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Cycles Automoto was a pioneering French maker of motorcycles and bicycles founded at the turn of the 20th century. Well regarded for thoughtful design and meticulous construction, Automoto grew in popularity until merging with the Peugeot group in the early 60’s. Part of that popularity is attributable to the company’s wide ranging product offerings, whose bicycle line alone grew to include an undiminished twenty models.

Another less immediate part of that popularity is traceable to the Automoto mystique, whose allure, synonymous with a passion for quality, somehow continued growing through a pair of world wars and exploding product availability. Today, some half century after the final Automoto left its Saint-Étienne birthplace, the timelessness of the company’s clover logo and transportation machinery it produced is more meaningful than ever.

One hundred years ago things were very different. Taking a train from northernly located Paris to southernly located Saint-Étienne meant an uncomfortable and unreliable daylong journey through central France up into the Loire alpine range southwest of Lyon. It also meant leaving arguably the world’s most culturally sophisticated city for among its most industrially minded. Unlike urban and chic Paris, St.-É’s, as locals sometimes say, was ignominiously known for its mining operations and related industry. These inglorious roots, tapped into abundant local iron and coal sources, provided the essentials necessary to seed and fuel what became known as the industrial revolution, or at least France’s contribution to it, and Automoto was square in the middle of things.

French cycling heritage, to a large degree cycling heritage in general, originated in Saint-Étienne. Popularly referred to as the “cycling capital of France” by experts including Sheldon Brown and Saint-Étienne itself, the city gave rise to industry notables like Manufrance/Mavic, Motobécane and Vitus. Today its Museum of Art and Industry hosts the largest public collection of bicycles in France, from early forerunners to contemporary prototypes. What Coventry did for British advancements in cycling, Saint-Étienne followed aggressively for French advancements in cycling.

The summer of 1889 brought together four constructeurs from Saint-Étienne – Chavanet, Gros, Pichard and Cie – who formed a professional society named the “Société de Constructions Mécaniques de Cycles et Automobiles”. These men shared a passion for powered and unpowered mechanical transportation devices, at the time meaning bicycles, tricycles and quadricycles, and desired a forum to exchange ideas around them. After a decade of doing so, all the while refining various designs and coalescing as a team, they formed a limited company in 1901 named “Société Anonyme des Constructions Mécaniques de la Loire”, or CML. Not until another decade passed, in 1910, did they assume their eventual name of Cycles Automoto.

Highly respected among the day’s other great marques – Alcyon, Clément, La Française, Gauloise, Hurtu, Peugeot – Automoto came to be a preferred ride of the racing elite.

During a particularly stormy Tour de France in 1913, it was said Lucien Mazan rode “more quickly than the stars” aboard his Automoto. The event was memorialized in a popular Automoto postcard featuring the affectionately known “Petit-Breton” riding swifter than a trailing band of heavenly apparitions.

Unable to secure that year’s yellow jersey, the legendary Argentinian cyclist will nonetheless always be remembered as the first to win the Tour de France two times, in 1907 and consecutively while defending in 1908.

After the First World War, in 1919, Automoto followed a number of prewar bicycle manufacturers and joined the La Sportive consortium. La Sportive was formed by various French cycling interests confounded by a deep desire to continue professional bicycle racing in the face of abhorred postwar realities. Member companies combined resources to equip some half of the peloton under the “La Sportive” name. Cycling author William Fotheringham further suggests the consortium gave constituents the added benefit of controlling riders’ salaries. Member companies included: Alcyon, Armor, Automoto, Clément, La Française, Gladiator, Griffon, Hurtu, Labor, Liberator, Peugeot and Thomann.

Three painful years rebuilding later and several La Sportive members – led by industry titan Peugeot – started promoting their own brands again. Prewar identities newly intact, Automoto rose to its fullest prominence in the peloton. Its riders dominated professional cycling’s premier event, the Tour de France, from 1923-1926 with a series of convincing victories captained by riders with international appeal like Henri Pellisier (France), Ottavio Bottecchia (Italy) and Lucien Buysse (Belgium).

Abruptly as the mid-twenties ended, so too did the Automoto winning streak. In the summer of 1927 a talented Alcyon squad led by several riders from Belgium and Luxembourg established themselves the new champion, a label not relinquished until 1930. A label never again coveted by once venerable Automoto, with the notable exception of Fritz Masanek’s unheralded eighteen wins on the Mexican professional cycling circuit in the early 50’s.

Automoto’s commitment to racing and success on the podium led to decades of loyalty in the marketplace. Its many wins brought increased recognition among buyers and consistently growing sales for the company. Management reinforced the relationship between winning and selling with advertisements featuring competition models alongside others with broader appeal.

It also responded to demand by expanding the Automoto catalog to include bicycles intended for a variety of applications only then being discovered by the riding public. In as complete an annual Automoto catalog as any on available record, 1952 product offerings to the French market included: “grande”, “ballon”, “demi-ballon”, “tourisme”, “randonneur”, “demi-course”, “course” and “porteur” class bicycles, with many available in men’s and women’s models.

Automoto exposure to the U.S. bicycle market seems limited to the early ’50s. Propelled by Masanek’s victories in Mexico the company began limited distribution of bicycles via Edward Lynch & Son, a mid-century importer of premium European cycling goods based in Compton, California.

The second printing of the Edward Lynch & Son catalog in the early ’50s offered a roundly representative seven Automoto models. These included: The Deluxe Bicycle touring and racing models in eight speeds, A Fine Lightweight in three speeds, A Quality Lightweight touring and racing models in four speeds, Track Racing Model and Deluxe Touring Tandem. Years later an invoice mailed in May, 1957 indicates Automoto directly exported a Professional Light Racer Bicycle (Model ACSP 30) to an individual in Essex, Connecticut. Further details on the importation of Automoto cycles into the U.S. remain unknown to the author. An informative pair of reproduction Automoto catalogs are available at Vélo-Rétro.

The Automoto legacy ended abruptly in 1959 when Indénor, a subsidiary of Peugeot, purchased the Automoto brand and soon thereafter ceased production, further monopolizing previously overlapping lines of business. Only a decade earlier, when an Automoto advertisement boldly declared, “Le Triomphe De La Qualite Française”, few in sound conscience would have doubted the claim. Half a century removed from the politics and persuasions of those days, the Automoto mystique, that of utmost quality and workmanship, endures.

Even as fewer examples of Automoto bicycles exist, and those that do command unprecedented premiums in the marketplace, the company’s commercial artwork is enjoying renewed appreciation among urbanites and vintage bicycle enthusiasts. Enlightening, in an era where the TGV hustles legions of passengers from Paris to Saint-Étienne in under three air-cushioned hours many times daily.

Lucky collectors of Automoto bicycles especially appreciate the sculpted clover lugwork found on fancier frames and trademark fork crown. Mated to long raked fork blades, the stylized square crown with clover coin inserts is “purposely designed so as to withstand the most violent efforts, especially braking strain, and suppress all vibrations,” according to 1957 company literature, and it achieves these objectives remarkably well in a passive suspension package.

Perhaps the four constructeurs back in Saint-Étienne were onto something. Their long hours spent drawing tubes by the fire, their dedication to understanding the geometry of champions, their jarred bones suffered during cobblestone field tests, none of it was for naught. The Automoto spirit continues living deep in many of us and forever will.

• http://site.voila.fr/tontonvelo/Automoto_Eng.htm
• http://www.cybermotorcycle.com/euro/brands/automoto.htm
• http://www.sheldonbrown.com/velos.html
• http://www.cycling-history.org/news/St.%20Etienne%20engl..pdf
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Etienne
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Petit-Breton
• http://www2.torelli.com/raceinfo/tdf/tdfhistory1910.html
• http://www.torelli.com/raceinfo/tdf/tdfindex.shtml
• http://www.theracingbike.com/Early_History.html
• http://www.velo-retro.com/list.html