Thursday, March 11, 2021

The Unic Decline and Fall

Unic was a French automobile manufacturer founded in 1905 that abandoned car production during the 1938 model year.  Its English-language Wikipedia entry is here, and from there you can link to the more detailed French version.

There seem to be very few images of Unics on the Internet, so below are mostly pages I scanned from various issues of the former "Automobilia" magazine's special (hors-serie) publications by René Ballu dealing with French cars by year (Toutes les voitures françaises 1935, 1936, 1938).  These are from large files and might load slowly.  Images can be clicked on to enlarge if you computer allows it.

Gallery

Automobilia Hors-serie No. 9, Toutes les voitures Françaises 1935, Salon 1934 - page 90
Unics for 1935 were pleasingly styled and sported "shovel-nose" grilles (curved forward near the base) as seen on cars such as the 1932 Packard Light Eight.

Automobilia Hors-serie No. 9, Toutes les voitures Françaises 1935, Salon 1934 - page 91
The U6 had a six-cylinder motor, the U4 had four cylinders.

Automobilia Hors-serie No. 1, Toutes les voitures Françaises 1936, Salon 1935 - page 88
Bellu's headline indicates that Unic's obsolete production methods led to pricing the cars relatively high for battling the luxury competition, so sales increasingly suffered.

1936 Unic U6 Sport Coupé
This might be by Letourneur et Marchand, a major body supplier to Unic.  Note the typical 1930s French belt line.

1937c Unic 4-door - Wikimedia Commons image
By 1937 the basic sedan body style was definitely dated by American standards.  However, the absence of running boards gives this car a sporting sense.

Automobilia Hors-serie No. 6, Toutes les voitures Françaises 1938, Salon 1937 - page 92
Letourneur et Marchand were brought in to create a facelift grille design.  Unfortunately the bulged-out "fencer's mask" style that I wrote about here was already passé in America.

Automobilia Hors-serie No. 6, Toutes les voitures Françaises 1938, Salon 1937 - page 93
Worse, its design was unattractive and Unic stopped automobile production mid-1938.

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