Their car beat Hitler’s racers, but who owns it now?

New York: To put it mildly, all three were underdogs.

It was the 1930s, and French automaker Delahaye was struggling to stay afloat. Compared with the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union teams generously financed by the Third Reich, Delahaye’s entries into racing competitions were underfunded and underpowered.

Then, as it is now, auto racing was dominated by men, but American heiress Lucy O’Reilly Schell had a passion for it. And a bank account to back it up.

And Rene Dreyfus, a French racer who had notched key victories, and a Jew, was losing opportunities as Nazi-bred anti-Semitism spread across Europe.

But together, these unlikely elements - financed by a highly determined Schell - formed a team that not only won a million-franc race for French automakers in 1937 but beat Adolf Hitler’s much more powerful cars in a celebrated Grand Prix event the next year, at least temporarily restoring French pride.

Their story is told in “Faster,” a new book by Neal Bascomb that also delves into an enduring mystery - which of two American collectors owns the winning car today.

“Lucy Schell was an absolute force of nature,” Bascomb said in an interview. “She and her husband were top-ranked Monte Carlo rally drivers. She was the first woman to fund the development of her own Grand Prix racing team, in the 1930s. Imagine what that took.”

Their racing team, Ecurie Bleue, fielded just four Delahaye 145 Grand Prix racers. The cars were powered by a new 4.5-liter, 245-horsepower V-12 engine with a functional alloy body that Dreyfus said in his autobiography was the “most awful-looking automobile I ever saw.” They weren’t expected to win, but did, taking that Prix du Million in 1937. Only French automakers were eligible, and Delahaye won the timed trial, in a lightened 145, by defeating Bugatti (which suffered mechanical problems) at the Autodrome de Linas-MontlhEry outside Paris.

The next year, the same team and quite likely the same car won the Pau Grand Prix on the Pyrenees’ northern edge, beating hard-charging Germans Rudolf Caracciola and Hermann Lang in a Silver Arrow Mercedes-Benz W154 with more than 400 horsepower.

The French course was twisty, which cut into the Germans’ power advantage. Also, the two Mercedes-Benz cars were less fuel-efficient than the Delahaye, which meant more frequent pit stops. When Caracciola pitted on Lap 52, Dreyfus took the lead, and won the race with a lead of almost two minutes over Mercedes. There was pandemonium in France, Bascomb wrote, though it didn’t last: “Throughout the rest of the 1938 season, Mercedes dominated.”

But Dreyfus was named the Racing Champion of France. Hitler was furious, and was rumoured to have sent a team to France to find and destroy the winning Delahaye.

The book has been optioned to be made into a movie, and it is certainly a cinematic read, made more so by a contemporary addendum. The four Delahaye 145s are all in the United States, three in California owned by Peter Mullin, a premier collector of French cars. But the fourth, and possibly the Pau and Million Franc winner, is in Englewood, New Jersey, and owned by a similarly respected collector and frequent Pebble Beach, California, and Amelia Island, Florida, Concours d’Elegance winner, Sam Mann.

The history of race cars, with their frequent swapping of parts and even bodies, can be confusing. Mullin is convinced he owns the star car, and has amassed considerable documentation. And Mann has not one but two relevant cars - the chassis he believes belongs to the French race winner, but with an elegant art-deco cabriolet body by French coachbuilder Franay, and a Delahaye 135M chassis with a timeworn but relatively recent racing body that once graced the other car. One looks the part, but it’s the other that is the actual competition contender.

This is not in dispute: In 1987, Dreyfus drove this car onto the MontlhEry track to commemorate the famous race’s 50th anniversary. The sports car body then on it, put there by a previous owner, was transferred to the 135 chassis after Mann’s purchase circa 1997. To complete the swap, Mann restored the Franay cabriolet coachwork to the 145.

In New Jersey, Mann lifted the hood and showed the triple-carbureted V-12 that, he believes, carried Dreyfus to victory. Started up and driven out of its resting place, the car sounds nothing like a boulevardier, with the popping and spitting and pouring out smoke and brimstone.

Mullin talked about the provenance of his car, with chassis number 48711, in an interview. There’s more in the Mullin Automotive Museum’s book, “French Curves,” written by board member Richard Adatto.

It is, understandably, a convoluted tale, but Mullin said, “The car was buried in France during the war, then it was on the grounds of the MontlhEry racetrack, then at the owner’s chateau. That this was the Million Franc car was unambiguously confirmed by the Department of Mines in France after I bought it in 1987.” A handwritten document from that agency, after a test at MontlhEry, says, “The vehicle tested (the Millionth vehicle) is chassis and engine number 48.711.”

Mullin paid $150,000 for a car in pieces, with the front part of the bodywork missing, and had it restored in England over four years. “It’s very well-balanced and a dream to drive,” he said.