Crumpie...how can one old man resist another old man's appeal for information..particularly when both of them are Old Brits ?
You realise that's it's Saturday night already over here on the R/H side of the Atlantic..and after drinking some bierra artisagnale Italiana. 9.3 percent I am not really in any condition to think straight..but What the H**L ..here goes.
I know of two manufacturers that have been associated with the building of the L'AUTO yellow bikes for the Tour - Dilecta from Le Blanc in the Centre region of France and Oscar Egg who was based in Paris. Certainly it seems that there is visual proof of the second brand having supplied the bikes in 1939, and you can see such a bike on Hubert Arbes' brother's website at http://www.vemosvintage.overblob.com
That site has a wealth of information on it, particularly as quite a few of the bikes are original ex-Team bikes...several of Hinaults personal bikes are there. To experience the site at its best...start at page 3 and work forwards as the date order of the bikes presented starts on Page 3.
There you will find a L'AUTO yellow -bike complete with Super Champion Osgear derailleur. The photgraphs are sufficiently good to enable the lugs of the frame to be identified.-they are Oscar Egg ones. The Oscar Egg company had its main HQ and Showroom quite near the Arc de Triomphe not very far from the offices of the publishers of L'Auto magazine..so it would make sense to have used a Paris-based manufacturer to build the bikes. The bike on the web-site is a restored original, not a copy.
The Dilecta yellow L'Auto bike that I saw was at an exhinbition in the town of Vailly-sur-Sauldre, a small town about 125 miles SW of Paris that was renowned for being the Arrivee town for the former French Classic Paris - Vailly ; the exhibition was to mark the Tour de France passing through in 2005, I think. Vailly is not very far from Le Blanc where Dilectas were made. Perhaps 1937 was the year for Dilecta.
Will that do for a start, John?
Norris Lockley
Settle UK