Gustave Adolphe Clément, known from 1909 Clément-Bayard (; 22 September 1855 – 10 March 1928), was a French entrepreneur. Despite being orphaned, he became a blacksmith and a Compagnon du Tour de France. He later ventured into racing and manufacturing bicycles, pneumatic tyres, motorcycles, automobiles, aeroplanes and airships.
In 1894, he was a passenger in the winning vehicle in the world's first competitive motor event. Albert Lemaître's Peugeot was judged to be the winner of the Paris–Rouen 'Competition for Horeseless Carriages' (Concours des Voitures sans Chevaux).
As a result of selling the manufacturing rights to his Clément car, he added Bayard to the name of his new business. The company name honoured Chevalier Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard, who saved the company's town of Mézières from an Imperial army during the Siege of Mézières in 1521.
In 1909, five years after the successful launch of the Clément-Bayard automobile brand, he applied for and obtained the consent of the Conseil d'Etat to change his surname (and that of his descendants) to Clément-Bayard. He was appointed a Commander of the Légion d'honneur in 1912.
Most of his manufacturing empire was destroyed by World War I – by German ransacking, by conversion to war production for France, and by the subsequent weak economic market. In 1922, the Clément-Bayard company was sold to André Citroën, and the factory at Levallois-Perret became the centre of 2CV manufacturing for the next 40 years.
Personal life
Early life Gustave Adolphe Clément, the son of a grocer, was born at rue du Bourg in Pierrefonds, Oise. He was the second of five children of Leopold Adolphus Clément and Julie Alexandrine Rousselle. His mother died when he was seven years old, and his father remarried but died two years later, when he was nine years old. For the next seven years, he was raised by his stepmother, who had remarried a school teacher. He studied at the primary school in Pierrefonds and then at the college of Villers-Cotterêts. At the age of 13, he began working in the family business by delivering groceries and later chose to apprentice as a farrier/blacksmith.
During the winter of 1871–1872, the 16-year-old Clément left Pierrefonds to travel around France as a Compagnon du Tour de France, an organization of craftsmen and artisans dating from the Middle Ages. He had saved 30 francs (circa 100 Euros in 2006) by doing multiple jobs for three years. He subsisted in each city by working in forges owned by the Compagnons du Tour de France, shoeing horses, repairing metal and doing any kind of work. He reached Paris in 1872, followed by Orléans and Tours, where he encountered 'Truffault cycles'. This led him to acquire 2 wooden cart wheels and build an iron bicycle frame.
Cycle racing had begun in 1869 (Paris–Rouen), so in 1873, J.M.M. Truffault lent the 18-year-old Clément an iron bicycle with solid rubber tires to race in Angers. He finished 6th and was exhilarated to read his name in the newspapers.
Family life
Clément married Céleste Angèle Roguet, and they had four children – Albert, Angèle, Jeanne and Maurice. Albert died while racing at the 1907 French Grand Prix. Angèle (1880–1972) was widowed from Albert Dumont, an engineer and director at the Levallois factory. Angèle then remarried Numa Joseph Edouard "Petit" Sasias (1882–1927), a Fonctionnaire aux Affaires Etrangères, ex-Secrétaire à la Présidence du Conseil, with whom she had one son. Jeanne became divorced from Fernand Charron, a racing driver and manager of the plant at Levallois-Perret, subsequently living alone. Maurice married Renée Hammond and had three children – Andrée, Jacqueline and Albert (nicknamed 'Billy' to avoid confusion and memories of his uncle Albert).
The Domaine du Bois d'Aucourt in Pierrefonds was originally a 17th-century hunting lodge of the 'Sun King' Louis XIV, which had been upgraded circa 1822. Located west of both the Château de Pierrefonds and his own birthplace on the rue du Bourg, Clément bought the property around 1904 and employed architect Edward Redont to renovate and remodel it. Latterly, the Domaine du Bois d'Aucourt was used by his son Maurice, while Clément continued living at 35 Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Later life By 1893, Clément owned the Vélodrome de la Seine near the site of the factory at Levallois-Perret. La plus belle et la plus vite piste du monde". It was managed by Tristan Bernard, who also managed the Vélodrome Buffalo, and its events were an integral part of Parisian life, being regularly attended by personalities such as Toulouse-Lautrec. Clément reportedly sold or converted this around 1900.
On achieving business success, he used the Latinate format of his name ('Gustavus Adolphus'), and he received permission from the Conseil d'État in 1909 to change his surname to 'Clément-Bayard'.
The death of his son Albert while racing at the 1907 French Grand Prix had a lasting effect on him. In 1913, he was elected as mayor of Pierrefonds and, on taking office, he ceded control of the Clément-Bayard company in 1914 to his son Maurice, who was passionate about aviation.
In 1928, he died of a heart attack while driving along the rue Laffitte to a meeting of a board of directors in Paris.
Cycle manufacturing In 1876, after 2 years of cycle racing, working and saving, Clément had enough money to start in business, so he opened a bicycle repair works in Bordeaux, aged 21. The next stage of his business plan was to move to Marseille, where he learned how to manufacture steel tubes for bicycles. The following year, he moved to Lyon and began manufacturing whole bicycles under the name 'Clément SA cycles'.
Clément cycles
The following year, circa 1878, Clément moved to Paris and opened a cycle business, A. Clément & Cie, at 20 rue Brunel near the Place de l'Etoile. Here, he also ran a cycling school and was competing in cycle races. In Paris, his business backers were monsieur de Graffenried and monsieur de Montgeron.
At the end of 1878, Clément partnered the cycling champion Charles Terront at the 'Six-Days' cycling event at the Agricultural Hall in London. He also opened a sales showroom at 31 rue du 4-Septembre in Paris and started a poster advertising campaign, a new concept.
In September 1879, Clément built an iron smelter at Tulle, in the Limousin, where there was a good supply of water power, but he did not have sufficient financing to make it viable. In addition, Tulle was too remote from Paris, so he had to sell the plant.
By 1880, the "Clément" cycle manufacturing business at rue Brunel had circa 150 employees building bicycles.(Image and description of 1880 Clément cycle) The machines were regarded as high quality, and by 1890, Clément was the leading cycle brand in France.
Clément-Gladiator cycles
The Gladiator Cycle Company, a French bicycle manufacturer, was founded by Alexandre Darracq and Paul Aucoq in 1891 at Le Pré-Saint-Gervais in northeast Paris. Clément was a major investor in this venture.
In 1895, Gladiator introduced its first internal combustion, a naphtha powered tricycle.
In 1896, Clément (who held the extremely profitable manufacturing rights for Dunlop tyres in France) joined with a syndicate led by Dunlop's founder Harvey Du Cros to buy out the Gladiator Cycle Company, and they merged it into a major bicycle manufacturing conglomerate of Clément, Gladiator, and Humber & Co Limited, valued at 22 million francs (circa €60–80 million Euro in 2006).. The range of cycles was expanded with tricycles, quadricycles, and in 1902 a motorised bicycle, then cars and motorcycles.
Shortly after the purchase of Gladiator cycles in 1896, Clément began to build the new factory at Levallois-Perret in northwest Paris, which also produced various cars from 1898 (see below) and went on to build the Citroën 2CV for nearly forty years.
Motorised cycle manufacturing
Clément and Gladiator
From 1895, Clément cycles started to focus on motorized vehicles. In 1895, it introduced its first internal combustion vehicle, a naphtha powered tricycle. In 1902, they offered a motorized bicycle with a 142 cc engine bolted to the frame, using overhead valves and a detachable cylinder head; the inlet valve 'automatic' (controlled by engine suction), the exhaust valve mechanically operated. A coil-and-battery ignition was used, and a two-barrel carburetor controlled by small levers attached to the frame top tube. An external flywheel kept the crankcase very small, and a long belt from the engine pulley to a 'dummy' rim on the rear wheel was tensioned by a small 'jockey' pulley on the seat tube. The front brake pressed direct on the front tire, the rear was a 'coaster' brake activated by back-pedaling. This 'motorisation adaptation' was sold on both Clément and Gladiator cycles.
Clément-Garrard
In Britain, these popular motorised cycles were known as Clément-Garrards. James Lansdowne Norton built Clément bicycle frames under license, and used the Clément clip-on engine for his first Norton motorcycles.
Tyre manufacturing
Dunlop In 1889, Clément saw a Dunlop pneumatic tyre in London and acquired the French manufacturing rights for 50,000 francs. This success led to his millionaire status. The company he formed with a capital of 700,000 francs paid 100 per cent dividend in its first year of operation.Unique cars, Founding fathers – Gustave Clément Dunlop France, and occasionally Clément-Dunlop, was a regular entrant of motor racing and cycle racing teams.
Clément Pneumatics
Clément is reported to have begun manufacture of Clément Tyres in 1878 to fit to the early cycles, but the French identity was lost with the overwhelming success of his Dunlop pneumatics. After World War I, Clément Pneumatics was established in Italy and was a leading supplier of Clément Pneumatici bicycle tyres throughout much of the 20th century. A leading international manufacturer during the 1950s,1960s and 1970s, it was associated with racing cyclists such as Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, and Ole Ritter. It was purchased by Pirelli in the 1980s and manufacturing was moved to Thailand until 1995 when Pirelli vacated the bicycle tyre market. Various licensing arrangements were of little consequence until, in 2010 the name was licensed to Donnelly Sports and the American, Don Kellogg, who recommenced manufacture in Thailand.Profile of clement-pneumatic LINK ROTi
Motor manufacturing
Clément-Gladiator motorcars By 1898, the new Clément-Gladiator company was building cars and marketing them as both Cléments and Gladiators. Gladiators were imported into England by the Motor Power Company, which was co-owned by S. F. Edge and Harvey du Cros, founder of Dunlop. Financed by Harvey du Cros, Herbert Austin built Clement-Gladiator cars at Longbridge from early 1906, selling them as Austin cars.
From 1901, Clément-Gladiator cars were built at the Levallois-Perret factory, and by 1902, production was over 1,000 cars per annum, 800+ of which were sold in England.
After 1903, the Clément-Gladiator name continued to be used on the shaft-drive cars made at the Pre-Saint-Gervais factory, whilst chain-driven vehicles were marketed as Gladiators. The Clément name was dropped in 1907, and in 1909, another French manufacturer, Vinot et Deguingand, took over Gladiator and transferred production to Puteaux. At this time, the Pre-Saint-Gervais factory reverted to making bicycles.
Panhard et Levassor In 1897, Clément invested one million francs (the equivalent of about three 3 million Euros at 2006 valuation) in Panhard & Levassor, part of their five million francs capitalisation. This established the main business and eventually led to the creation of the Clément-Panhard marque.
Clément-Bayard