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CHAPTER 7: KELLNER, CARROSSERIE DE GRAND LUxE
one hand with ef cient large scale production on the other. Had the world deigned to stand still, this proli c, skilled and well-oiled operation could have continued to churn out grand conveyances inde nitely. But thunderheads were gathering on the horizon. The Great War had severely undermined the strength of the franc. Much of the war expenditure and postwar reconstruction in France had been nanced by printing money, and the hole in the budget was exacerbated after June 1919, when it became apparent that Germany was both unwilling and unable to pay the enormous reparations that Georges Clemenceau had insisted upon in the Treaty of Versailles against the express wishes of Woodrow Wilson. This resulted in in ation in France, and the domestic purchasing power of the franc was reduced by 70% between 1915 and 1920 and by a further 43% between 1922 and 1926. The offshoot was political upheaval on July 23, 1926, when Raymond Poincaré supplanted Gaston Doumergue as President and at the same time became Minister of Finance. In 1928, Poincaré decreed that the franc was to be devalued. After a nal devaluation on June
25, 1928, the French franc stabilized at a level of one- fth of its 1913 gold value. By then, it had plummeted from 19.3 cents to 3.9 cents in relation to the US dollar.
The cheap currency left domestic businesses in France relatively untouched. It also attracted foreign clients like Mr. Ide, for whom a French carrosserie became increasingly inexpensive in relation to British or other European coachbuilders, as the 1920s wore on. However, to put not too ne a word on it, as nancial policy goes, Poincaré’s decree was more or less the equivalent of pissing in one’s pants to stay warm. By 1930, the Great Depression had tsunamied across the world in the wake of the 1929 Wall Street Crash, and was in full bloom in most industrialized countries. However, due to the low exchange rate, there were only minor repercussions in France for the rst two and a half years. Unemployment did not increase dramatically, and the fall in production was modest. France avoided a general banking crisis, and only a single major bank failed. One could say that France had already suffered a
The Kellner showroom, 127 avenue des Champs-Élysées, around the time of the Wall Street crash – stuffed with luxury cars: Hispano, Hotchkiss, Rolls-Royce. But Jacques Kellner knew he needed to diversify if the company was to survive. (Archives François Vanaret)
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