 The
only car that could rival the dominant Panhards at the beginning of
this century were the products of Emille Mors an electrical engineer
by training. His first cars had rear-mounted, two-cylinder engines. In
1899 he introduced a front-engined inline 4-cylinder which became the
foundation for his racing success. Designed by Henri Brasier the 2-hp
7.3 litre racing Mors won the 1900 Bordeaux-Perigueux-Bordeaux and
Paris-Toulouse-Paris races in the hands of Alfred Levegh.
In 1903 Mors used a streamlined
body resembling an "upturned boat". The Mors Dauphin, French
for dolphin had a pressed-steel chassis and an inlet-over-exhaust
engine with all valves mechanically operated from a single camshaft. The wind-cheating shape was abandoned in 1904, when the company's racing cars acquired the
new honeycomb radiator.
Two team cars were leading the doomed Paris-Madrid race when it was
halted at Bordeaux with Gabriel leading his teammate Salleron. In all
the company built 13 Dauphins. Mors would continue to race until 1908
but this was to be their last major victory.
André Citroën became chairman of Mors in 1908 and in 1925, Citroën bought Mors outright. The factory continued to produce cars but now entirely under the Citroën name.
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