Alexandre Darracq founded Darracq et Cie in Suresne in 1896 from profits he made by selling his Gladiator bicycle factory to Adolphe Clement. The first four wheeled Darracq car emerged after some false starts in 1900 with a 785cc single cylinder engine. Darracq was bought out in 1902 by an English consortium who retained Alexandre, expanded at Suresne and built an English factory. But the Anglo-French venture was not working and Alexandre Darracq resigned in 1912, and the English side bought out Clement-Talbot in 1919 and Sunbeam in 1920 to form Sunbeam Talbot Darracq. Alexander Darracq founded Societa Anonima Italiana Darracq (S.A.I.D.) in Milan (1906), and he persisted with using an untried rotary valve which wouldn't work. S.A.I.D. became A.L.F.A. ([Societa] Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili) in 1910 because it was an Automobile factory in Lombardy, and in turn this became Alfa Romeo but Darracq had already retired in 1912 The Darracq name was soon to vanish except as a badge on French-built Talbot cars sold in Britain from 1922. When the Rootes Brothers bought out STD in 1934 only the Sunbeam and Talbot names were used. In France Talbot was again French owned and trading as Talbot or Talbot-Lago