1939 LA LICORNE

_Type 419
_Chassis n° 19313
_French grey card

Like Delahaye, Hotchkiss, Jaguar, Lancia, Renault, it won (with a 900cc engine) the 1930 Monte Carlo Rally. In spite of its modesty (or perhaps because of it), the Unicorn brand survived two wars and the crisis of 1930 and only ceased its activities in 1949. It was born in 1901 under the name of its founder, J. Corre.
This brand has a much greater importance than collectors assume. Indeed, in the "Autocatalogue", the cars built by M Corre and then by La Licorne occupy from 1902 to 1940 more than 2 large pages only exceeded by Renault, Peugeot, De Dion-Bouton and Panhard.
These cars were perfectly studied and seriously established with a specification requiring a spacious place, a robust chassis and without useless complications, all this with a great solidity and very honest performances.
These cars, which had a lot of cachet, won numerous elegance prizes, notably in Cannes, Campo Grande (Portugal), Le Havre, Limoges, Geneva, Ostend and above all a First Grand Prix d'Honneur at the Paris Concours d'Elegance, at La Cascade, and at the famous Concours d'Elegance de l'Auto. This was followed by 6 other Grand Prix: Bois de Boulogne, Evian, Le Touquet, Paris, Beaune...; and 12 Prix d'Honneur (Champs-Elysées, Dieppe, Moulins, Néri-les-Bains, .... and finally 15 Premiers Prix (Royan, Nancy, Toulouse, Cannes...).
Mr Bevilacqua, who was a mechanic at La Licorne for a long time, indicated that from 1935 onwards, the bodywork was all done outside. There was no body shop at La Licorne in Courbevoie.

The model presented is a remarkable cabriolet. Although not signed, we think that this body is due to Antem. Indeed, Jean Antem had signed a contract with La Licorne for the production of a small series of the Week-End cabriolet, proposed in the official catalogue of the brand. And Dominique Pagneux in his remarkable book ("Jean Antem, carrosserie française"), tells us that he shared this production with the coachbuilder Louis Dubos.
The cabriolet we present was bought by its current owner from a collector and Citroën Vatan mechanic in Saint Satur. This garage was created in 1919 by his grandfather. This car had been part of his personal collection since 1975.
It has kept its original upholstery. The mechanics work well and are ready to win elegance competitions!