Automotive WI: Luxury French brands don't disappear

[PauL62]

What if the French government in the aftermath of WW2 decides not to rationalize the automotive industry, penalizing luxury brands and favoring the smaller generalist cars as it did OTL?
What would be the destiny of luxury brands like Delahaye, Delage for example? Would it be purchased by foreign general groups (like Ford, BMW or a chinese group), unless the French government prefers that they be bought by the national general brands?

 

[marathag]

Hey, had to get all that equality in after the War, with that big horsepower tax.

Citroen 2CV for everyone.
Well not everyone. The middle class would have to do with a 4CV, and it's massive 17 horspower, less than a 1908 Model T

 

[Coiler]

Most of the luxury brands were probably doomed anyway regardless of what the government did unless they got a deep-pocketed buyer.

 

[Shurik]

I wonder if there were any American brands, post-war, who would have been interested in buying...
A lot of service men had been stationed in France during, and after, WWII, and I'm sure that more than a few of them would have noticed French cars.

Maybe we could see some of the French brands migrating to be headquartered in the US? Tough to see them not becoming "Americanized", and just turning into another Cadillac or Buick... But maybe if they were reserved just for foreign markets: both to keep out of competition with known domestic brands, and to gain some international recognition/presence through brand-recognition of those makes in French / Former French colonial areas?

 

[Paul_Sussex]

More overseas licenced production? These were being built in south London (just over the road from my childhood home) in the forties and fifties.