GALLERY: Go Behind The Scenes On Our 1908 Mors Grand Prix Car Film Shoot

“Fast, dangerous, and heavy,” is how Eddie Berrisford describes cars like the 1908 Mors Grand Prix machine featured in this film, for these pioneering creations were truly born out of the desire to push the boundaries of the then-fledgeling internal combustion engine, and for what they did for the development of the motor car, we should all be very grateful indeed.

Perhaps Pre-War isn’t your thing, and though they may appear antiquated from our position over a century after their birth, cars like this Mors could often be incredibly advanced. For instance, this plainly named “Grand Prix Car” featured a raft of technologies that are still in use in today’s highest-performing automobiles, albeit in their nascent forms. Things like a dry-sump oiling system from an automaker who just a decade or so prior had a handlebar setup instead of a steering wheel—going to show how fast the development process really was during the dawn of the motorcar.

The company’s founder and engineer and race pilot and namesake, Emile Mors, was not just interested in technologies aimed at road use alone, and counted himself among the early proponents of the competitive side of driving, as well as a frequent participant. The 1908 Mors featured in today’s film was the swan song of that aspect of the company however, as some mismanaged finances saw the company put into the hands of André Citroën, who would later buy Mors and use its facilities to start his own automobile company.

Among the last of the so-called “Monster cars,” and purportedly the last Mors of its kind still in existence, this 1908 Grand Prix Car wound up at the Revs Institute in Naples, Florida, after having spent a significant amount of its life in South America, in Argentina racing in-period before sitting dormant for some time following a catastrophic breakdown. It was Eddie Berrisford who took it upon himself to bring the car back to life, and as you can see in today’s film, it may be part of a museum collection, but it still stretches its legs and gets properly driven when the occasion calls.