Automobile club Luxembourg

Did you know that Luxembourg was one of the leading motorbike manufacturing countries for seven years, from 1947 to 1954? The Whizzer factory was located in Luxembourg-Cessange.

At their peak, the Whizzer Luxembourg SA workshops employed up to 100 people. “I also managed to find documents with the wages that were paid to the workers at the time,” explains Gilbert Bredimus.

A discussion with this motorbike history enthusiast takes us back 75 years to the days when Pierre Didier. from Steinfort. started manufacturing light motorbikes with a maximum capacity of 138 cc. “After the war, people had limited means and opted for two-wheelers to get around. The Luxembourg-built Whizzer was the European cousin of the Michigan Whizzer. But the challenge for Didier was to succeed in assembling motorbikes with parts from the United States, Germany and elsewhere,” he continues, pointing to the black and white photos of the Cessange factory’s glorious past.
 

Rally on 18 September

Although Whizzer’s adventure in Luxembourg only lasted seven years, “I have teamed up with APL to organise a day in honour of this Luxembourg brand on Saturday 18 September. The event will take place at the APL car park in Cessange”, says Gilbert Bredimus. On this occasion, more than twenty Luxembourg-built Whizzers will be brought together a few hundred metres from the workshops where they were originally manufactured.

Although he only owns a single Whizzer, Gilbert Bredimus has forged close links with other collectors over the years. In particular, we will be presenting motorised tandems that were made here. The most distant collector will be joining us from Ostend. The vast majority of the Whizzers made here were sold in Belgium at the time. The company would send out a Ford van in the morning to deliver to Belgian customers, and then the driver would continue on to the port of Antwerp to pick up the parts that had arrived by ship before returning to Cessange to be assembled,” concludes the collector.

Auto Parts Luxembourg (APL)

70, rue de Cessange
L-1320 Luxembourg
Tel.: +352 48 18 11