René Gillet side motorcycle Type G Vanneau with two cylinders (750 cc)
Max. speed: 70 km/h
Manufactured: 1898-1957
Sté René Gillet & Cie
126 route d’Orléans
Montrouge (Seine)
René Gillet built motorcycles between 1897 and 1957.
His first engines were attached bicycle-fashion above the front wheel, and by the turn of the century he was building machines with the engine located on the axis of the pedal crank, in what soon became the norm. He was the first to do so.
A single-cylinder motor bicycle was presented at the 1902 Paris Salon and the first motor bicycles entered series production that year. By 1904 he was producing 45° V-twins in a new workshop on Route d’Orlean in Montrouge.
By 1912 the machines had parallelogram front forks. Orders for V-twins for the French army arrived as the dark clouds gathered.
