PHILOS 

​​​​​​

 

Philos Automobile, Messrs. Bernard, Courtot and Martin, builders,
16 Louis street and 17 Antoinette street, Lyon Montchat district

 

DESCRIPTION:

 

Lucien Loreille, Les Bulletins de la Société d'Histoire Rive Gauche n° 23 December 1967, page 15:

 

This firm began in 1912. Its first model was an 8 HP 4-cylinder 60x100 Ballot engine. It was bodied as a 2-seater torpedo sold for less than 5,000 francs with all the accessories. This price was very low for the time; he very quickly ensured a good start for the brand.

 

After the war, manufacturing resumed with 8-10 HP models with 4-cylinder 65x120 engines delivered in 4-seater torpedoes and vans. In July 1920, the firm took the name “New Incorporated Company of Philos Etablissements”.

 

At this time several car bodies were built: torpedo, sedan, coupé and a delightful little town car used at the time as a taxi. One of these still exists in Isère. The 1923 and 1924 programs included two 4-cylinders; a 6 hp 62x91 and a 10 hp 70x105; the engines supplied by Ballet and Altos were suspended from the chassis at three points. Manufacturing stopped in 1924 and the business was taken over by Jean Gras automobiles.

 

 

La Grande Aventure Automobile Lyonnaise by Pierre-Lucien Pouzet, La Taillanderie edition, 2006, pages 110-111:

 

In 1914, we saw the appearance of a Philos car, which constituted a significant progress towards the lightness of chassis models and engines. It was built by Bernard and Barbier, Antoinette street, and was equipped with a four-cylinder Ballot engine 4G 65 x 120 1,600 cm3 (8/10 HP) type, which was used until 1917; it was used in parallel with another Ballot engine 4M 60 x 100 of 1,131 cm3 (6/8 HP) type, which was used from 1914 to 1918. This car, driven by Huet, distinguished itself in the automobile competitions of 1914: on the 29th of March in the Alpes-Maritimes rally, where it took the best place of the Lyon cars, on the 4th and 5th of April in the Nice AC Sports Meeting, where it took first place in its series and on the 31st of May at the Meeting de Tours where a Philos, with Esnault at the wheel, placed honorably. A type 4 M car was the subject of a road test in 1914 by A. Contet, who highlighted its silence, suspension and handling.

 

During the hostilities, the brand delivered thousands of cars of this type to the army services, where they were "highly appreciated". Moreover, it appeared in a circular from the Minister of the Armed Forces in 1920, among the "cars of good brands" that the army decided to keep in the automobile districts.

 

At the fourth Lyon Fair in 1919, Philos, considered the Lyon specialist in carts for the success of his cars during the war, once again exhibited his two improved 1914 models. A new company of the Philos establishments with a capital of 2,000,000 francs, for the manufacture of automobiles, was formed on the 18th August in 1920 simultaneously in Paris, 55 Champs-Élysées avenue, and in Lyon, 16 Louis street. At the 1920 Show, a Philos car provided a "remarkable example" of a small, lightweight chassis automobile with a low-power engine, which was in demand in the years following the end of the First World War and which was owed to the advances made in metallurgy and engine design.

 

It was an evolution of the 1914 models, with a Philos Altos 62 x 110 engine which was fitted to the A4R type cars of 1921-1922, then with a 4G5 65 x 120 monoblock 1,600 cm3 Ballot engine with overhead camshaft , thermosyphon cooling, a windproof radiator, a vertical Zenith carburetor supplied by a charging tank placed on the firewall, an electric starter, electric lighting, magneto ignition, a "Hele-Shaw" clutch with multiple discs , a cardan transmission and a high-speed engine for the time; this model, which bore the designation GA3R series 4000, was also supplied in the following years with various engines: Ballot, Altos, Ruby and S.C.A.P., all with four cylinders from 1,088 to 1,775 cm3. We found this car light, otherwise robust and with acceptable performance, comfortable and pretty.

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY, LINKS:

 

 

LOCATION :

 

The offices of the PHILOS company were at 16 Louis street in Lyon 3rd arrondissement. The second address at 17 Antoinette street, opposite, must have corresponded to part of the factories as shown in the photo of a remains of an industrial building.

 

 

 

ARCHIVES:

 

No archives currently available on this site.