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Gobron-Brillié: extraordinary cars for extraordinary people
In the light of distinct innovations, you might like to learn of the horizontally opposed engine of Eugène Brillié. He partnered up with Gustave Gobron to develop it and together form the marque Gobron-Brillié. The engine they came up with for their luxury automobiles featured this system, with a piston at both ends of each cylinder and no cylinder head. Not flat as in a boxer, but vertically positioned. It had been seen in engines before, but may well have been the first time it was used in a motor car. And it seemed to perform not badly either. One of their vehicles with this engine is said to have been the world’s first car ever to exceed the 150 km/h barrier, while it was clocked at over 100 mph (161 km/h) months later.
Still, it must have caused trouble, as by 1904 Gobron-Brillié had moved to more conventional engine designs. Do any of these motors survive? This picture shows a 1907 car, and while that used a more conservative four-cylinder engine (although possibly of the 11-litre 75 hp variant), we thought it very interesting too. The photo originates from the Hungarian Museum of Technology and Transport archives, showing the Gobron-Brillié of a man named Jenő Baruch. He was the heir to a petroleum company, who is said to have led a playboy lifestyle, spending much of the money that his father made on horses and cars. Baruch committed suicide in 1928 ‘to escape the increasingly serious problems’. How sad.
This picture of that lovely landaulet car was taken in happier times. With a body by coachbuilders Kölber of Budapest, Baruch took part in the car in the Herkomer Tour in the summer of 1907, the cup race set up by the German Emperor from Frankfurt to Munich, Vienna and back to Frankfurt. What happened to it afterwards..?
Words Jeroen Booij
Picture Hungarian Museum of Technology and Transport, thanks to Pál Negyesi
Published:
Monday May 25th, 2026
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Comments
Bob King
02 June, 03:33
Ariejan Bos
01 June, 22:45
Sorry, the comment function doesn't seem to work. So, as for the Nagant-Gobron car: the engine photos show clearly the standard double acting two-cylinder engine as used also in the Gobron-Brillié cars. So the remark about the use of a 'normal' engine doesn't seem to be correct to me.
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Philip Riedel
01 June, 09:17
As a young lad in the 1960's I recall a large Gobron Brille on Rallies with the Sporting Car Club of SA in South Australia.
I seem to remember this car was sold and returned to Europe.??
I wonder what happened to it ?
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I seem to remember this car was sold and returned to Europe.??
I wonder what happened to it ?
Philippe
31 May, 11:58
I have some doubt about the actual brandname in 1907 as I thought it had been changed to just Gobron when the engineer Eugène Brillié left to join Schneider in Le Havre. I understand from heir family that the main problem was not technical but rather economical because the opposed piston engines were quite more expensive to build and maintain compared to more conventional engines. The model shown obviously has a conventional engine and not the opposed pistons one.
There are still a few cars with opposed pistons although I not aware of any really running... with the exception of the Belgian 1900 Gobron-Brillié built by the Nagant in Liège which ran over 6.000 km at various events (Bordeaux-Paris raid, London-Brighton, Circuit des Ardennes,...) since its restoration in 2011. Not too surprising as the (Belgian) Prince Albert who owned two such cars drove himself over 4.000 km from Brussels to Bavaria and Innsbruck without the slighest mechanic problems according to a letter of his chief of staff to the car manufacturer in 1901. My father acquired the car pictured in 1964 and it is still in the family
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There are still a few cars with opposed pistons although I not aware of any really running... with the exception of the Belgian 1900 Gobron-Brillié built by the Nagant in Liège which ran over 6.000 km at various events (Bordeaux-Paris raid, London-Brighton, Circuit des Ardennes,...) since its restoration in 2011. Not too surprising as the (Belgian) Prince Albert who owned two such cars drove himself over 4.000 km from Brussels to Bavaria and Innsbruck without the slighest mechanic problems according to a letter of his chief of staff to the car manufacturer in 1901. My father acquired the car pictured in 1964 and it is still in the family
Stanislav Kirilets
31 May, 11:40
1st International Automobile Exhibition in St. Petersburg, 1907. Gobron-Brillié Automobiles at the stand of the Russian representative, Nikolas Kritsch.
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Bill Armstrong
31 May, 11:14
There is, or was, since its many years since I last went there, a Gobron-Brillie fire appliance at the Beaulieu Motor Museum (or whatever its called now); I thought that it had an opposed piston engine but can't remember for certain.
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Kieran White
28 May, 17:32
Two Gobron-Brillies at the speed trials in the Phoenix Park during the Irish Fortnight in 1903.
The Gordon Bennett was included in this fortnight.
A Mors captured the land speed record at 82mph on Chesterfield Avenue if memory serves me right.
Incidentally the Irish Veteran and Vintage Car Clubsre staging their 50th anniversary Gordon Bennett Rally on 5th,6th and 7th June.
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The Gordon Bennett was included in this fortnight.
A Mors captured the land speed record at 82mph on Chesterfield Avenue if memory serves me right.
Incidentally the Irish Veteran and Vintage Car Clubsre staging their 50th anniversary Gordon Bennett Rally on 5th,6th and 7th June.
Ariejan Bos
25 May, 12:55
There are two minor details I would like to mention. First is that this 1907 model, a beautiful example of the make by the way, was probably the 40/60hp model, which without doubt still had the engine with double acting pistons. As far as I’m aware Gobron used these engines at least until WW1 in most if not all of their models.
The second detail is the body type, which clearly is not a landaulet as there is no folding top. However the confusion may have been caused by a Bianchi toy model made by Rio (which happens to be in my mini museum), which is exactly the same model and was being sold by Rio as a landaulet. So if not a landaulet, what is it then? An identical model, but with Ariès chassis, was called a berline in 1907 (see upload). Even this name is arbitrary, as the berline officially had two opposing benches for 2 persons each. However name-giving in car body land changed with time: remember the De Dion-Bouton body in the post of May 8th, which had been given the name of berline de voyage. Technically one would have to speak of a coupé (literally meaning a cut-off berline), but another name in use in the early days was the berlingot or demi-berline. As one may observe, this De Dion-Bouton was similar to the Gobron-Brillié body with the exception that the first was inside driven, the latter chauffeur driven. So, although I would prefer the name coupé de voyage, (demi-)berline (de voyage) was definitely an option in these days.
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The second detail is the body type, which clearly is not a landaulet as there is no folding top. However the confusion may have been caused by a Bianchi toy model made by Rio (which happens to be in my mini museum), which is exactly the same model and was being sold by Rio as a landaulet. So if not a landaulet, what is it then? An identical model, but with Ariès chassis, was called a berline in 1907 (see upload). Even this name is arbitrary, as the berline officially had two opposing benches for 2 persons each. However name-giving in car body land changed with time: remember the De Dion-Bouton body in the post of May 8th, which had been given the name of berline de voyage. Technically one would have to speak of a coupé (literally meaning a cut-off berline), but another name in use in the early days was the berlingot or demi-berline. As one may observe, this De Dion-Bouton was similar to the Gobron-Brillié body with the exception that the first was inside driven, the latter chauffeur driven. So, although I would prefer the name coupé de voyage, (demi-)berline (de voyage) was definitely an option in these days.
Motoring journalist 'Bunny' Tubbs had one which I encountered at Jackie Pichon's restaurant in 1967, when it was celebrating it's fiftieth birthday by touring in France. Bunny's daughter has written about the car in the VSCC Bulletin relatively recently - it may still be in the Tubb's family.
I recall Bunny's description of being a motoring journalist as "It is not all steer and vittles".