Belgian Prestige: the Métallurgique story

Could this be a Métallurgique?
----------------------------------------------------
Zou dit een Métallurgique kunnen zijn?

Please find a photograph of my grandfather from 1912. Born in London, he travelled with a Métallurique sold to a company called Drysdales (Pumping and Marine Engineers) in Buenos Aires. I think the attached picture is of that car.

This was my father’s Métallurgique, which he owned from the late 1950s until around 1965. He sold it to buy his first black and white television set… He lived in County Kildare in Ireland. Anyone with any knowledge of the whereabouts of this car today, please get in touch.

I recently found the attached picture of a Métallurgique which my grandfather (hand on steering wheel) owned sometime between 1917 and 1922. Can anyone enlighten me with more information on the history of this model (possible year of manufacture, who was the importer in the Netherlands, etc.)?
Thanks.

My great uncle Walter Bentley Sharples (Billy), after completing his five-year apprenticeship with my grandfather Ron Hiles at Crossley Motors, rebuilt a Métallurgique as an underslung chassis special around 1936. The car was described as a sleek and low red sports car with a substantial engine. He was at the time an accomplished sculptor and in 1938/9 worked with Barbara Hepworth in St. Ives. On one of his journeys to St. Ives from Bury, Lancashire, no doubt “pressing on”, the Métallurgique threw a conrod. The car was returned to his home in Bury and stripped down, but the work was not completed due to the war. It sat disassembled in the garage awaiting Billys attention, which sadly never came. Billy was 5th Engineer officer aboard the Merchant vessel "Arinia" (fuel tanker) that hit a mine in the Thames estuary, December 1940. My grandfather, who manufactured aircraft wings and drop tanks in Fleetwood, worked on the car when he could and eventually completed the repairs. The underslung Métallurgique then sat outside unused for quite some time and was probably sold after the war. To my knowledge no photographs of the car have survived the image shown is a young Billy to the left taken with his supervisor at the Crossley Motors Gorton Works circa 1929.

1911 Métallurgique in the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum (2011).

Métallurgique with German licence plate.

Dear Sirs,
Please find enclosed a photo of my Métallurgique 1919, just ready for the road after many years of restoration in Oslo. Would you like more information or/and photos, please advice.
Regards,
Lasse Aas

There is a detailed description with chassis, gearbox and engine drawings of the 1900/1901 Métallurgique, two-cylinder, 4.5 h.p. Carriage in the March 1901 Horseless Age Magazine - see attached.

Métallurgiques did not get much attention in Britain until the Institute of Chauffeurs Ltd. started to sell them c.1904-5, when they offered chassis with 8 or 12 h.p. two-cylinders and 12, 16, 24 and 30 h.p. fours. Oscar Cüpper then took the agency in 1906 and entered 25-28 h.p. and 40 h.p. cars in handicap races, Manx TTs, hill-climbs and trials up to 1908, which “brought it into wide prominence.” An English Métallurgique “factory” was due to be in operation during 1907 and Warwick-Wright took over the agency later in 1908.

The brand hosted a little-known first in 1910, when a 12-14 h.p. Métallurgique was the first new car displayed at the London Motor Show (indeed, at any motor show) fitted with four-wheel hydraulic brakes. Messrs. Hill and Boll of Yeovil, England built its coachwork on a chassis with brakes made and installed by The Weight Patent Brake Company of Bristol. That new company had been seeking interested European manufacturing licensees and it is unconfirmed but possible that Métallurgique, being quite innovative, authorised this installation on one of their chassis via Warwick-Wright.

Here is what nationally published British adverts said in November 1910: “ALARMING MOTOR ACCIDENT prevented by braking all Four Wheels. Manufacturers have been trying to obtain a brake acting on the Front Wheels of a Car as well the rear, but with little success, the mechanism interfering with steering, necessitating constant adjustment. A new brake is now made on the hydraulic system, oil pressure overcoming all difficulties, retaining freedom of steering, with double the power of an ordinary brake, yet perfectly smooth, no strain on transmission, pulls up car in a few feet without shock, reduces tyre bill, insurance premium 10% less. Exhibited on Métallurgique Car Stand 128, Olympia (Hill & Boll), or obtain particulars from Weight Patent Brake Co., Luckwell Works, Bristol.”

It was not strictly the first car so fitted, as the Weight’s company was set up after many years developing hydraulic brakes on test cars and getting UK patents in 1908 and 1909, and then the USA, 1910. Many motoring journalists and the Autocar Magazine were hugely complimentary about the performance of this foot pedal actuated braking system and details were published in American automotive trade magazines.

Unfortunately for Weight Patent Brakes, independent mechanical front wheel emergency brakes had proved so alarmingly unsafe that well-known manufacturers in Britain who began to fit them from c.1906 (NB: Métallurgique did not) stopped by 1910 because most customers no longer trusted any form of front brake. Consequently, the Weights did not get any major manufacturers interested, which despite their system’s published accolades curtailed any prospect of the business succeeding. Someone else would be attributed the invention of four-wheel hydraulic brakes after “reinventing” them seven years later…

The most famous one of all was the 1907 Douglas Fitzpatrick giant with a 1910, 6-cylinder, 21-litre, 195 bhp Maybach Zeppelin airship engine installed in 1919. The car started life with Métallurgique's own 10-litre 100 bhp engine.