1925 Darracq 15/40 DS Sport

I bought this car in 2005, Warrick the previous owner had bought it about 30 years before that, during his ownership he delved into its past and managed to speak to all the previous owners or at least their relatives and gathered copies of the original receipts and several family photos of the car through its useful life into the early fifties.

From then on the car was bought and sold to various “Gunnas” eventually finding someone who took on the restoration and completed it, however by this time the body had long gone so it now has something like a Vanden Plas body ….very British. As you can see from one of the early photos the car had a boat tail originally.

The first owner was John Hollway of Ballarat here is a copy of the receipt.

As delivered the car looked like this, John used the car in competition and I assume he pranged it as there are no more photos with the boat tail after this one. To make things more confusing John also owned a 12hp Darracq that may have had the same body.

However it soon looked like this:

Later in the thirties it grew larger headlights:

By the fifties it is looking very sad:

During the fifties and sixties she went through a series of owners each time losing a little more until David Gibson bought the car and started restoring including building a new body (with Peter McGann). David moved to Queensland the car was registered and in 1978 he sold the now restored Darracq to Warrick Hansted. Here is a picture of a young Warrick with his new car:

3 Responses to 1925 Darracq 15/40 DS Sport

  1. david gibson says:

    Do you know where the car is now?

  2. Warrick Hansted says:

    Greetings Mark, hope you and all toys are well. Sounds like Sizaire is good, hope you are having a great rally! Having trouble leaving a message, hope this one gets through, third time lucky perhaps! Eternally grateful for your selling the Darracq back to me, it is going well as is Vauxhall and am about to do a few jobs on my recently acquired 12/4 Riley special. Mark ,do you have contact details for David Gibson? Excited to see his post, would love to be in contact with him after all these years. Or if you read this David, you can contact me at warrickhansted2@bigpond.com Catch you soon I hope Mark. Happy motoring and best wishes, Warrick.

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