- Georges Paulin
Georges Paulin was a dentist, part-time automobile designer and hero of the
French Resistance during theSecond World War . He was born 1902 in a working class section ofParis .He designed, and in 1931 patented, the first power-operated
retractable hardtop which in 1934 was used in thePeugeot 402BL Éclipse Décapotable, a smallcoupe .cite web
title = New Again: The Hideaway Hardtop
publisher = The New York Times, Rob Sass, December 10, 2006
url = http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/automobiles/10RETRACT.html?ex=1323406800&en=a440f0f4ff67f836&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss] An American named Ben P. Ellerbeck had innovated the first practical retractable hardtop system 1922 — a manually operated system on a Hudson coupe that never saw full production. cite web
title = Ford Skyliner
publisher = DrivingToday.com, Jack Nerad
url =http://www.drivingtoday.com/greatest_cars/ford_skyliner/index.html]Between 1934 and 1938 he was the designer for French chassis maker Pourtout. Among his designs were a
Panhard coupe, aUnic cabriolet, aDelage D8, the “water drop”Talbot-Lago , the Darl'mat Peugeot roadsters used in 1937 and 1938 atLe Mans .From 1938 to 1940 he worked exclusively for Rolls-Royce
Bentley . For them he designed theCorniche 1 in 1939 and the Comet Competition.In July 1940 he began working with
British Intelligence to fight theNazis .Turned in to the
Gestapo by FrenchVichy elements he was arrested in 1941 and condemned to death by a German military tribunal. He was executed March 1942.He was posthumously awarded the
Croix de Guerre and theMédaille de la Résistance by the French government.:: [http://www.justabovesunset.com/now/html/white_cars.htm See also: Photographs of a 1938 Peugeot 402 Éclipse Décapotable]
References
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