Drivers

Henri Louveau

Louveau was born in the wealthy Paris suburb of Suresnes and was a bicycling champion in his twenties. He then turned to racing and competed in the late 1930s in the Liege-Rome-Liege race and in the Le Mans 24 Hours. When the war broke out Louveau joined the French army and served with a rifle regiment in Algeria. As soon as the war was over he went back to racing and won the Coupe de la Liberation in the Bois de Boulogne in September 1945 at the wheel of a Maserati 6CM. The following year he competed in the major French races and finished second to Raymond Sommer in the Grand Prix du Forez and fourth in the Coupe de la Resistance in a Maserati 4CL. He was runner-up later that summer to Jean-Pierre Wimille in Perpignan and was second to Tazio Nuvolari at Albi. He later began entering cars for Sommer and the two shared victory in the Circuit des Trois Villes, a race between Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing. For the Valentino GP that autumn he rented a Scuderia Milan Maserati. The following year he raced for Delage, scoring a number of good placings in French national races, including third in Marseilles and finished sixth at the Italian GP and second in the non-championship French GP at Lyons.He was back in a private Maserati in 1948 but by then the cars were no longer very competitive. In 1949 he took a Delage to a close second in the Le Mans 24 Hours and drove a 4.5-liter Talbot Lago in the 1950 Italian and 1951 Swiss Grands Prix. He crashed heavily into a lamp post in the second event, suffering leg and shoulder injuries and decided to retire from racing.He later built up a very successful hire car business in Paris.