Gobron-Brillié

Gobron-Brillié was an early French automobile manufactured from 1898 to 1930. The original company, Societé des Moteurs Gobron-Brillié, was founded by the French engineer, Eugène Brillié, and industrialist, Gustave Gobron, at 13, quai de Boulougne, Boulougne-sur-Seine, near Paris, in 1898.

Eugène Brillié studied at the École centrale des arts et manufactures, and then went on to work, from 1887 to 1898, at the Cie des Chemins de fer de l’Ouest. Meanwhile, Gustave Gobron (15 June 1846 to 27 September 1911) started as director of Godillot, a supply company to the military, but took up politics, and was elected to the National Assembly, from 1885 to 1889, at which point he created a car manufacturing company, under his own name. The two men went into partnership, creating the Société des Moteurs Gobron-Brillié.

Brillié had developed an unusual type of internal-combustion engine, with two opposed pistons within each cylinder. The compression stroke involved the two pistons approaching each other, and then the ignition stroke was subsequently triggered between them. The inlet and exhaust valves were also placed at this point of closest-approach between the pistons.

Mounted vertically, the lower piston in each cylinder was connected by a conventional connecting rod to the crankshaft, while the upper piston was connected to an overhung yoke, with a long connecting rod back down to the crankshaft.

Instead of a carburettor, a revolving petrol distributor was developed, with the quantity of fuel being regulated by a drip-feed. One advantage of this device was that a wide variety of fuels could be used.

The engine was mounted at the rear, on a triangulated tubular chassis, with chain-drive to the wheels.

By 1899 they were registered at 17 rue Phil. de Girard, Paris.

By 1900, the company was producing about 150 cars per year. The cars were also built, under licence, in France as La Nanceene, and in Belgium as the Gobron-Nagant, and Botwoods of Ipswich sold them in England as Teras.

When Brillié left the company, at the end of 1903, the design was changed to use a more conventional pressed-steel ladder-frame chassis, the engine was moved to the front, and the fuel-distributor was replaced by a carburettor, but they still kept the opposed-piston engine design.

Around 1906-1908, models included:

The last of the giant models was produced in 1910.

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