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In the early years the two names assigned tot his Guy car make were used indiscriminately and to complicate matters the Guy car was also known in England as the Millard-Le Gui, after one of the importers who handled it. At their first showing in 1905, the Guy cars had conventional shaft-driven chassis and round radiators, but also in the range was a short-lived 7hp air-cooled four with oversquare cylinder dimensions; this soon gave way to conventional Guy voiturettes of 9hp and 11hp, priced at 5.400fr and 6.500fr respectively, the former with a 942cc Buchet engine. By 1908 the Guy company was offering quite a wide range, all with proprietary power units (Barriquand et Marre in the bigger cars): 4-cylinder machines came in 1.8-litre, 2-litre, 3.1-litre and 5.5-litre sizes, the biggest Guy cars having chain drive. A 1.3-litre 4-cylinder Le Gui ran in the 1908 Coupe des Voiturettes. Under Nicolas’s control the Guy firm concentrated increasingly on small cars with L-head Monobloc 4-cylinder engines and 4-speed gearboxes: a 1.6-litre Guy Ten sold for only £250 in England in 1910, and was credited with 35mph and 28mpg. There was also a larger 15hp Guy car for sale with an ioe Chapuis-Dornier engine in a similar chassis. The same type and make of unit was fitted in the 1912 2.1-litre version of the Guy car for sale. Later Le Guis were all Chapuis-Dornier-powered, the Guy car range including a very long-stroke (85x160mm) 3.6-litre four.
A 30hp Guy tourer and a 1 ton Guy truck were the basis of this carriage company’s venture into car manufacture, but only a few Guy cars were built.
Like other commercial-vehicle concerns (Leyland, Maudslay, British Ensign), Guy went into luxury-car manufacture in a small way after World War 1. The 1919 Guy was unusual in that its eight cylinders, which totaled just over four litres, were disposed in V-formation. France and America were already familiar with this new arrangement, but in Britain, only one Vulcan model had it. Rare anywhere was the Guy’s automatic chassis lubrication, which was a suprising feature to find on a car that would be usually looked after by a chauffeur. The engine’s detachable cylinder heads on the Guy cars for sale and inclined side valves, and the subframe that carried engine and gearbox, were characteristic of Guy commercial chassis. About 150 of the V8 Guy cars were made, but the medium-sized Guy family cars that followed it from 1921, with 4-cylinder in-line engines of 2 and 2½-litres’ capacity, appeared In far smaller numbers. All retained automatic chassis lubrication. After 1925, the Guy name appeared only on commercial, public service and military vehicles.
Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; MCS, GB, TRN
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