Gillet: French heritage also produced in Belgium.
Gillet: French heritage of scooters also produced in Belgium.
Gillet E51
Belgium
1953
Previous history
In addition to FN and Saroléa was Gillet one of the three main motorbike manufacturers in Belgium, all of which were located in the region around the city of Herstal. This town had established itself as a thriving centre for munitions production, and this high-precision technology also proved to lend itself well to the production of internal combustion engines in the late 19th century. FN and Saroléa had been in business for some 20 years before Désiré Gillet and his son Léon founded S A des Ateliers Gillet in 1919, adding 'Herstal' to the company name to differentiate themselves from the French group René Gillet. Gillet Herstal was a manufacturer of motorbikes and automobiles based in Herstal, Belgium. Their motorbikes were produced from 1919 to 1959. In the late 1920s, Gillet Herstal also manufactured a three-wheeled car, equipped with a motorbike engine.
Badge engineering
At a time when scooters were becoming a success, Gillet no longer had the ability to invest in scooter development. After shopping around with different suppliers, they eventually came to the French brand Bernadet. They had good relations after ordering the Gillet 720 for the French army, as this is where the French Bernadet army sidecar was built.
In 1953, they started selling the Bernadet E51 scooter, but with the Gillet logo. As this was not a great success, they stopped selling this scooter in 1956 and switched to building the 98cc mopet 'Capri'.
From 1955, the Belgian motor industry declined rapidly. Gillet exchanged models with FN and Saroléa. Also French Bernardet scooters, of which Gillet was initially only a dealer, were improved by Gillet and produced in-house. Like FN, Gillet produced Royal Nord mopeds, which were given their own tank logo. The in-house model line was drastically downsized. Incidentally, Gillet had already applied a reverse form of badge engineering with Royal Nord in 1931. The first motorbikes of this brand were actually Gillet models, but with a different tank logo.