Jean Gaupillat

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Jean Gaupillat 1931
Jean Gaupillat (left) leaning against his Bugatti T51 after the first run of the 1934 Grand Prix in Dieppe. He had a fatal accident during the second race

Jean Gaupillat (born January 8, 1891 in Meudon , † July 23, 1934 in Dieppe ) was a French racing driver and entrepreneur.

Entrepreneur

Jean Gaupillat was the only son of six children of the manufacturer Marcel Gaupillat . Marcel Gaupiilat and his brother were the founders and owners of Marcel Gaupillat et Compagnie, which has existed since 1890 . Marcel Gaupillat et Compagnie produced detonators and cartridges at the Meudon site, during the First World War the company supplied the French army . After the end of the war, the company switched to the civilian use of detonators, which were now used in the mining of collieries in the Ruhr area . After the end of the Ruhr crisis and the return of the area to the Weimar Republic , the supply contracts ended and the company had to look for other fields of activity.

In 1928 Jean Gaupillat founded the Société Etampage de Précision Gaupillat in which plastic parts were punched. After Gaupillat's death, the business was merged with his father's company.

Racing career

The racing career of Gaupillat began 1926 on cyclecars of BNC 1927 he took little race car a wealth of race, but was able to achieve any significant results. In 1928 he switched to monoposto racing and from then on only drove Bugatti racing cars . The first successes came in 1929. In a Bugatti T31 , he won the Voiturette class at the Grand Prix de Dieppe and, together with Louis Charavel, came fourth overall in the 12-hour race in San Sebastián .

In 1931 Gaupillat received support from Ernest Friederich . Born in Paris in 1886 , Friederich was a Bugatti regional dealer in Nice for the Côte d'Azur . In addition, the racing driver helped with money and material. In 1931 he provided two Bugatti T51s to Jean-Pierre Wimille and Jean Gaupillat. The best result of the year was second place at the Grand Prix de La Baule behind William Grover-Williams . Fourth place in the Italian Grand Prix (together with Wimille; winner Giuseppe Campari and Tazio Nuvolari in the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 ) also meant fourth place overall in the European Grand Prix Championship of that year .

In 1930 , 1931 , 1932 and 1933 he competed in the French Grand Prix and in 1933 in the Le Mans 24-hour race . Team partner at the 24-hour race in western France was the Polish car owner Count Stanisław Czaykowski . The performance ended after 52 laps after damage to the battery of the Bugatti Type 51A.

Jean Gaupillat had a fatal accident in the second race of the Grand Prix de Dieppe in 1934 . On a wet road, he lost control of the Bugatti in a fast section of the route. The car came off the lane, overturned, and hit a tree. Gaupillat was recovered with severe head injuries and taken to a hospital in Dieppe. There he died from his injuries in the early hours of the next day.

statistics

Le Mans results

year team vehicle Teammate placement Failure reason
1933 PolandPoland Count Stanisław Czaykowski Bugatti Type 51A PolandPoland Stanislaw Czaykowski failure battery

Web links

Commons : Jean Gaupillat  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 12-hour race of San Sebastián
  2. ^ Grand Prix of Dieppe 1934
  3. ↑ ANNO, Neues Wiener Journal, 1934-07-23, page 4. Retrieved on February 3, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Gaupillat, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French entrepreneur and racing car driver
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Meudon
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1934
Place of death Dieppe