In an effort to save the company and the jobs it provided, several avenues were explored, including the manufacture of sewing machines, looms, automobiles, and motorcycles.

In the case of two-wheeled vehicles, the company initially acquired a licence to produce British motorcycles from ABC Motors, but financial difficulties persisted. In fact, it was only with the arrival of Paul Louis Weiller—an industrialist, Officer of the Légion d’Honneur, and a pilot during the 1914–1918 war—that a degree of order was restored, reversing the course that had nearly led to the brand’s disappearance. Visionary and dynamic, Weiller reoriented production to focus solely on motorcycles and aircraft engines.

From as early as 1923, Gnome & Rhône began building their own motorcycle designs, which were progressively refined and promoted through circuit racing events. In 1935, the company unveiled the XA model, featuring a horizontally opposed twin-cylinder engine with overhead valves and a displacement of 750cc. The following year saw the introduction of an improved version, the XA2, fitted with a Bernadet sidecar.

In light of military orders, a derivative model was developed from the XA2, featuring sidecar wheel drive and a simplified engine with increased capacity to 800cc, now employing side valves to enhance reliability. Thus was born the AX2 model, which began to be supplied to the French, Czechoslovak, Polish, and Soviet armies prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.

The new AX2 demonstrated its superior durability in December 1938, when four sidecar-equipped units completed the 5,300 km journey from Paris to Dakar without major issues—somewhat anticipating, by four decades, the route of the now-famous rally raid between those two cities.

With production in full swing, a total of 2,700 Gnome & Rhône AX2 motorcycles had been delivered to the French Army by the time of the armistice in May 1940. These machines became ubiquitous across various units, particularly among the Cavalry Dragoons, to whom they were given in priority. It is worth noting that some sidecars were armed with FM 24/29 light machine guns, built by the Manufacture d’Armes de Châtellerault (MAC), thus providing motorcyclists with a measure of offensive capability. After the armistice, many AX2s were captured by the Germans, refurbished, and later used by the Wehrmacht alongside new units produced under occupation orders—easily identified by their smaller sidecars.

After the war, production resumed once more, this time for the benefit of the French Gendarmerie Nationale, which received several dozen examples by the end of 1946. These remained in service until the 1950s.