Pipe

Belgium, 1898 – 1922

Compagnie Belge de Construction Automobile, Brussels

The Pipe car, one of Belgium’s best-built and most expensive cars, is said to have been so named because its manufacturers also made metal pipes. Their first Pipe car was made in 1898, but the earliest of which anything is known was the 2-cylinder 6hp Pipe car of Panhard-Levassor type, with chain drive, offered in 1900. By 1902 there was a similar 4-cylinder Pipe car of 15hp, and in 1904 a range of four Pipe car models all of the same basic design, of which 100 Pipe cars were made that year.

Petrol-electric transmission, in the form of the Jenatzy Magnetic Clutch, was tried on Pipe cars in 1904-1905, but it was only fitted to a few Pipe cars. At the Paris Salon in December 1904, however, a more lasting Pipe car feature appeared: inclined push-rod-operated overhead valves. The 28/32hp Pipe car and 50hp models of 1905 had these, and also Truffault shock abrobers. None of these features was entirely new, but all were symptoms of very advanced design. No fewer than 300 Pipe cars were made in 1907, and one of their racing Pipe cars took 2nd place in the Kaiserpreis race that year, but oddly enough, when they were at the height of their fame, production of Pipe cars seems to have ceased for two years.

When it was resumed, little was left of former distinctiveness. A small side-valve Pipe car was offered in 1910 and 1911, to be succeeded in 1913 by a range Pipe cars of entirely conventional, if still beautifully-made machines with quiet, flexible, very long-stroke side-vale engines, all with four cylinders and live axles. Automatic ignition advance was the only novelty now offered on the Pipe car. The sole survivor of former days was the 11-litre, chain-driven 80hp Pipe car model.

After World War 1, Pipe car production was not resumed immediately as the factory had to be completely rebuilt. At the 1921 Brussels Show Pipe exhibited two 4-cylinder Pipe car, a medium-sized 3-litre car, and a 9-litre giant. Few were made of either Pipecar, but production of lorries continued until 1932.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; TRN

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