André Lombard built his early career in the automobile industry working for Salmson, rising to the position of Commercial Director and establishing a concurrent reputation as a competition driver for the marque. His departure from Salmson in 1923 followed a serious falling-out with the company's Technical Director, Émile Petit, who accused Lombard of having purchased production equipment of poor quality. The terms of his exit included a five-year non-competition clause.
Lombard channeled his energies into competition driving during the clause's term, but retained his appetite for manufacturing. Defying the five-year restriction by a year, just four years after leaving Salmson, he unveiled his first automobile.
In 1927 Lombard presented the Lombard AL1 — a one-off prototype racing car — at Montlhéry, alongside two AL2 aerodynamic "tank-bodied" prototypes, employing the streamlined enclosed bodywork then referred to in French motorsport parlance as carrosserie tank. These prototypes formed the basis for the AL3, the company's first and principal production model, which entered manufacture in 1927.
The AL3 was powered by a 4-cylinder twin-overhead-camshaft engine of 1,083 cc. A portion of the production cars were fitted with superchargers, increasing their performance above the naturally aspirated output. The registered head office of the company was in Puteaux, with production initially handled by E. Briault in Courbevoie. From 1928 assembly moved to the Émile Salmson sons (Les Fils de É. Salmson) at Boulogne-Billancourt; one source also credits BNC at Argenteuil with assembly during part of the production run. All three locations were geographically proximate, situated in the northwestern fringe of Paris that had by then become France's principal automobile manufacturing district.
Lombard exhibited the AL3 at the 20th Paris Motor Show in October 1926, prior to its production launch. Further model variants — the AL4 and AL5, both one-off prototypes — appeared in 1928 and 1929 respectively, though neither advanced to series production. When manufacturing ceased in 1929, BNC acquired the remaining components inventory and a number of part-finished Lombard cars.
Lombard cars competed internationally despite the marque's short life. The most notable result came at the 1929 Australian Grand Prix, where W.H. "Bill" Lowe drove a Lombard AL3 to third place overall and a class victory in the 901 cc to 1,100 cc category — a result that demonstrated the potential of the small twin-cam design on circuits far from its French origins.
By the time production ended in 1929, approximately 94 Lombard cars had been built, almost all of them AL3 variants. The marque's existence traced a compressed arc — from a non-compete clause, to a Montlhéry debut, to international race results, to dissolution — in the space of roughly three years. André Lombard's decision to found the company while still bound by contractual restrictions, and to build lightweight sporting machinery in a market dominated by larger manufacturers, reflected the entrepreneurial character of French voiturette manufacturing in the late 1920s.