Minerva: Belgium's Luxury Car

Belgium does not come to mind as a factor in the automobile industry, but until the mid-1930 a significant builder of luxury cars was based there: Minerva.  Some background can be found here.

In this post, I present some images of Minveras over the period 1927 when car styling was becoming an established practice and 1934 when Minerva was merged with another Belgian car maker.

As the link mentions, Minervas were imported to the USA.  A striking Minerva bodied by the  New York state Rollston firm can be seen below.

Gallery

1927 Minerva AFS Roadster by D'Ieteren, Gooding auction photo.

1929 Minerva Type AE cabriolet in a photo I took at Autoworld Brussels a few years ago.

1930 Minerva AL Three-Position Cabriolet by Van den Plas, Gooding photo.

1930 Minerva AM Dual-Windshield Convertible Sedan by Hibbard & Darrin, Gooding photo.  This car in need of restoration sold at Pebble Beach in 2017 for $484,000.

1930 Minerva M-8 Type AP Sedan.  I presume this is a factory body: please correct me if I am wrong.

1930 (ca.) Minerva 40 CV Cabriolet Impérial by D'Ieteren.

1931 Minerva AL "Windswept" Convertible Sedan by Rollston, Bonhams photo.

Same car, side view.

1933 Minerva M-8 25 CV Rapide.  The traditional Minerva grille seen in the 1929 Type AE photo is slowly being modernized to suit evolving body design conventions.

1934 Minerva M-4.  Due to the Great Depression, it seems that Minerva launched this smaller, cheaper 2-litre sedan to boost sales.  As the link above mentions, sales were disappointing.

1934 Minerva M-4 that I photographed at Autoworld Brussels.