at Avions Kellner-Béchereau, Georges Paulin began working with British Intelligence to fight the Nazis. Discovered by the Gestapo, betrayed by French Vichy elements, he was arrested in 1941 and sentenced to death by a German military tribunal. He was executed March 1942. An escape plan had been arranged by the British, but Paulin declined to use it, and sacrificed himself in order to protect his team.[9]
A convertible or cabriolet is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary across eras and manufacturers.
A sedan or saloon is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with separate compartments for an engine, passengers, and cargo. The first recorded use of sedan in reference to an automobile body occurred in 1912. The name derives from the 17th-century litter known as a sedan chair, a one-person enclosed box with windows and carried by porters. Variations of the sedan style include the close-coupled sedan, club sedan, convertible sedan, fastback sedan, hardtop sedan, notchback sedan, and sedanet.
There are many types of car body styles. They vary depending on intended use, market position, location, and the era they were made.
Zagato is a coachbuilding company founded by Ugo Zagato in 1919. The design center of the company is located in Terrazzano, a village near Rho, Lombardy, Italy.
A hardtop is a rigid form of automobile roof, typically metal, and integral to the vehicle's design, strength, and style. The term typically applies to a pillarless hardtop, a car body style without a B-pillar. The term "pillared hardtop" was used in the 1970s to refer to cars that had a B-pillar but had frameless door glass like a pillarless hardtop.
A coachbuilder or body-maker is a person or company who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles. Coachwork is the body of an automobile, bus, horse-drawn carriage, or railway carriage. The word "coach" was derived from the Hungarian town of Kocs. A vehicle body constructed by a coachbuilder may be called a "coachbuilt body" or "custom body".
A retractable hardtop — also known as "coupé convertible" or "coupé cabriolet" — is a car with an automatically operated, self-storing hardtop, as opposed to the folding textile-based roof used by traditional convertible cars.
The Rolls-Royce Corniche is a two-door, front-engine, rear wheel drive luxury car produced by Rolls-Royce Motors as a hardtop coupé and as a convertible.
The Bentley 3½ Litre was a luxury car produced by Bentley from 1933 to 1939. It was presented to the public in September 1933, shortly after the death of Henry Royce, and was the first new Bentley model following Rolls-Royce's acquisition of the Bentley brand in 1931.
The Bentley Mark V was Rolls-Royce's second Bentley model. Intended for announcement at the Earl's Court Motor Show set down for late October 1939 it had much in common with its predecessor. War was declared on 3 September 1939 and a few days later Bentley announced it had ceased production of civilian items.
The Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner is a two-door full-size retractable hardtop convertible, manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company for model years 1957–1959. However, early into the 1959 model year, its name was expanded to Fairlane 500 Galaxie Skyliner. The retracting roof system was marketed as the Hide-Away Hardtop, and was exclusively sold on this Ford-branded model, for three model years.
The Lancia Augusta is a small passenger car produced by Italian car manufacturer Lancia between 1933 and 1936. It made its première at the 1932 Paris Motor Show. The car was powered by a 1,196 cc Lancia V4 engine.
The Peugeot 302 is a mid-weight saloon introduced at the 1936 Paris Motor Show by Peugeot and listed, for just 18 months, until April 1938.
The Peugeot 402 is a large family car produced by Peugeot in Sochaux, France, from 1935 to 1942. It was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in 1935, replacing the Peugeot 401.
The Peugeot 401 was a mid-size model from Peugeot produced in 1934 and 1935. It was introduced at the October 1934 Paris Motor Show and was again on display at the 29th Paris Show of 1935.
The Peugeot 601 was a range-topping car produced between 1934 and 1935 by Peugeot. It had its formal launch on 5 May 1934 and marked a return by the manufacturer to six-cylinder engines.
Carrosserie Pourtout was a French coachbuilding company. Founded by Marcel Pourtout in 1925, the firm is best known for its work in the decades prior to World War II, when it created distinctive and prestigious bodies for cars from numerous European manufacturers. Pre-war Pourtout bodies were mainly one-off, bespoke creations, typically aerodynamic and sporting in character. Together with chief coach designer and stylist Georges Paulin from 1933 to 1938, Pourtout pioneered the Paulin invented 'Eclipse' retractable hardtop system on four models of Peugeot, several Lancia Belna's and other car makes. Among the company's customers was Georges Clemenceau, the physician and journalist who served as the prime minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and 1917 to 1920.
John Polwhele Blatchley was a London-born car designer known for his work with J Gurney Nutting & Co Limited and Rolls-Royce Limited. He began his career as designer with Gurney Nutting in 1935, moving up to Chief Designer before leaving in 1940 to join Rolls-Royce. There he served as a draughtsman (1940–43), stylist in the car division (1943–55), and chief styling engineer (1955–69).
Figoni et Falaschi is a French luxury brand and coachbuilder firm which was active from 1935 through to the 1950s. The designs were created by Giuseppe Figoni, while his partner Ovidio Falaschi ran the business.
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