Gregoire Campbell
During the last pre-war season at Brooklands Malcom Campbell had divided his activities between several marques but won the first heat of the Whitsun Private Competitors’ Handicap with a Gregoire car.
After demobilisation Capt (later Sir) Malcolm Campbell, as a famous racing driver and record-breaker, set up premises at 27, Abelmarle Street, Piccadilly, to sell cars as an agent. The British Gregoire Agency at Halkin Place, Belgrave Square, permitted him to sell a Gregoire chassis in which was installed a Bignan engine, as the sporting Gregoire-Campbell. Jacques Bignan had a motor car factory at Courbervoie, on the Seine, and a Bignal engine was apparently installed in the Gregoire works in France for a a polished chassis and a sports-bodied example of this 85 x 130mm 17/50hp Gregoire-Campbell to be exhibited at the first post-Armistice Olympia Show in November 1919. See Automobiles Bignan (England)
The Gregoire-Campbell as shown was fitted with a Haslam thief-proof lock on the steering wheel, to prevent the car being driven or towed away.
“The G-C had the four-cylinder 85×130 (2940cc) Bignan side-valve engine. The very large valves were slightly inclined and the camshaft pinion weighed some 5kg, to act as a timing gear damper. The two bearing crankshaft was in the bottom instead of the usual top part of the crankcase, and to stop oil getting into the cylinders its crank-pins each had two thrower rings near the webs and corresponding grooves on the big ends. The carburettor was a Claudel, which may have been a Campbell mod, and he seems to have revised the radiator shape. The de la Fourmaise chassis had a wheelbase of 9ft 5in, a cone clutch, four-speed gearbox, half -elliptic springs and 880×120 tyres. The rear brakes had pipes within their drums to drain away surplus oil from the hubs, which also lubricated the brake cams. The chassis price was £990 sans tyres.” <ref>https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/september-2000/118/campbells-french-connection/ Motor Sport Magazine]