MORS

The Societe de l'Electricity et des Automobiles Mors (incorporated in 1898) had an usual background, dating back to 1851 when a firm had been set up in Paris to make artificial flowers with metal wire stems. These stems were paper-wrapped and the machinery used for this was soon adapted to produce insulated electrical wires. In 1874 Louis Mors jnr bought the company and gave it his name. His two sons, Emile and Louis, both graduates of the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures (a superior technical college in Paris), took over the business in 1880 and expanded the firm's activities into many branches of electrical engineering. In 1886 Mors engaged Henri Brasier as Chief Engineer.

Louis Jnr bought a Panhard-Levassor car in 1892 and four years later the brothers began making motorcars. At a time when most French cars had ignition by hot-tube, Mors, not surprisingly, relied on electrics. The v-4 rear-engined Mors cars of 1897 were an immediate success and when in 1899 Brasier designed a car with a vertical mounted engine the firm struck gold. It was a blow to the company when Brasier left in November 1901 but by then Mors had already established itself as a leader in the automobile world with a run of racing successes culminating in Gabriel's first place driving a 70hp Mors in the heroic 1903 Paris-Madrid race. Such publicity created a strong demand and although output was never large (300 cars in 1903) Mors were in a seller's market and priced accordingly. Profits in 1902 were 1.2-million francs, shareholders received a 15% dividend and again in 1903, but the following year it was down to 6% and this was the last they were ever to receive.

Complacency in design and poor management severly damaged the company, the decline being rapid with losses as early as 1905 running at 1/2-million francs per annum, and these were to rise. Although Mors struggled on it was not until 1908 when Andre Citroen became chairman that a level of recovery was achieved, but Mors never regained its days of glory. In 1925 Citroen (in the mass-production market with cars bearing his own name since 1919) bought the Mors factory and there were no more Mors motorcars.

V4 ENGINE