1908 Mors Grand Prix

Emile Mors was fascinated by motor racing and thought that it was the perfect opportunity to make money. By 1905 he had sold several race cars to wealthy 'gentleman drivers' of the day, among them Charles Stewart Rolls and William K. Vanderbilt Jr. In 1908, he entered this car and two others in the French Grand Prix at Dieppe. Sadly, the cars were not sufficiently tested. One car was a non-starter; this car, driven by the 'Red Devil' Camille Jenatzy, finished nearly an hour and a half behind the winning Mercedes; and the third Mors was even further behind! That race was Mors' last major effort in competition, and by the mid-1920s, the Mors Company was closed.

This Mors Grand Prix Car has a 12.5-liter, 4-cylinder inline engine with pushrod overhead valves developing 100 horsepower.

The racing cars produced by Emile Mors were among the few that could rival the dominant Panhards during the early 1900s. Mors first car was a two-cylinder engine mounted in the rear, followed by a front-engined four-cylinder unit in 1999. The engine was designed by Henri Brasier and given a displacement size of 7.3-liters. With this engine, Alfred Levegh was able to win the 1900 Bordeaux-Perigueux-Bordeaux and Paris-Toulouse-Paris races.

Mor was one of the first marques to use a V concept for their engines'. Their 60 HP Grand Prix car featured a 10-liter V4-cylinder engine, that reached 60 horsepower at 950 rpm. This car was a prime example of the adage, 'Adding more cubic inches is the cheapest way to obtain more horsepower.' The engine was placed on a steel chassis and powered the rear wheels via chain with the help of a four-speed transmission.

Grand Prix began enforcing regulations on the total weight of a car, fuel restrictions, and finally, displacement size. In 1906 the first French Grand Prix was held and limited a car's total weight to 1,000 kilograms. Of the twelve entries, only one had an engine of fewer than 10 liters. The sub-10-liter car was the Gregoire which sported a 7.5-liter unit, while the rest of the field averaged 15 liters. The Panhards had the largest engines, displacing a massive 18.3 liters. The engines were very powerful and often twisted the chassis during the course of the race.

Mor experimented with streamlining the design of the cars, giving them more of an aerodynamic advantage. Some of the designs resembled a boat turned upside-down. One was dubbed the Mors Dauphin, French for dolphin, with a total of thirteen examples being produced.

Mors last effort in Grand Prix Competition was in 1908, using a 12.8-liter OVH four-cylinder engine. The engine produced 100 horsepower but still had a Magento and chain drive. The engine was an iteration of its prior creations and used many technically advanced features for its day, such as the inlet valves being mechanically operated.

In 1914 had planned a come-back with a 2.5-liter sleeve-vale engine, but the First World War canceled their attempt.

By Daniel Vaughan | Sep 2017