MOTOBLOC

Paris is not only the capital of France but as the nineteenth century became the twentieth it was also the centre of the French motor industry. However, Lyons ran it a close second, Peugeots were made in the far east of the country, and significant motorcar makers were based in cities as far apart as Le Mans, Marseilles, and Bordeaux. It was in the latter city that Motobloc cars and commercial vehicles were made from 1902 to 1930.

In these early days almost all makers called their vehicles after the engineers or entrepreneurs responsible for them, very few having an invented name. Motobloc was one of the first. Its origins lay in the work of bicycle maker Charles Schaudel who in 1900 began production of a motorcar to his own unique design. The Schaudel had a two-cylinder monobloc engine - that is the cylinders were not individual, but cast as a single item. The engine was inclined at 30 degrees from the horizontal and the gearbox was made in unit with the crankcase. This combined assembly was mounted transversely in the chassis, thus anticipating the layout of the Mini by nearly sixty years, although the Schaudel drove the rear axle by chain.

Schaudel's brother-in-law Emile Dombret took over the business in 1902 and continued with the distinctive layout for the cars to which he gave the name Motobloc, a clever adaptation of the French words for a one piece engine: 'bloc-moteur'. When in 1904 Dombret designed a vertical-in-line engined car, he retained the Schaudel concept with a unitary engine and gearbox.

The cars were rarely raced for the publicity that this could bring, and although they were exported to England, sales were largely in the Bordeaux area. Not equipped for mass-production, the global ripples from the Wall Street Crash of 1929 saw Motobloc fade from the scene the following year, along with many other low volume motorcar makers.