The Story of Émile Mathis: The Forgotten Fourth Giant of French Automaking
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Émile Mathis was born on March 15, 1880, in Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of Europe. At the time, Alsace was part of the German Empire, and throughout Mathis’s life the region would change national identity multiple times. This shaped both his personal and professional world.
His father owned and operated a hotel. Growing up in that environment exposed Mathis to travelers, businesspeople, and industrial professionals from across Europe. From a young age, he was surrounded by multiple languages and international ideas.
His parents believed education could open doors. When Émile was still young, he was sent to apprentice in England, something unusual at the time. There he saw industry at full scale. Factories ran constantly. Machines were not curiosities. They were shaping the future. When he returned home, he carried with him international experience and the ability to work across cultures and languages.
By the time he was a teenager, the automobile was still experimental. Engines stalled. Roads were rough. Most people believed cars would never fully replace horses. Mathis believed the opposite.
Early Career: Entering the Automobile World
By age eighteen, Mathis was already working in the automobile trade, selling and repairing cars at a time when automobiles were still new and experimental. The industry was small, risky, and rapidly changing.
In the early 1900s, Mathis worked with engineer Ettore Bugatti during Bugatti’s early career period. Mathis focused on sales, promotion, and business strategy, while Bugatti focused on engineering design.
During these years, Mathis also built his dealership network by selling major makes across the region, turning Strasbourg into a crossroads for early motoring.
In 1905, Mathis opened the Auto-Mathis-Palace in Strasbourg. The facility was one of the most advanced automotive retail centers of its era, selling multiple vehicle brands alongside Mathis cars and incorporating modern service infrastructure such as multi-level service areas and mechanical lifts, helping establish the blueprint for the modern dealership.
He pushed fuel efficiency records, organized endurance proving runs, and created bold promotional campaigns that positioned his cars as modern, forward-thinking machines.
At the same time, Mathis was fascinated by another new technology: aviation. In 1910, he famously flew around Strasbourg Cathedral spire, becoming part of the very first generation of civilian pilots. In 1910, he famously flew his own aircraft around the spire of Strasbourg Cathedral, an event that shocked residents and symbolized how quickly technology was changing daily life.
By 1911, Mathis was building his own vehicles. His earliest successes came from small, lightweight cars. The Baby and Babylette were simple, practical and efficient. They were not built to impress crowds. They were built to be used every day. As the company grew, these cars were marketed as “big cars in miniature” with real usability, not flimsy cyclecars, and they became the foundation of the Mathis name.
Mathis expanded into larger and more powerful vehicles, including models like the Emysix and Emyhuit, attempting to serve a broader market. By the late 1920s, the first Emysix models appeared under designations like “SMY,” and their radiators began wearing the distinctive “Flamme Mathis” cap, a signature detail that became a brand icon.
At its height, the Strasbourg complex was described as one of the largest automotive production facilities in Europe. The main assembly halls stretched hundreds of meters, and the company directly and indirectly employed thousands of workers. At peak, the Strasbourg works were described as capable of roughly 100 cars per day, supported by a nationwide network of hundreds of agents. At times, Mathis operations were tied to a significant portion of Strasbourg’s industrial workforce, making the company not just a manufacturer, but a central economic force in the region.
War Changes Everything: World War I
World War I tore across Europe. Alsace was part of Germany and Émile Mathis was treated as a German subject whether he wanted that identity or not. His Strasbourg operations were pulled into the war economy and his factory was used for military production, forcing a civilian carmaker into wartime production.
Mathis was enlisted into the German Army, a situation that trapped many Alsatians in impossible loyalties. Then came the break. In 1916 he deserted the German side and joined the French Army. That single decision branded him a traitor in German eyes and it cost him dearly. His factory was confiscated and control of his industrial life was taken from him.
When the war ended in 1918 and Alsace returned to France, Mathis returned too. He reclaimed his footing, restarted production, rebuilt the business and rebuilt his place in the industry, once again trying to turn a borderland city into a motor city.
The Golden Years
The 1920s became his strongest years. His cars became known for being lighter, more efficient and practical. He pushed fuel economy long before fuel efficiency was a selling point. He believed lighter cars were smarter cars.
He believed the future belonged to efficiency.
In late 1922, the famous Mathis slogan appears: “Le poids, voilà l’ennemi” (“Weight, that’s the enemy”). Mathis backed the message with results: a 10CV type “SB” won a fuel consumption contest at Le Mans in October 1920, reported at 4.48 liters per 100 km, and in summer 1922 a small Mathis “P” was credited with an even more startling 2.38 liters per 100 km.
Mathis understood competition as marketing long before it became standard industry practice. He entered endurance runs and touring competitions such as the Paris–Berlin events and the Prince Henry Trials, sometimes even entering cars that were not expected to win, simply to prove durability and generate headlines. By the mid-1920s, factory-backed Mathis racing cars were winning major tourism Grand Prix events. When the company later stepped back from pure racing, it pivoted toward endurance raids, keeping the brand visible through long-distance reliability challenges instead of track dominance.
Exile and Industry: World War II
When World War II began, Émile Mathis did not simply leave France. He dismantled what he could of his industrial empire to keep it from falling into German hands. According to a 1945 profile in the New Yorker, he shipped equipment from Strasbourg using thousands of freight cars, then moved machinery again as German forces advanced toward Paris and later toward the Atlantic coast.
As the front collapsed, Mathis and his wife fled step by step across France, eventually escaping through Portugal before reaching the United States. By the time he arrived in New York, he had already lost massive industrial assets twice in his lifetime to German occupation.
Once in America, Mathis immediately began rebuilding. He withdrew remaining funds, rented factory space in New York and began pursuing wartime contracts. By the early 1940s he had established MATAM, a manufacturing operation producing munitions for Allied forces. His company secured major U.S. Navy contracts and earned early Navy “E” awards for production excellence, a recognition given to plants exceeding wartime manufacturing standards.
At its wartime peak, his American operations employed large industrial workforces and produced enormous quantities of ammunition. Even in exile, Mathis remained what he had always been: a builder of factories, systems and momentum.
Back in Strasbourg, industrial sites connected to his former operations were absorbed into wartime production networks and later suffered heavy damage during Allied bombing in 1944. The destruction marked the end of an industrial era and permanently reshaped manufacturing in the region.
Designing Tomorrow in Secret: The VL333
Even while Mathis supported Allied production, he was already imagining what the next generation of cars would need to be: lighter, more efficient and built for a world rebuilding from scarcity. Working secretly with aerodynamic engineer Jean Édouard Andreau, he developed the VL333 between 1942 and 1945. The name itself described the concept: a vehicle built around three wheels, three seats, and a target fuel consumption of three liters per 100 kilometers.
Only nine prototypes were built. The car was radically advanced for its time. It used aluminum body construction and a welded monocoque shell made with more than 6,000 weld points, with no traditional chassis. Power came from a 707 cc flat-twin engine producing about 15 horsepower. It featured front-wheel drive and fully independent suspension. The total weight was about 390 kilograms (850 pounds). Top speed was around 105 km/h (65 mph), with tested fuel consumption around 3.5 liters per 100 kilometers (about 69 mpg).
In 1946, the VL333 debuted at the Paris Auto Show and generated huge interest. Many observers saw it as a glimpse of the future of lightweight, ultra-efficient transportation.
A Future That Never Came: Postwar Reality
The problem was not engineering. The problem was the world.
Postwar Europe controlled raw materials, factory approvals and industrial production. Without materials and authorization, even brilliant designs could not become real products. The VL333 never entered full production.
By the early 1950s, Émile’s companies entered liquidation. He had no children to inherit the business or carry the company forward into a new generation of industry. Still, his influence remained in the ideas he had pushed forward. Efficiency, lightweight engineering and practical transportation.
See the Mathis Innovation in Person
Want to see what Émile Mathis believed the future of the automobile should look like?
Come see the 1946 Mathis VL333 at the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum.