Footnotes

• Établissements Hurtu manufactured sewing machines at Albert in Northern France in the latter part of the 19th Century, moving quickly on to production of machine tools, bicycles and ultimately motor cars. Diligeon bought out his partners in that company and was soon to acquire the rights for mass production of the Léon Bollée tandem voiturette. Motor car production under the name Hurtu commenced around 1898, Hurtu obtaining the licence to build cars to the design of the contemporary single-cylinder Benz. The engine dimensions of this car are quoted as 5in x 5in bore and stroke, giving a cylinder capacity of 1,609cc for the horizontal engine, equipped with automatic inlet valve. This drives through a two-speed gear system with no reverse gear and final drive to the rear wheels is by chain.
  
  This car was acquired by its first owner, M. deNeve of Paris, we believe in 1899, and the car was to remain in his family ownership until 1951. At that time his grandson, André deNeve, then Vice President of Les Teuf Teuf in France and owner of a veteran Serpollet, sold the car to American collector Dr Earl W. Flosdorf of Pennsylvania. The car was then thought to be of 1895 manufacture. Flosdorf showed the car in Pennsylvania prior to his death in 1959 when it was acquired by collector William Pollack, adding it to his collection of 70 or so cars. The penultimate owner, Richard Kughn, acquired the car some 27 years later and the car returned to Europe and the Ward Brothers’ Collection on the disposal of the Kughn Collection in 2003.
  
  This fine Victorian motor car is presented in green livery with gold lining and furnished with green buttoned cloth upholstery and equipped with a fine cape cart hood. Suspension is provided by full-elliptic front and rear springs, complemented by transverse leaf springing. Unusually for a light car of this era this car rides on wooden artillery wheels. Early surviving Hurtu motor cars are rare indeed, only four others dating pre-1902 being listed in the current V.C.C. Handbook. We feel sure that this car would be more than gladly welcomed back at events organised by Les Teuf Teuf in France and of course it is eminently eligible for the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, an event on which it will be an early starter from Hyde Park. This voiturette is offered with a good history file and a copy of a Michigan Certificate of Title. Although bearing its early French registration number, the car is not currently registered in France or indeed the U.K.