Jacques Coune

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jacques Coune (* 16th January 1924 ; †  7. February 2012 ) was a Belgian automobile - racing , motorsport -Enthusiast and entrepreneurs . He gained fame particularly in the 1960s as the founder and owner of the company Carrosserie Jacques Coune with headquarters in Brussels ; The best-known model was the Coune MGB Berlinette, developed in 1963 based on the British MGB roadster , a sporty coupé with a hatchback , of which Coune manufactured and sold 56 copies in the following years.

Life

Assembled by Jacques Coune as a subcontractor in Brussels: A Panhard Dyna X from the 1950s
Marketed in Belgium by Jacques Coune: the Italian Gran Turismo sports car Iso Rivolta

Coune began his career as an Army - officer .

In the 1950s he ran the Central Pièces Auto company - initially together with his father - which specialized in the warehousing and sale of spare parts for automobiles. He also assembled passenger cars from the French brand Panhard for the Belgian market on behalf of Paul Sterckx S.A. the premises were in building 102, avenue Ducpétiaux in Brussels.

In the mid-1950s, he opened a car workshop on Avenue de la Couronne in Brussels. In addition to standard series vehicles, he also looked after exclusive sports cars from Jaguar , Aston Martin and other high-priced brands. Many of his customers came from a wealthy upper class and valued an individual appearance. In addition to the technical support of the vehicles, other areas were added, such as the individualization of the external appearance and the interior . For MG vehicles, he offered hardtops , attachable roofs for roadsters and convertibles, as well as for the Fiat 1500 Spider and the Auto Union 1000 Sp Roadster. In addition, Coune was the first Abarth dealer outside Italy for both Abarth sports cars and sports exhaust systems .

In the mid-1950s, Coune competed in several sports car races , especially in Belgium; He came in particular for the Ecurie Francorchamps to multiply with a Ferrari 166 MM / 53 Vignale Spyder in the category up to two liters of capacity . Coune was also a co-founder of the motorsport team Equipe Nationale Belge .

In the 1960s, he also represented the Italian sports car brand Iso Rivolta . The sales rooms were in the same building in which the garage Francorchamps S.A. of his friend and racing driver colleague Jacques Swaters was located and where the Ecurie Francorchamps racing cars were prepared.

From 1962 to 1968, Coune ran its own body shop , Carrosserie Jacques Coune . In 1963, 1964 and 1965 it was represented with its own stand at the Brussels Motor Show , at that time one of the world's most important trade fairs for passenger cars .

In 1970, Coune retired from the automotive business for economic reasons. Instead, he worked for the successful real estate company of his compatriot Charly de Pauw. Coune came into close contact with automobiles again from 1984: De Pauw opened the Brussels Automobile Museum on the Rogierplein in Brussels; At the age of 60, Coune took over the position of curator . A few years later de Pauw died; the museum was closed and several vehicles from the collection were sold. Some of the vehicles that Coune has maintained and restored are now in the “Autoworld Brussels” collection.

From the 1990s, Coune led a very secluded life. He died in 2012 at the age of 88. His grave is in La Hulpe in Wallonia .

Racing career

As a racing driver, Jacques Coune contested several sports car races, mostly in his home country Belgium.

On May 13, 1956, he competed in a Ferrari 166 MM / 53 Vignale Spyder for the Ecurie Francorchamps at the Grand Prix de Spa-Francorchamps for production cars . The race was on the Ardennes - Ends at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps discharged. Coune's teammates were Paul Frère on a Ferrari 500 TR and Jacques Herzet , also on a Ferrari 166 MM / 53, and probably Edouard Margairaz on a Ferrari 212 Export. Opponents included three Jaguar D-Type , including the winning driver Ninian Sanderson , two Aston Martin DB3 / S, including the runner-up Reg Parnell , and four Porsche 550s with drivers such as Richard von Frankenberg and Wolfgang Seidel . Coune reached the goal of the almost one-hour race outside the points without being lapped by the sometimes larger-capacity competitors, his teammate Frère finished third.

With the same Ecurie Francorchamps sports car , Coune contested another race on July 5, 1956 on the circuit of Spa-Francorchamps; the exact result is not known. Furthermore, participation in is hillclimb Côte d'Andenne on 15 July 1956 documented the second place achieved in the Coune in its class.

The 1956 Ferrari 166 MM / 53 Vignale Spyder from 1956, piloted by Coune, originally belonged to the famous racing driver Porfirio Rubirosa from the Dominican Republic , who lives in Paris . It was used by the French racing driver Fernand Tavano in 1954 and 1955 before the Francorchamps S.A. garage in Brussels acquired it in 1956 through the Ferrari factory. In addition to Coune, Bernard Bianchi and Jean Blaton alias “Beurlys” also used the Ferrari Spyder for races in 1956. In the next year, the Francorchamps S.A. garage sold the four-year-old racing car that still exists today.

Acting as an organizer in motorsport

Co-supervised by Jacques Coune: A Ferrari 250 GT LWB Berlinetta Scaglietti TdF in the colors of the Ecurie Francorchamps

From the mid-1950s to Coune committed organizationally racing team Ecurie Francorchamps and took care of the maintenance of the team's sports cars, especially the expensive Ferrari V - twelve-cylinder . In this case, it benefited from the sales rooms of his Abarth and later Iso Rivolta representative in the same Brussels house were like the seat of behind the Ecurie standing Garage Francorchamps S. A. Furthermore Coune co-founder was the motor sports teams Equipe Nationale Belge (ENB) , the racing car of Abarth as well as Ferrari and Formula 1 racing cars used.

Coune had close contact with Formula 1, especially during the 1962 World Cup . The team built a new vehicle from parts of the three team's own racing cars from last year, the Emeryson 61 from Emeryson Cars , which had been severely damaged in numerous accidents . Coune designed and built the new body, which externally - especially at the front - was reminiscent of the “Sharknose” Ferrari from 1961, but was generally perceived as less elegant. Lucien Bianchi used the car, sometimes referred to as the Emeryson 1001 and sometimes as the ENB-Maserati , at all three Formula 1 events for which he was registered; he was able to qualify for the race, including the 1962 German Grand Prix . It was the last Formula 1 car from this Belgian team that from then on focused on racing cars.

Coune also remained connected to motorsport later, most recently from the mid-1980s as curator of an automobile museum in Brussels.

Company Carrosserie Jacques Coune

Jacques Coune's best-known vehicle model: The Coune MGB Berlinette, presented in 1964 and built in 56 copies

The program were several reconstructions of the roadster MGB to coupes of Volvo - sedans in convertibles and limousines of the brands BMW , Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot in station wagons .

Counes employees were mostly specialized vehicle manufacturers who for economic reasons in the 1950s and early 1960s as guest workers from northern Italy had moved to Belgium. Two were specifically employed in the Abarth department, 17 others in the body shop. Coune lost many workers from the mid-1960s when the economy in Italy recovered and they returned to their homeland.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jacques Coune on the billiongraves.com web portal , accessed March 7, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Jacques Coune on the amazoncoune.be web portal , accessed on March 7, 2019 (English).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Richard Dredge: Volvo Amazon - The Complete Story . The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, United Kingdom 2016, ISBN 978-1-78500-105-5 (e-book), Chapter 6, pp. 115-119 (English).
  4. ↑ a b c Roger Gloor: All cars of the 60s. 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-613-02649-0 , p. 391.
  5. ^ David Knowles: MGB, MGC & MG B GT V8 . Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2004. ISBN 978-3-89880-344-1 , pp. 40–42 and 50.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Jacques Coune on the coachbuild.com web portal , accessed on March 6, 2019 (English).
  7. ↑ Jacques Coune on the web portal of the Vlaamse Veteran Car Club (VVCC) , accessed on March 8, 2019 (Dutch).
  8. ↑ Race results of the Grand Prix de Spa-Francorchamps for production cars from May 13, 1956 on the racingsportscars.com web portal , accessed on March 7, 2019 (English).
  9. ↑ a b Racing results of the Ferrari 166 MM / 53 with the chassis number 0328M, including Jacques Coune as driver, on the web portal barchetta.cc , accessed on March 7, 2019 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Coune, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian automobile racing driver, motorsport enthusiast and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1924
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 2012