Nagant Type D 14/16-hp Town Car

A comfortable city car, but the roof rack on top of this Nagant reveals that it is also a touring car, a car for longer distances.

A comfortable city car, but the roof rack on this Nagant Type D reveals that it is also a touring car, a car for longer distances. The driver does part of his work in the open air; the family – note the coat of arms on the doors – basks in an interior trimmed with brocade. Communication with the driver is via a speaking tube. As with many cars of that time, the left side lamp is fitted with a green band to indicate the left side. In shipping, incidentally, the green is on starboard, so on the right. This Nagant Type D from 1909, the first car of the brand to have cardan drive, belonged to the Regout family, founders and owners of the Sphinx factories in Maastricht. The plate of the Maastricht dealer is still present on the car. The bodywork was made in Aachen. This Nagant Type D has never been restored and still has its original paint. The Nagant, manufactured in Liege, Belgium, is known as a very solid and reliable car. Nagant was originally a weapons and machinery factory. At the end of the 19th century it began producing cars, initially under license from the French brand Gobron-Brillie. From 1904 Nagant built its own models, cars with a sound and conservative character. In the late 1920s Nagant was taken over by the Belgian company Imperia-Excelsior.