Rosengart LR4N2

About the Rosengart LR4N2

Lucien Rosengart (1881 - 1976) was a gifted engineer and businessman who had established a successful engineering business by the time he was 24. In the mid-1920s, he saw the opportunity to produce a very small car for a segment of the market in France that he believed was not being properly covered by any of the major players. He therefore purchased, in 1923, a license to build the English Austin 7 and with support from the engineer Jules Salomon he purchased the old Bellanger factory at Neuilly. The site was a large one and in the early years the business appeared set to fill it.

At the Neuilly plant, on the Boulevard de Dixmude, in 1927 production began of the Rosengart LR2 automobile which appeared on the market in 1928, at the same time as the precursor of the first BMW automobile, also an Austin 7 built under licence, was appearing in Germany. Numerous variants of the Rosengart LR2 were produced and the car remained in production at least till 1939.

From 1931 the car appeared in modified form as the Rosengart LR4, now heavily differentiated from its Austin origins, and the model’s robust character was demonstrated by several long distance trials. Variations on this model would survive until the 1950s, always retaining the original short 2,200 mm (86.6 in) wheelbase. A further substantial upgrade of Rosengart’s small car took place in 1938 with the appearance of the Rosengart LR42N 4CV.