Gladiator Cycle Company

The Gladiator Cycle Company, Clément-Gladiator (from 1896), was a French manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles and cars based in Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Seine.

[1][2] The cycle manufacturer was founded at Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Seine north east of Paris by Alexandre Darracq and Paul Aucoq in 1891.

In 1896 Adolphe Clément who held the extremely profitable manufacturing rights for Dunlop tyres in France joined with a syndicate led by Dunlop's founder Harvey Du Cros to buy out the Gladiator Cycle Company and they merged it into a major bicycle manufacturing conglomerate of Clément, Gladiator & Humber & Co Limited.

The combined oil and petrol tank was behind the saddle and the batteries were stored in a leather case strapped to the horizontal frame tube.

Some of these cars were equipped with engines manufactured nearby in Saint-Denis Paris by Aster in single, twin or four cylinder configurations.

Gladiator Double Phaeton of 1907, 2 cylinder, 2,423 cc, 12 PS, 45 km/h, at Cité de l'Automobile – Musée National – Collection Schlumpf, Mulhouse , France
Poster by Gaston Noury
Poster printed by Georges Massias
Dorothy Levitt and the 12 hp Gladiator car she drove in a series of reliability trials in 1903