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Origins
The early-1930s D4 addressed Depression reality: a compact four-cylinder Delage preserving the marque's engineering refinement — overhead valves, precise controls, quality construction — at a price point the shrinking luxury market might actually sustain. It was heresy by the standards of the straight-eight D8 upstairs, and sensible heresy; smaller Delages kept the Courbevoie works occupied as grand chassis orders evaporated. The strategy only delayed arithmetic — Louis Delage lost control in 1935, Delahaye absorbing the name — but the D4 era demonstrated the house style surviving miniaturisation: even a modest Delage felt engineered rather than assembled. Collectors today prize the small cars as accessible entries to the marque's world, carrying the full aristocratic manner at a fraction of D8 estimates.
Delage D 4 1933 · Buch-t · CC BY-SA 3.0 de
