Ernest Ballot and Julien Faivre founded their company on the Boulevard Brune in south-central Paris in 1905. Ernest's brother Albert was also involved in the company's early years. Ernest Ballot came from a naval background — a heritage reflected in the anchor motif that featured in the company's badges. Before the First World War the factory concentrated on marine and industrial engines, and from around 1910 also supplied automobile engines to other manufacturers, including Ballot engines used by Peugeot.
There is little evidence that Ernest Ballot took any personal interest in automobiles as sporting objects until December 1918. That changed in a significant conversation with René Thomas, the celebrated racing driver who had won the 1914 Indianapolis 500 driving a Delage. Thomas persuaded Ballot to build four 4.8-litre cars to carry the Ballot name at the next Indianapolis 500, scheduled for 30 May 1919. Time was extremely short, but Ballot moved quickly, recruiting Swiss-born engineer Ernest Henry — who had designed the revolutionary Peugeot Grand Prix cars of 1912–1914, introducing the dual overhead camshaft and four-valves-per-cylinder layout to racing — to prepare the cars. The collaboration placed Ballot immediately at the technical frontier.
The 1919 Indianapolis entry resulted in a fourth and eleventh place finish for two of the four Ballot cars. A Ballot driven by René Thomas also finished second in the 1919 Targa Florio. These results were sufficiently encouraging that Ballot returned to Indianapolis the following year, where Thomas finished second in 1920 in a Ballot, with further cars finishing fifth and seventh. Ralph DePalma, American national champion and winner of the 1915 Indianapolis 500, drove a Ballot to win the 1920 Elgin Trophy.
Ballot's ambitions extended beyond American oval racing. In the 1921 French Grand Prix, DePalma finished second and French driver Jules Goux finished third driving Ballots. Goux went on to win the inaugural Italian Grand Prix at Brescia, Italy in 1921 at the wheel of a Ballot, with team leader Jean Chassagne taking second in a sister car. A Ballot with a straight-eight-cylinder 4.9-litre engine contested the 1921 French Grand Prix. Chassagne had also made the fastest BARC lap of the year at Brooklands in 1920 in a 4.9-litre Ballot, finishing second.
These results placed Ballot among the top constructor-competitors of the early 1920s, competing on equal terms with the established Italian and French Grand Prix marques.
Alongside its racing programme, Ballot developed a range of road cars drawing on its engine expertise. The first production Ballot was the 1921 2-litre sports tourer, a four-cylinder overhead camshaft car of 1,994cc. In 1923 the Ballot 2 LT (touring) and 2 LTS (higher-tuned sport variant) followed. By the 19th Paris Motor Show in October 1924, Ballot had established itself as a producer of expensive, high-performance road cars, with the 2-litre sports tourer priced at 33,000 francs in bare chassis form or 46,000 francs in torpedo bodied form. From 1927, Ballot moved to eight-cylinder engines: the RH, a single overhead cam unit of 2,874cc, followed in 1929 by the RH3 with a 3,049cc displacement.
In 1931, Hispano-Suiza acquired Ballot. The transition proved fatal to the marque's identity: the last Ballot model was essentially a Hispano-Suiza with only the chassis supplied by Ballot. The marque closed in 1932. The Hispano-Suiza Junior, also designated the HS26, used a 4,580cc six-cylinder engine and represented the final expression of what had begun as a Parisian engine manufacturer's brief and brilliant foray into Grand Prix competition.