It is difficult to decide whether the Italians or the French designed the most beautiful cars in the years prior to World War II. After the war, though, the French appear to have had a decided advantage in design, possibly because their auto industry was quicker to recover than the heavily bombed Italian industry. And, the French had their independent carrosserie, including the Carrosserie Automobile of Figoni et Falaschi who, along with other coachbuilders in and around Paris, continued to sculpt beautiful automobile forms, such as the 1948 Delahaye 135M Cabriolet that is the subject of this profile.
