The Car: 1939 Hotchkiss 686 Cabourg Berline ; Another American in Paris.(Brief Article)

Hotchkiss Drive: The term is found on the spec sheet of most American cars built before the 1980s. It comprises, as we all know, an open driveshaft propelling a live axle. But who was Hotchkiss, and why does this design bear his name?

Hotchkiss, the man, was an American. Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss was born in 1826 in Sharon, Connecticut, where his father operated a hardware factory in the cradle of America's iron industry. Hotchkiss, the car, however, was French. Young Hotchkiss and his brother had moved from door hinges into armaments, supplying Union forces during the Civil War. The postwar period was fallow for arms makers, so Hotchkiss took his business to France, where he established a factory outside Paris and developed the revolving machine gun.

But in France, too, arms were a cyclical business, so in the early 20th century Hotchkiss et Cie. turned to the new field of automobile manufacture. The first Hotchkiss cars were Mercedes-like, and offered in two models at the 1903 Paris motor show. Powered by T-head fours, they featured ball-bearing crankshafts and round radiators, and, of course, the namesake drivetrain. Shortly thereafter, a more extensive range of cars was offered, fours and sixes of various sizes, T-heads and L-heads, but World War I diverted the company back to weapons work.

The 1920s brought a more modest car, the AM, with a 2.4-liter four and a horseshoe-shaped radiator that remained the make's hallmark. Hotchkiss' heyday came in the 1930s, with production approaching 5000 in some years. Both fours and sixes were produced, all with the overhead valves first seen in 1926. Hotchkiss was the car of the successful doctor or lawyer. More prestigious and expensive than France's ``Big Three'' (Citroen, Renault, Peugeot), it ranked below noble Delage, somewhat analogous to the modern E-Class Mercedes-Benz. High- performance versions won the Monte Carlo Rally six times between 1932 and 1950.

Delivered originally to Johannesburg, ...