Brothers Louis and Laurent Seguin were the inventors of the famous Gnome rotary radial engines.

-The story begins in 1985 when Louis Seguin began to build engines under a German license from the (curiously) Motorenfabrick Oberursel “Gnom”. It made industrial engines and engines for canoe-type boats from 2 to 20 HP.

-Louis was an engineer trained at the Ecole de Arts et Manufactures or Arts and Crafts, in Gennevilliers.

-This was the place where they founded the company “Socièté des Moteurs Gnome” in 1905. Two years later the first rotary radial engine came out, first the 7-cylinder which was called Omega, the prototype was a five-cylinder without cooling fins, which gave 34 HP.

“Seguin engine cross-section”

-Other engines followed, such as the 24 HP 3-cylinder. Through the Gnome Company (see) Seguin's materialized ideas became the most important and well-known brand of rotary engines in the First World War.

-A four-cylinder cross-shaped radial engine credited to Seguin appears in a North American magazine.

“Seguin Engine”