CIME

CIME—Compagnie Industrielle des Moteurs à Explosion—was established at Fraisses in France's Loire department during the early 1920s. The exact founding date and dissolution year are not securely published; Wikidata and some registers use 1920, while narrative sources state only the decade. Its principal business was designing and selling light proprietary gasoline engines, especially inline-fours and later inline-sixes, to small automobile manufacturers that lacked economical engine production. A 1,100 cc CIME unit appeared in the Anglo-French Marlborough by 1922. Customers over the decade included Able, ADK, Alphi, Antony, AS, Bignan, Buc, Cottin & Desgouttes, De Cézac, Delfosse, Derby, DFP, E.H.P., Elgé, FD, GAR, Génestin, GM, Guilick, Harris-Léon Laisne, Hinstin, Jean Gras, Jouffret, Jousset, Lidköping, Madou, Marino, MASE, Messier, PM, Rally, SAS, Sigma, S.P.A.G., Tuar and Turcat-Méry. These supplier relationships do not turn the customers' cars into CIME models. CIME's greatest competition result as an engine supplier was E.H.P.'s fifth place at the 1927 24 Hours of Le Mans with a 1,094 cc four. Six-cylinder applications included a 1926 Amilcar special and Derby voiturettes. Only in 1929 did CIME sell a complete automobile under its own badge. The sole model was the A2, a small sports car with CIME's 1,203 cc four-cylinder engine. Approximately twenty were built. Accessible histories provide no bore/stroke, output, valve layout, transmission, dimensions, weight, speed, price, body variations, serial numbers or exact build total. A surviving A2 at the Musée Automobile Reims Champagne proves the car was more than a catalog proposal. No later CIME-badged car is documented, though the engine business's exact closing date is unknown. CIME is distinct from Cimos, Cico/Cicostar, modern industrial motor makers and unrelated acronyms. One A2 row accounts for its entire own-brand automobile range while the history preserves its much wider supplier importance.

Text adapted from “CIME” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗