Louis Delage borrowed 35,000 francs to establish his firm in 1905, starting with just two lathes and three employees in Levallois-Perret. The first model, the Type A voiturette, appeared in 1906 powered by a De Dion-Bouton single-cylinder engine. Delage initially assembled bodies onto bought-in chassis components, but by 1912 the expanded Courbevoie factory employed 350 workers producing more than 1,000 cars annually, with four- and six-cylinder engines entirely of in-house design.
During the First World War the factory switched to munitions production. Afterward Delage moved upmarket, introducing overhead-valve sixes and an ambitious Grand Luxe model to compete with Hispano-Suiza. The most commercially successful road cars of the 1920s were the DR six-cylinder series, designed by engineer Gaultier, sold under various capacity designations from 2.2 to 3.2 litres.
Delage entered motorsport almost from its first year. In 1908 the company won the Grand Prix des Voiturettes at Dieppe, with Albert Guyot averaging 49.8 mph over six laps of the 76-kilometre circuit. Four years later the cars proved the fastest at Amiens, though reliability issues handed the 1912 Grand Prix to Peugeot.
A Delage won the 1914 Indianapolis 500 with Rene Thomas at the wheel, and that same year the factory fielded twin-cam desmodromic-valve racers at the French Grand Prix. Racing resumed after the war with the innovative 2-litre V12 type 2LCV, which won the 1924 European Grand Prix at Lyon and the 1925 Grand Prix of the ACF at Montlhery. In 1924 a 10.5-litre V12 set a land-speed record of 230 km/h at Arpajon, driven by Thomas.
The 1926 season brought the company's most celebrated racing car: a supercharged 1.5-litre twin-cam straight-eight designed by Lory, producing 170 hp and capable of 210 km/h. A car of this type won the first British Grand Prix at Brooklands in 1926, driven by Louis Wagner and Robert Senechal. In 1927 the eight-cylinder 15 S 8 won four European Grands Prix, earning Delage the title of World Champion of Car Builders.
In sports-car racing, a 3-litre D6 won the 1938 Tourist Trophy at Donington Park and finished second at Le Mans that year. Postwar results were modest — second at the 1949 Le Mans and second at the 1950 Paris Grand Prix were among the final highlights.
The 1920s and early 1930s were Delage's golden era on the road as well as the track. The DI and DIS series — four-cylinder cars of around 2.1 litres — were the bestselling models of the era, refined progressively through the mid-1920s. For 1930 Maurice Gaultier designed the straight-eight D8 in a 4,061 cc, available on wheelbases up to 143 inches, capable of 85 mph and widely considered the pinnacle of the marque. A Grand Sport derivative raised the top speed to 100 mph. Independent front suspension (licensed to Studebaker) appeared on later D6 and D8 variants, a technical novelty for the era.
The Depression devastated demand for luxury cars. In April 1935 the Courbevoie factory went into voluntary liquidation. Businessman Walter Watney helped Louis Delage form the Societe Nouvelle des Automobiles Delage, assembling cars on Delahaye chassis — resulting in models such as the D6 70 six-cylinder and the D8 120. Delahaye took full control in 1940 after Watney left France. Louis Delage himself died in poverty in December 1947.
After the war a small number of coachbuilt D6 cars continued to be produced under Delahaye's direction, with bodies by Chapron, Letourneur et Marchand, and Guilloré. Punitive French taxation on engines above two litres crushed the market; combined Delage-Delahaye production fell to 77 units in 1951 and 41 in 1952. Delage production ended in 1953. Delahaye and Delage were both absorbed by Hotchkiss in 1954 and all three brands disappeared when Hotchkiss was taken over by Brandt shortly afterward.
Across the years of independent production, Delage built nearly 40,000 cars at Levallois and Courbevoie. The combination of racing pedigree and coachbuilt luxury made the marque particularly prized by collectors; surviving examples of the D8 and the 1927 Grand Prix cars are among the most valuable pre-war automobiles. In 2019 a new entity called Delage Automobiles, backed by entrepreneur Laurent Tapie, announced the D12 — a 1,100 hp hybrid supercar limited to 30 units — as a revival of the name, with development driver Jacques Villeneuve involved in testing.