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Établissements V. Vermorel was a French engineering business〔Linz, Schrader: ''Die Internationale Automobil-Enzyklopädie.''〕 that existed between 1850 and 1965: for more than a century, until the death in 1957 of Édouard Vermorel, it was a family run business. The company presented its first automobile in 1899, but waited for some years before becoming a regular automobile producer. Between 1908 and 1930 Vermorel was noteworthy as an automobile manufacturer, and commercial vehicle production continued till 1932. == Origins == The origins of Vermorel go back at least to the business set up in 1843 by Antoine Vermorel in a small village called Beauregard,〔Beauregard is sometimes, respecting older local sources, written as Bourgard.〕 in the countryside up-river of Lyon. Vermorel manufactured agricultural machinery: products included a successful threshing machine.〔http://gazoline.net/article2.php?id_article=361#.UwOYTc7w9kQ Article on Vermorel〕 Most sources date the start of the business at 1850 which is when activities were relocated across the river to larger premises at Villefranche-sur-Saône. The focus was on agricultural equipment and machinery for wood-working.〔Georgano: ''The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile.''〕 Antoine Morel's son, Victor, joined the business in 1863.〔 At the end of the nineteenth century activity was still concentrated on agricultural equipment, notably a machine for spraying sulphur based insecticides and fungicides in the region's vineyards,〔http://gazoline.net/article2.php?id_article=169#.UwMh5c7w9kQ Article on François Pilain including a section on his time with Vermorel〕 still recovering from the destruction wrought by the Phylloxera plague during the 1870s and 1880s. The company was nevertheless keen to diversify, and automobiles were seen as a promising growth sector. A key role in Vermorel's beginnings as an automaker was played by François Pilain (1859–1924), chiefly remembered in retrospect as the uncle of Emile Pilain. During the closing decades of the nineteenth century François Pilain worked for pioneering automobile companies such as Serpollet and La Buire. In 1897 he established his own automobile business, the "Société François Pilain", but he almost immediately abandoned this project in order to join Victor Vermorel's established engineering company, with the mandate to create the Vermorel automobile division.〔 Under Pilain's leadership, the first Vermorel prototype was ready to be exhibited in March 1899 at the Lyon Fair. It featured a twin cylinder engine which delivered power to the rear wheels via a chain-drive mechanism. Several more Vermorel cars had been developed and constructed by the time the project came to a temporary halt in August 1901.〔 Assisted during this period by his nephew, Pilain experimented with various innovative transmission mechanisms: it is therefore surprising that when, some years later, Vermorel automobiles went into production, they featured conventional chain based transmissions.〔 In August 1901, after working with Vermorel for slightly under four years, Pilain left in order to try again establishing his own automobile manufacturing business, setting himself up at a premises at 51 rue de l'Abondance in nearby Lyon. His new business was registered as the "Société des Automobiles Pilain" (more commonly known as "SAP"). Pilain's business in Lyon made interesting progress, but it needed funding, and Pilain's agreement with his investors seems to have led to a loss of control that after seven years enabled him to be forced out of his business, following disagreements over spending priorities.〔 In Pilain's absence, Vermorel's ambitions to become an auto-maker apparently lapsed, but in 1908 the project was reinvigorated and Vermorel emerged as a regular automobile producer. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Vermorel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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