Société Gladiator

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Société Gladiator
legal form
founding 1891
resolution 1920
Reason for dissolution Merger with Clement & Cie
Seat Le Pré-Saint-Gervais , Puteaux , France
management Alexandre Darracq , Jean Aucocq, Adolphe Clément , Marius Barbarou
Branch Bicycle , motorcycle , automobile and commercial vehicle manufacturers

Advertising poster for "Gladiator" bicycles by Georges Massias.
Gladiator stand at the Salon du Cycle 1896.

The Société Gladiator was a company founded in 1891 by the French automobile pioneer Alexandre Darracq to manufacture bicycles and later motorcycles , automobiles and light commercial vehicles . Brand names were Gladiator and Clément-Gladiator .

Company history

The company was founded in 1891 by the French automobile pioneer Alexandre Darracq and his partner Jean Aucocq as a Société des Cycles Gladiator for the production of bicycles . The company was initially based in Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, northeast of Paris .

The company developed very successfully. Darracq soon also experimented with automobiles. At the end of 1896 he sold his stake at a good profit and with this capital he founded the Perfecta works , which later became Automobiles Darracq SA and Automobiles Talbot , from which the younger Talbot brand also took its name.

The buyer was the competitor Adolphe Clément (1855–1928) resp. his Société des Vélocipedes Clément , who then brought both companies into a consortium financed with British capital around Henry John Lawson (1852-1925) and Charles Chetwynd-Talbot , 20th Earl of Shrewsbury (5th Earl Talbot, 1860-1921). The Earl got involved with motor vehicles early on and took part in British Automobile Commercial Syndicate Ltd., founded in March 1901 . , which represented various French brands in the UK including Peugeot , Panhard & Levassor , De Dion-Bouton and Clément .

Henry J. Lawson, commonly known as Harry Lawson , was a bicycle designer and businessman. As a promoter, he organized both the UK's first motor show in 1986 and the Emancipation Run from London to Brighton, which has been held annually as the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run since then, with interruptions . He played a significant but extremely shady role in building the UK automotive industry. Behind him stood the British Motor Syndicate , which he co-founded in 1895 , which bundled patents important for the British automotive industry, but used business methods similar to those practiced on the continent during the founding scandal . After the collapse of his built vehicle empire in 1898, he was sentenced to prison. The syndicate, which had passed out of the Daimler branch in Great Britain, included numerous important companies, including the Humber Group , which brought in its French branch founded in 1892. This resulted in Clément, Gladiator & Humber & Co. Limited , which was the market leader in the bicycle sector and which soon also offered tricycles, quadricycles and motorcycles. The group was chaired by Adolphe Clément.

Clément subsequently reorganized the French branch as "Clément-Gladiator" and the English branch as "Clément-Talbot". In 1897 the engineer Leneveu was commissioned to build a second factory in Levallois-Perret , a western suburb of Paris. There Clément built his first single-cylinder automobiles under the brand name Gladiator . The Voiturettes Clément-De Dion Phaëtonnet and Clément-Panhard Type VCP were also made here from 1898.

The group disintegrated in 1903. While Chetwynd-Talbot took over the newly founded company Clement Talbot Ltd , Clément sold the licenses for his motor vehicles and in turn founded a new company with a plant in Picardy .

Vinot & Deguingand bought the Gladiator Works in 1909. The next models corresponded to the Vinot & Deguingand models.

vehicles

The first model had a single cylinder engine with 4 hp in the rear. In 1898 the production of the Clément-De Dion Phaëtonnet began with the "high-speed" (approx. 600 / min) De Dion-Bouton single-cylinder engine with 269 cm³ displacement and 2¼ HP power, the Phaëtonnet was driven, which was usually used to drive lighter tricycles , but also the first gasoline car from De Dion-Bouton, the Vis-à-vis , in its first version. This uncomplicated and lightweight machine was also used for Renault's first production model , the Type A. At the end of the year, the production of the Clément-Panhard started as a contract work; Production took place under license in 1899. The P1E engine was a variation of the Daimler V2, built under license from Panhard & Levassor .

Models with front engines, two-speed gearboxes and chain drive to the rear axle followed in 1899. Are called built-in motors of Aster 2.5 hp to 3.5 hp. 1905 was a two-cylinder model as well as models with two four-cylinder engines with 3000 cc displacement and 4000 cc and 28 hp.

In 1914 there were the four-cylinder models 12/14 CV with 1692 cm³ displacement, 15.9 CV with 2210 cm³ displacement, 15/20 CV with 2612 cm³ displacement and 25/30 CV with 4804 cm³ displacement. The two smaller models were offered until 1920 after the First World War .

  • Advertisement of Clément, Gladiator & Humber & Co. Limited in an Indian newspaper (1898)

  • Gladiator (1900)

  • Gladiator (1901)

  • Gladiator (1902)

  • Gladiator (1902)

  • Gladiator (1904)

  • Gladiator Type P (1910)

  • Gladiator motorcycle (1913)

literature

  • Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  • George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 2: G – O. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 . (English)
  • George Nick Georgano: Cars. Encyclopédie complète. 1885 à nos jours. Courtille, Paris 1975. (French)
  • George Nick Georgano (Ed.): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. 2nd Edition. Dutton Press, New York, 1973, ISBN 0-525-08351-0 . (English)
  • Jacques Rousseau: Guide de l'Automobile française. Éditions Solar, Paris, 1988, ISBN 2-263-01105-6 . (French)
  • Reinhard Seiffert: The Gottlieb Daimler era: New perspectives on the early history of the automobile and its technology. Vieweg + Teubner, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8348-0962-9 .
  • Hans Christoph von Seherr-Thoss : Dictionary of famous personalities in the automobile world. 1st edition. Ivy House Publishing, Raleigh NC, USA, 2005, ISBN 1-57197-333-8 . (English)
  • Bernard Vermeylen: Panhard & Levassor. Entre tradition et modernité. ETAI, Boulogne-Billancourt, 2005, ISBN 2-7268-9406-2 . (French)
  • Pierre Lemoine (ed.), Jean-Claude Delerm: The Automobile Museum in Mulhouse - Schlumpf collection. Fondation BNP Paribas Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2006, ISBN 2-297333-68-2 .
  • Peter Verstappen, Denis Jenkinson: The Smurf Obsession. Inside a legendary treasury house. Heron House Book, Feltham 1977, ISBN 0-600-382275 . (English)

Web links

Commons : Gladiator  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Georgano: The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile.
  3. ↑ a b Georgano: Cars. Encyclopédie complète. 1885 à nos jours.
  4. ↑ a b Grace's Guide: Gladiator.
  5. ^ Grace's Guide: British Automobile Commercial Syndicate.
  6. ↑ 48 to 58 Quai Michelet, 136 to 140 rue Anatole-France, 20 rue Greffulhe