Lucien Rosengart
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Lucien Rosengart (11 January 1881 in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
– 27 July 1976) was a French engineer. His early life was shaped by carriages and the advance of the automobile age. He first started working as a mechanic at the age of 12, and by age 24 he had a machine shop in Belleville and several patents to his credit. By 1914 his products included railway parts, bicycle parts, and a rocket that allowed
artillery shell A shell, in a military context, is a projectile whose payload contains an explosive, incendiary, or other chemical filling. Originally it was called a bombshell, but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Modern usage ...
s to be exploded while airborne. This attracted the attention of the French Government and they set him up with two factories, one in Paris and one in
Saint-Brieuc Saint-Brieuc (, Breton: ''Sant-Brieg'' , Gallo: ''Saent-Berioec'') is a city in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. History Saint-Brieuc is named after a Welsh monk Brioc, who Christianised the region in the 6th c ...
- at this point he began working with Andre Citroën's company, which provided the shells. By the end of the first world war, he'd become a skilled businessman and helped both
Peugeot Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis. The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...
and
Citroën Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...
stave off bankruptcy. Involvement with these companies led Rosengart to think of building his own car. He was already making bicycles.


Automobiles L. Rosengart

In 1927, he saw the opportunity to produce a very small car for a segment of the market in France that was not at that time being covered by any of the major players. He bought the old Bellanger factory at
Neuilly Neuilly (, ) is a common place name in France, deriving from the male given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as we ...
. The early Rosengart cars were licensed copies of the British
Austin 7 The Austin 7 is an economy car that was produced from 1923 until 1939 in the United Kingdom by Austin. It was nicknamed the "Baby Austin" and was at that time one of the most popular cars produced for the British market and sold well abroad. ...
. This model, the LR2, was dressed up in various ways using various styling techniques and remained in production for quite some time - surviving as the vastly facelifted LR4 and Vivor long after the British car had been consigned to history. In the early 1930s Rosengart teamed up with the German manufacturer Adler, offering license built copies of the Adler Trumpf and Trumpf Junior, small front-drive cars that bolstered its range. It also added a conventional rear-driven car along the lines of a stretched and widened Austin. The development of front-wheel drive models led to the elegant ''Supertraction'' model in 1937 - which competed with larger cars like the
Peugeot 402 The Peugeot 402 is a large family car produced in Sochaux, France from 1935 to 1942 by Peugeot. It was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in 1935, replacing the Peugeot 401. The Peugeot 403, introduced approximately thirteen years after the d ...
and the
Berliet Dauphine The Berliet Dauphine is a family car produced by Berliet at their Vénissieux plant on the south side of Lyon between summer 1934 and 1939. The original cars had a 1990cc engine placing them in the 11CV car tax band, but this was quickly join ...
for the first time in Rosengart's short history. Belgian magazine Le Soir Illustre claimed in their November 1979 issue (No. 2471 on page 26) that the French inventor Lucien Rosengart (1880 – 1976) came up with the game of table soccer in the 1930s when he was looking for things to keep his grandchildren entertained during the cold winter months. He called the game “babyfoot” instead of foosball. In 1936 Rosengart himself was in financial difficulties so he transferred the company to a new organisation, Societé Industrielle de l'Ouest Parisien (SIOP). Unfortunately production of the Supertraction was never large, and the company was devastated by the
Nazi invasion of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...
. The company was able to survive the German occupation of France until after the war but did not produce cars during the conflict. After the war Rosengart, who had been in the United States (while his son stayed in the south of France), tried to guide his company back to the small cars that had made it a success in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Unfortunately, the major manufacturers of France were by then making very small, economical cars that were very well suited to the conditions of post-war France. The last Rosengart car, the ''Ariette'', was produced from 1947 to 1954, but failed to sell. The company closed its doors in the summer of 1955, after failing to launch its new car, the ''Sagaie'', a development of the Ariette with a
flat-twin engine A flat-twin engine is a two-cylinder internal combustion engine with the cylinders on opposite sides of the crankshaft. The most common type of flat-twin engine is the boxer-twin engine, where both pistons move inwards and outwards at the same ti ...
. Lucien Rosengart died at his home near Nice.


Personal life

Rosengart was married to
Titanic RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...
survivor Virginia Ethel Emanuel (Martin) but was widowed in 1936. They had a son, Jean-Louis Rosengart (1932-2005).Encyclopedia Titanica biography of Virginia Ethel Emanuel
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References


External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20110726142434/http://www.ekeren-ton.nl/ * http://www.rosengart-museum.de/ * https://www.webcitation.org/6CN8mVEjO?url=http://www.bmwism.com/bmws_designers.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Rosengart, Lucien 1881 births 1976 deaths