French cyclecars: the minor makers

The first great road race for cyclecars, the Cyclecar Grand Prix at Amiens on 13 July 1913, was a French event, and its French field is a cross-section of the small makers: Bédélia, Violet-Bogey, Sphinx-Globe, Ronteix, Super and Automobilette, with Noël, La Rouelle and Du Guesclin.source 1source 2 Their designs could hardly have differed more.source 1source 2 After the war a second wave served the boom, and in the mid-1920s came real oddities. Then cheap full-size cars, the Citroën 5HP, the Austin Seven and their French rivals, ended it in the mid to late 1920s.source 3source 4 The bigger names, such as the Amilcar CC, Le Zèbre, Darmont and the Leyat Hélica, have their own pages; these are the rest, in the order they began.

J. Ronteix of Levallois-Perret made small cars from 1906, and in 1913 offered two cyclecars, a four of 966 cc (62 × 80 mm) and one of 1,460 cc, with shaft drive as standard and chain drive for less. In England they were built as the Cummikar, by Cumming & Wright.source 5 At Amiens two red Ronteix fours with side-by-side seats, “very carefully finished”, finished fourth and eighth.source 1source 2

Marcel Violet was a newcomer in 1913, and he entered three cars at Amiens, driving one himself. The Violet-Bogeys were the only cars in the race with friction drive: a propeller shaft to a friction disc, then a countershaft and a chain to a solid axle with no differential.source 1source 2source 6 Neve gives the engine as a 73 × 130 mm vertical twin, water-cooled, of “just over 22 bhp”; German Wikipedia, citing a magazine of July 1913, as an air-cooled V-twin of 1,088 cc.source 2source 6 Violet, “dubbed the dare-devil”, crossed the line third, under a minute after the Bédélia, only to be disqualified because his car had no mudguards; a second Violet-Bogey, Pouliez’s, was placed seventh.source 1 The Cyclecar noticed that the Ronteix and the Violet-Bogey, both with chain drive to a solid axle, “took corners faster than any other competitors”, and that the missing differential made no difference to their steering.source 1 Violet went on to found Sima-Violet, and the Violet-Bogey has its own section on that page too.source 6

The Sphinx was sold in Britain as the Globe. At Amiens Canouel’s air-cooled single-cylinder car was classified third, while Forster’s, with a water-cooled JAP twin, burst its crankcase.source 1 Neve gives the single as an Anzani of 103 × 132 mm, and says the production Globes had singles of about one litre. His summary credits third place to the twin, but The Cyclecar, reporting that week, gives it to the single.source 2source 1

Lévêque’s Super finished sixth at Amiens.source 1 Like the Bédélia it was a tandem, but the other way round: the driver sat in front and the mechanic above and behind him, with a cylindrical tank behind the driver’s head, so that he sat, Neve wrote, “as if he were in a barber’s chair”.source 2

Automobilette sent two cars to Amiens, Simon’s and another, a four and a light twin; the twin drove a countershaft by chain and the rear wheels by belts over expanding pulleys. Long bonnets, pointed radiators, staggered seats and rounded tails were, to Neve, “anticipating by some ten or twelve years the Amilcar and Senechal”. Neither was among the eight classified.source 2source 1

M. Tholomé of 27 rue Godillot, Saint-Ouen, showed his cyclecars at the Paris Salon of October 1919: open two-seaters with Ruby engines, a 900 cc twin or a 1,095 cc four, or a Train twin of 750 cc. In 1919 the cheapest, a 7 CV V-twin, cost 5,350 francs. Production ended in 1922. The firm had nothing to do with the post-war Tholomé microcar of Aubagne.source 7

The Société des Moteurs Salmson of Billancourt made aero engines and had no car of its own after the war. It began, under Émile Petit, by building the British GN under licence, and showed it at the 1919 Paris Salon (more in built under licence). Its own Petit-designed cyclecar, the AL of 1920–⁠21, followed, and Salmsons became famous racers.source 8source 9 How many GNs it built is disputed: about 1,600 by Grace’s Guide, about 3,000 in two years by GN’s co-founder, H. R. Godfrey.source 9source 10

Le Favori of Paris made a three-wheeled cyclecar with a 987 cc twin.source 11 Whether its single wheel was at the front or the back has not been found.

Maurice Jeanson founded Benjamin at 139 boulevard Voltaire, Asnières, and later added a second factory at Gennevilliers. The Type A had a 751 cc four and weighed under 350 kg, inside the cyclecar tax class; the Type B had a 547 cc twin and the sporting Type C 817 cc. From 1924 came the rear-engined Type AR, with a two-stroke twin of 450 or 525 cc, at 5,500 francs for a two-seater, then the P2, a two-stroke twin of 550 cc, and the three-cylinder P3.source 3 In 1927 the firm became Benova and moved up to bigger cars with Chapuis-Dornier engines, and by the 1928 Salon even a small straight-eight, the Type G, with a SCAP engine. Production ended in 1929.source 3

Henri Jany designed and made the Micron Monocar from February 1924 to October 1927, with a head office in Toulouse and the works at Compiègne. Most were single-seaters. The Lane Motor Museum’s car has a water-cooled two-stroke of 350 cc and 3.5 hp and drives its front wheels: radiator, engine and differential swing together as part of the steering. It has two speeds and reverse and does 48 km/h (30 mph).source 12 Four Microns were entered in the Bol d’Or 24-hour race, in a year not given, and all completed it. In the early 1930s Jany emigrated to Canada, founded Monocar Ltd, and in 1933 built a winter version with skis at the back, of which one survives.source 12

The Monotrace was a French version, under licence, of the German Mauser Einspurauto, the “single-track car”: two wheels in line, with two outrigger wheels lowered when it stood still. It had a water-cooled single of 510 cc and about 12 PS, a chain to the rear wheel, three speeds and two seats in tandem. The Ateliers du Rond-Point of Saint-Étienne built it from 1924, and Établissements Monotrace of Courbevoie from 1926; a van and a single-seat sports model followed.source 13

Max Williams-Mourlot founded Mourlot & Cie at Billancourt in 1926, and built the Max from 1927 to 1929. Its air-cooled 350 cc two-stroke single sat at the front and drove the rear wheels through a friction drive: a wheel, moved across a flat disc by a lever, then a chain. Moving the wheel to the far side of the disc gave reverse, “but has a stop so the car doesn’t go too fast!”, as the Lane Motor Museum puts it.source 4 In 1947 Mourlot published plans for building cyclecars and small cars at home.source 4

The last echo came long after the boom. Hippolyte Delimal built Le Carabe, “the ground beetle”, in eight days from 13 July 1936, finishing the body the day after, and showed it at the Concours Lépine in Paris that August. It won no prize and never went into production. It was a single-seat wooden three-wheeler of 91 kg (200 lb), with a 50 cc Motobécane two-stroke at the back and bicycle handlebars to steer it; 2.4 litres per 100 km (118 mpg) was claimed for it.source 14 His handwritten manuscript of 1937, 63 pages long, presents it as “designed specifically for amateur construction. No special tools or machines.”source 14

No production totals have been found for these makers, but some of their cars survive (more in museums and meets). Three belong to one American museum, the Lane Motor Museum of Nashville: a 1924 Micron Monocar, a 1926 Max and a replica of Le Carabe, built by Janda Garage in the Czech Republic from Delimal’s manuscript; no original Carabe is known.source 12source 4source 14 Mulhouse’s Cité de l’Automobile keeps a 1913 Violet-Bogey, and a Monotrace is in the Musée Henri Malartre at Rochetaillée-sur-Saône.source 6source 13 A Benova B3 of 1927 appears in a photograph on Wikimedia Commons.source 3