As I feel distinctly liverish this evening I need someone or something to work it out on,.. and the CR List just drew the short straw.
In the early 50s there was a "constructeur" called Brunelliere, working in a small town south of the Loire estuary, in France. Today his company is ca lled "Cycles Gitane" Similarly there was, in the 80s a "constructeur" calle d Kaufmann, building racing bikes in a small town near Troyes in central Fr ance. He is still building racing bikes transferred up as "JKF" - Jean-Fran cois Kaufmann. he built a lot of one-off frames for the French Pros, partic ularly some of the famous Peugeot Pros. His frames were of the bespoke vari ety
Not far from Machecoul where Brunelliere established his Gitane company is another company called "Chantier Atlantiques" - this company too is a "cons tructeur", It builds large "navires" - ocean - going ships and liners, each one a bespoke ship.
Thus far I think that I am supporting Fred's suggestion that constructeurs build one-offs, and manufacturers do long series runs of the same object..t herefore M Brunelliere has now become a manufacturer - a word that of cours e means "made by hand "
If all that isn't too confusing then consider an advertisement curren tly running on UK TV that reads "Renault - Constructeur d' Automobles"
A couple of your ago I asked Jean-Marie Duret, a friend of mine who builds a lot of frames..more or less alike, but all high class, and then com pletes the whole assembly into a unique bike, including often luggage racks , bar-bag racks etc ,whether he considered himself a "cadreur "(frame-build er) or a "constructeur", to which, after a short reflection he answered "No n, je suis fabricant" - No I am a fabricant ( a manufacturer). Asked what the difference was between a fabricant - which is a very widely used word in France, and a constructeur, he shrugged his shoulders in that particular Gallic way, and explained that a fabricant builds a lot of small size items and a constructeur builds big items...hence in my H achette dictionary..the noun "constructeur" is qualified by other words suc h as "automobiles", "ordinateurs" (computers) , "aeronautique" (aerop lanes).
All of which makes me realise that probably M Brunelliere was not only a co nstructeur but also a visionary.
And the moral of this story is.... "If you can't convince..then confuse the m!"
Norris Lockley, Settle UK
Norris Lockley
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