About quiz #395: 1913/14 Gobron (Brillie) 40/60 HP

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Last week´s quiz photo comes from an old Spanish magazine called "Stadium", which in those days was devoted to sports of all kinds. In one of the 1916 issues is an interesting article about the first "Vuelta a Cataluña" event, a 630 km endurance race which was held during 23, 24 and 25th July 1916, and by that gives a clue about the date of the car. Among many photos of other interesting entries, the great radiator of the quiz car caught our attention. The caption reads "The huge Gobron of Jose Andreu, winner of a gold medal". Back to the quiz, two competitors mentioned Lorraine-Dietrich, three said Isotta-Fraschini, specifically the KM model. And only two came up with the right marque, one of which is a jury member.

David Green(jury) and John Hughes from Australia spoke about the Gobron-Brillie cars, but it was John who was most accurate with all the details. "I believe this illustration shows a very large Gobron-Brillie, of about 1913 or 1914. Cars of this make were built in Boulogne-sur-Seine from 1898 until 1918. In 1919 the company was restructured and production was shifted to Levallois-Perret until they went out of business in 1930, by which time they were known simply as "Gobrons".

Eugene Brillie had severed his connection with the company as early as 1903. Their most notable feature was their engine which had two pistons per cylinder. Tubular connecting rods were used and both pistons moved in opposite directions. This (expensive) design was claimed to eliminate engine vibration. Interestingly, the earliest Gobron-Brillies had no carburettor. Instead, fuel was metred by an ingenious "rotating conical device". In their catalogue they claimed that cars with this feature would run equally well on gin, brandy, whisky, naphtha or petrol. The car in the illustration is probably a 7.6 litre 40/60 hp monster of about 1913 or 1914 which cost eleven-hundred pounds in London. The largest Gobron-Brillies were chain-driven until 1914".

Nothing to add, more if we think of the Gobron-Brillie photos usually seen in the internet, with very different appearance to our quiz car. So congratulations John! Please send us your mail address and T-shirt size so we can send you your well deserved prize!
 
(quiz idea and text by Francisco Carrión)   

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