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SLIDER: 1909 racing cars 2: Le Gui and Werner

Two more cars about to start their race at la Coupe des Voiturettes in 1909 (see Slider 1 in this series of two).

On the left is a Le Gui and on the right a Werner.  Both cars were powered by De Dion-Bouton single-cylinder engines with very long stroke (100 x 250mm).  Le Gui cars were built in Courbevoie near Paris (as were the Demeester cars in our other Slider) from 1904 to 1916, firstly by Henri Guillemin et Cie up to 1908 (hence the full name of this racing car: Guillemin-Le Gui), and then by E. Nicolas et Cie up to 1916.  It appears that their road cars were more conventional 4-cylinder machines; the racing cars were very different.  The Werner car was built between 1906 and 1914 in Billancourt, western Paris, by two brothers of Russian extraction who had started by building motorcycles in 1898.  They also made cameras and typewriters.  These single-cylinder Werner cars had some racing success, their best result being third in the 1909 Catalan Cup, driven by Soyez.

The list of cars entered in this race is given in Slider 1.

Picture courtesy of the Richard Roberts Archive


One response to “SLIDER: 1909 racing cars 2: Le Gui and Werner”

  1. The Werner voiturette entered in the Coupe de l’Auto was a different model than the one entered in the Catalan Cup:
    – Coupe des voiturettes (Maurice Fournier): https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53110336v
    – Copa Catalunya (Soyez): https://ibb.co/t8cTYtG

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