The Suresnes factory had been built originally by pioneer manufacturer Alexandre Darracq in 1896. After Darracq sold his business in 1912 the site was acquired by new owners who renamed it Automobiles Talbot in 1922, though competition cars continued to carry the Darracq name or various Talbot-Darracq hyphenations. The Depression pushed the business toward receivership; in 1932 Italo-British businessman Antonio Lago was brought in as managing director to attempt a revival. Unable to stave off receivership by the end of 1934, Lago nonetheless completed a management buyout from the receiver in 1936.
Under Lago the product range was rationalised around a family of six-cylinder engines designed by engineer Walter Becchia, featuring independent front suspension by transverse leaf spring. The sporting cars centred on 3-litre and 4-litre six-cylinder models in short and extra-short wheelbase configurations, with the Lago Special and Lago SS variants offering twin or triple carburettors. Bodies for the most prestigious variants, including the T150 C coupe, were produced by specialist coachbuilders such as Figoni et Falaschi and Saoutchik.
Talbot-Lago's most important racing model was the T26C, an open-wheel single-seater built to the 1948 Formula One regulations. Powered by a 4.5-litre twin-cam inline-six producing 240 hp, the T26C was front-engined and represented the final evolution of prewar French Grand Prix thinking against the increasingly dominant Italian cars. It competed at the highest level from 1948 to the early 1950s and achieved a number of significant results before the Ferraris and Maseratis made it obsolete.
The twin-cam 4,483 cc six-cylinder engine developed by Lago and engineer Carlo Marchetti from 1942 onward was shared between the T26C Grand Prix car and the T26 Grand Sport road car. This engine produced 170 hp in touring trim, 190 hp in the Grand Sport configuration, and higher outputs still in full race preparation.
The T26 Record of 1946 was a large touring car with a 26 CV fiscal rating, four-speed gearbox and a claimed top speed of 170 km/h. Factory bodies were typically four-door sedans, though cabriolets and coachbuilt specials were also available. More significant was the T26 Grand Sport, first shown in October 1947 and produced in very small numbers: only 12 were made in 1948. Sold exclusively as a bare chassis requiring bespoke bodywork, the GS benefited directly from the T26C race car and was considered one of the most powerful production cars in the world at the time of its introduction. It helped Louis Rosier and his son win the 1950 Le Mans 24 Hours.
A smaller Baby model using a 2.7-litre four-cylinder twin-cam engine complemented the larger cars from 1948 to 1951. Talbot-Lago also produced three seven-seater presidential limousines for the Presidents of France and Tunisia and for the Saudi royal family.
For the 1955 Paris Salon, Lago introduced the T14 LS, a new 2.5-litre four-cylinder with a five-bearing crankshaft producing 120 hp. Fifty-four of the resulting 2500 Coupe were built, but sales were slow. Lacking resources to improve the car fundamentally, Lago turned in 1957 to a BMW V8 of 2,476 cc, rebranding the model as the Talbot Lago America and switching to left-hand drive. Only around a dozen of the BMW-powered cars were completed before Lago accepted an offer from Simca president Henri Pigozzi and sold the business in 1959.
Production figures reveal the severity of Talbot-Lago's postwar difficulties. Output was 155 cars in 1947, rising to 433 in 1950, then collapsing to 80 in 1951 and just 34 in 1952. French government policy under the Pons Plan channelled steel and other materials to five major manufacturers, leaving luxury firms including Talbot-Lago, Delage, Delahaye, Hotchkiss, and Bugatti starved of resources. Punitive taxation on cars with engines above two litres compounded the problem. Lago sought court protection from creditors in March 1951 under a debt moratorium that permitted limited resumption of production, but the company never recovered financial health. Antonio Lago died in 1960, the year after handing the business to Simca.
Talbot-Lagos produced between the late 1930s and early 1950s have become among the most highly valued pre-war and early postwar automobiles. Figoni et Falaschi-bodied T150 C SS Teardrop Coupes have sold for more than four million US dollars at major auction houses. The 1948 T26 Grand Sport with Oblin coachwork is part of the permanent collection of the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia. The brand name Talbot was resurrected in the early 1980s by Peugeot-Citroen for a range of mainstream European cars, but had no engineering or organisational connection to Lago's company.