Les Établissements Fonlupt — L’Officiel du cycle, 1 November 1952, a Profile of the La Clayette Cycle Works and Its Founder

From L’Officiel du cycle, du motocycle et du camping, 1 November 1952, N° 44, the paper’s number reporting on the Salon du Cycle at the Porte de Versailles, page 83: les Établissements Fonlupt, constructeurs de cycles, à La Clayette (Saône-et-Loire): profile of the firm and of its founder Alfred Fonlupt, with photographs of the workshops, the frame and wheel stores, a portrait, the château de La Clayette and the factory. The title, headings, captions and lists are transcribed as printed; the text is summarized in Ebykr’s words, and the page images carry it in full.

— Page 1 —
LES ÉTABLISSEMENTS FONLUPT

A LA CLAYETTE (Saône-et-Loire)

CONSTRUCTEURS DE CYCLES

Dans cette page :
les entrepôts
et ateliers Fonlupt

*

Ci-desssous :
M. Alfred FONLUPT

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. The Établissements Fonlupt, cycle makers at La Clayette (Saône-et-Loire), are presented as a striking example of an achievement owed to the will, the intelligence and the activity of one man, a leader (animateur). That man has been for some thirty years M. Alfred Fonlupt, who has attracted a large French and foreign clientele. Demobilized in 1919, the founder of the firm came to settle in Saône-et-Loire, in the charming commune of La Clayette, which is watered by a pretty river, the Genette, ending in a fine lake of 35 hectares; a historic château of the 14th century decorates the site with its turrets, small bell towers and pepper-pot roofs. The small Fonlupt house quickly becomes the main economic hearth of the place. Its director gives himself to every task, works day and night, always cheerful and always kind to all, his suppliers, his workers and his customers, and is seconded by a devoted and courageous wife who is at once mother, housekeeper and bookkeeper. The business soon grows, wins general confidence and makes itself an enviable place in cycle construction, and the intrinsic quality and outward finish of the bicycles leaving the Fonlupt workshops earn them a deserved reputation.]

[Ebykr summary, continuing in the second column of text. Equipped with ultra-modern machinery, the workshops are a veritable hive in which the following operations are distinguished, for a perfect execution of the work in a division that tends toward unity: brazing, assembly in the white, sandblasting, enameling, decoration, assembly in the black and careful inspection and packing. The photographs alongside show some aspects of this thoroughly French house, whose model factory lets the visitor see the electric operation of the frame-and-fork pinning machine (on a marble bed), spray painting in booths, electric filing, oxy-acetylene welding and the baking, in enormous electric-resistance ovens, of all the enamels, to name only a few jobs at random. From there come the bicycles of every type, the children’s cycles, the cyclomotors and the trailers that the Fonlupt firm distributes in France and throughout the world. Having become one of the principal industrialists of La Clayette, M. Alfred Fonlupt owes to the esteem of his fellow citizens his duties as Mayor for the past eight years. He is now helped in his task by his three children: two sons, who manage the technical and the commercial sides of the business respectively, and a daughter who is the best private secretary her father could have. The notice closes calling it a fine example of family cooperation crowned by success.]

A droite :
l’Usine Fonlupt

*

A gauche :
le Château de La Clayette

— 83 —

[A full magazine page in black and white, set in a single sheet with halftone photographs round a central block of text. The head carries the heading LES ÉTABLISSEMENTS FONLUPT in heavy condensed sans-serif capitals, centered between two photographs, with A LA CLAYETTE (Saône-et-Loire) in lighter sans-serif capitals beneath it and CONSTRUCTEURS DE CYCLES in slanted spaced sans-serif capitals below that. The upper left photograph shows a workshop in which a worker in dark clothes stands at a bench beside a tall rack with a domed top and several people work behind him, with wheels and tires hanging from the roof beams. The upper right photograph shows a tall storeroom with metal shelving frames stacked with bicycle frames and forks, and a woman in a light dress standing at the right. Below them at the left a second workshop photograph shows three seated women in work clothes at benches, with rims hung in rows from a rail above; at the right a photograph shows long racks holding great coils of rims or tubing. A small centered caption in upright roman type with a star between its two parts stands between these two pictures. The central photograph shows a bald man in glasses and a bow tie, in shoulder-length portrait. The article is set in two columns of italic roman type around the portrait, with a large decorative drop capital L at the head of the left column, the firm’s name in small capitals and upright roman among the italics, and a photograph of shelves of wheel rims stands between the two columns lower down, with the left column narrowing beside it. At the foot a halftone view at the left shows a château with a round tower, pointed turrets and a crenellated gate on a lawn, with a small script mark in its lower right corner reading CIM; at the right a photograph shows a modern factory building with a flat roof, a stuccoed block and a sign carrying part of the name FONLUPT, seen from the street. A caption with a star between its two lines sits between these two photographs, and the page number 83 stands below, set between two dashes. Faint printing from the reverse of the leaf shows through at the foot and in the right margin. No signature or artist’s name appears.]