Établissements Ballot

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Établissements Ballot
legal form
founding 1905
resolution 1932
Reason for dissolution takeover
Seat
Branch Engine & automobile manufacturers

The Établissements Ballot were a French engine and automobile manufacturer .

Logo on a Ballot 3L from 1920
Share in the Ballot Établissements from 1925

Company history

The brothers Édouard and Maurice Ballot founded the company Établissements Ballot in Paris in 1905 . They produced stationary engines, marine engines (hence the anchor in the company logo) and built-in engines for automobiles, for example for the Delage and Barré brands . It wasn't until 1919 that the company produced its own cars that were also used in racing. Ernest Henry became chief designer . Hispano-Suiza took over the company in 1932 .

vehicles

race car

Initially, racing cars such as the 3/8 LC or the 3LR were created . Ballot took the Peugeot Bébé Voiturette , a pioneering design by Ettore Bugatti , as the starting point for the vehicle . The vehicle had a conventional ladder frame and weighed only about 1050 kg. Ballot used its own eight-cylinder engines with two overhead camshafts (DOHC) and four valves per cylinder (32V). They made 107 bhp (78.8 kW) at 3800 rpm from 2973 cm³.

Ballot was quite successful in the early 1920s. Sun won Ralph DePalma in 1920 , the Elgin National Trophy in the US for Italy (he was only in 1920 a US citizen). Factory driver René Thomas , winner of the Indianapolis 500 for Delage before the First World War , achieved second place there on a Ballot 3LR 1920 . At the 1921 French Grand Prix , Ballot was the first brand to feature mechanical four-wheel brakes and was therefore a favorite. In the race, Ballot finished second (Ralph DePalma; Ballot 3L) and third ( Jules Goux ; Ballot 2LS) behind Duesenberg ; For his part, Duesenberg first competed with hydraulically actuated brakes on all four wheels. Goux won the Italian Grand Prix in Brescia in 1921 ahead of Jean Chassagne ; DePalma dropped out (everyone on Ballot 3L).

2 liters

In 1921 the first street model was the 2 liter . The four-cylinder engine had a displacement of 1998 cm³ . In the Sport 2 LS model , 100 of which were built between 1921 and 1924, this engine developed 80  hp . In the Tourisme 2 LT , which existed from 1923 to 1929, the engine developed 40 hp and in the Tourisme-Sport 2 LTS , which existed from 1925 to 1929, 50 hp. In 1927 there was also the prototype 2 LT 6 with a six-cylinder engine and 1990 cm³ displacement within this model series .

RH

The first model in this series with an eight-cylinder engine appeared in 1927. An engine with a displacement of 2617 cm³ was used in the RH model from 1927 to 1928. In 1928 the RH 2 followed , the engine of which had a displacement of 2875 cm³. The last model to appear in 1929 was the RH 3 with a 3050 cm³ engine and 70 hp.

Picture gallery

  • Ballot works driver Jean Chassagne in a Ballot 3L before the 1921 French Grand Prix; Chassagne fell out on lap 17/30

  • Ballot 2 LTS Cabriolet (1925)

  • Ballot RH 3 (1930), Cité de l'Automobile , Mulhouse

  • Ballot (1925) from the Schlumpf Collection

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b conceptcarz.com; 1919
  2. ↑ conceptcarz.com; 1920

literature

  • GN Georgano: cars. Encyclopédie complète. 1885 à nos jours. Courtille, 1975. (French)
  • Jon M. Bill: Duesenberg Racecars & Passenger Cars Photo Archive. (= Photo Archive Series). Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum (Ed.), Iconografix, Hudson WI 2005, ISBN 1-58388-145-X , p. 46. (English)

Web links