His name will mean nothing to the youngest among us, but he is a great man of French motorcycling who is buried this afternoon in the Church of Cuers, as we publish these lines.
Intermediate link in a very large two-wheel family in France, between his father who created the famous motorcycle store in Toulon in 1957 and his son Jean-Louis who rode in Grand Prix before creating MIG exhausts (Moto Industrie Guignabodet), Gilbert Guignabodet passed away at the age of 87.
A modest character who shunned light and glitter, the man had handled the bracelets himself (we remember his class victory at the Bol d'or 1957) before helping a plethora of pilots including, for example, Jean-François Baldé to Sébastien Charpentier via Christian Léon.
However, the man could not escape glory, winning the Endurance world title in 1995 after having lined up the private Honda RC 45 of Jean-Michel Mattioli, Stéphane Mertens and Michel Siméon against the factories…
All our thoughts are with his family.
