There’s a few other pioneering firsts that go along with the De Dion-Bouton motor trike, one of the most important early internal combustion vehicles. But this wonderful ad, one of the oldest in the industry, tells quite a story. As the bicycle had largely replaced the horse as personal transportation, so the the De Dion-Bouton now threatened to upset its dominance. And as with any new disruptive high-tech device, the early adopters were shown to be young, sexy, and irreverent. The world of personal transport was never going to be the same, and the 1897 De Dion-Bouton led the charge into the new century.
Jules-Albert de Dion, the engineer Georges Bouton and his brother-in-law, Charles-Armand Trépardoux, founded the firm De Dion-Bouton near Paris in 1882. They started with steam boilers, but soon caught the self-propelled bug, and started building steam-powered vehicles. In 1884, the built this steam trike, which was remarkably successful technically, as well as quick. It won the world’s first race for self-propelled vehicles, with a a average speed of 16 mph, and allegedly hitting a top speed of 37 mph. It was on the larger four-wheel De Dion-Bouton steamers that the eponymous rear axle design was first used, with a solid beam axle carrying the load, but power transmitted to the wheels independently.
De-Dion-Bouton steam trikes soon became the hot new thing for rich playboys, which probably helps explain the ad for the later motor trike. During this era, De Dion-Bouton was the world’s largest manufacturer of self-propelled vehicles.
Having seen Gottlieb Daimler’s gasoline engine at the Paris Exposition in 1889, De Dion and Bouton decided that was the future. They decided to build a small engine, one that could be used to power a bicycle. As it turned out, they felt that the engine was too heavy for two wheels and went with a tricycle configuration, which means that technically, it’s not the world’s first motorcycle; that honor goes to the 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmüller. But in reality, the De Dion-Bouton was vastly more advanced and successful, as it had the world’s first high-speed internal combustion engine. It legitimately is the first successful motorized bike/trike.
The initial single cylinder engine had only 133cc, but because it was able to run at the then-unheard of speed of 1500-1800 rpm (the 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmüller managed all of 240 rpm, and the Daimler “Reitwagen”750 rpm), its power output was a very respectable 0.5 hp. Later version were larger and considerably faster; by 1904, it had 995 cc and 8hp. A De Dion-Bouton trike set a land speed record on April 13, 1902 of 109 kmh (68 mph), with French racer Georges Osmont leaning over the handlebars.
What was the breakthrough that allowed higher engine speeds? Up to that time, ignition was by either a glow plug or gasoline-fired “hot tube”. The De Dion-Bouton had a dry-cell battery-operated high-voltage ignition system, firing a spark plug. With ignition timing now controlled, the engine was able to run much smoother and faster. The battery cells are carried in the box below the top central frame tube. But like most engines of the time, there was no carburetor at all; just a tank in which gasoline vaporized naturally, and that vapor was then fed to the engine. Drive was direct (no clutch), but there was a differential.
Here’s a video of one being started up and driven around some, at the Motorcyclepedia Museum. Now if only they’d left off the music.
The de Dion-Bouton motor trike was a very influential vehicle, due to its technical superiority and light weight. Although it was hardly cheap, it offered better performance than many of the heavy and very expensive early motor cars. With a trailer in tow, it was capable of hauling one’s sweetheart (or mother?), in a more realistic setting than the one from the ad. By 1900, it was the most popular motorized vehicle in France, which then by far was the world’s leader in motorized transport.
In addition to being built for ten years in France, numerous companies in most major countries were licensed to build the de Dion-Bouton motor trike, with some changes. Two companies, Thomas and Orient, built versions in the US. And the De Dion-Bouton inspired the many motorcycle makers that soon sprang up everywhere, as the means of making small engines operate more powerfully was the breakthrough, especially when actual carburetors were added within a few years.
These rugged trikes are still to be seen in vintage events, like this one in the 2008 London to Brighton run. The de Dion-Bouton was the most effective and cheapest way to experience the high of high speed in its time. It didn’t get much sexier than that, on wheels.
A detailed article focusing mainly on the De Dion-Bouton steam vehicles is here
Pretty cool ! .
Thanx for the article .
-Nate
A brand that gets way too little credit for what they accomplished.
And only the French could do an ad like that. Could you just see trying to run that ad in the America of 1897? Mobs would have burned the publisher down.
You really have to try and ride something like that to understand just how primitive motor vehicles were in those days. The earliest I’ve done is about thirty years newer, and that was still and incredible lash up of parts that, to the modern eye, can’t possibly work together. And I had the advantage of a recognizable carburetor. No matter how they describe them, I cannot fathom how what passed for carburation back then works.
I learn something new at CC every day and am grateful for it. Thanks
I expect that riding one of these at 68 mph on the roads of 1902 was quite an experience! Maybe it was done on a beach or some other naturally smooth surface?
Wow, this is awesome–great piece! I had no idea that these existed. There’s so many technical innovators in the turn from the 1800’s to the 1900’s, but they end up being forgotten because their brand name (or the information) gets the short end of the stick. It would have been an exciting time to be around back then, in terms of engines/ transportation, especially coming off of the horse and horse/ buggy configuration. Not all of the automobile designs and engines worked very well or were very efficient, but the technical innovation back then still has probably the greatest influence, overall, on what we’re still driving today. It was just a matter of refining it. The idea was to get from point a to point b in a more efficient manner, and what better way to do it, but to do it faster?
And you’re right on the ad……in it, we see the merits of effective advertising: the slow, inferior guys on the regular bike and the horse, and hot girl(s? Can’t totally tell, but the one on the back of the trike looks female), and the overall excitement of going somewhere fast, even if you don’t know where that destination is.
I believe that harlequin outfit the passenger (which, the more I look at it, is convincingly female) is wearing has some kind of social or style meaning back in those days. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to do some serious digging to find out what it is.
You know, like you’d look at a 60’s picture of someone with long hair, bell bottoms and some kind of eastern shirt and you immediately think “hippie”.
Although the person on the back seems to have a bit of a bust, I think that’s not meant to be a woman. To me, these two were involved in some show-business related scam, like perhaps duping the audience or some kind of fraud. The woman is wearing a costume that show girls would be seen in, and the man was a jester of sorts. They both clearly suggest that they’re involved in the show business somehow. And they of course ran afoul of the law.
But it does not suggest two women to me; that would have been a bit too far advanced even for France at the time. She’s his willing accomplice, but the crime or dupe was undoubtedly instigated by the man, at least primarily.
Just my interpretation.
I think the person on the back is dressed as a classic male character. Since this is an advertisement I think reading too much into what may be going on is pointless.
There’s a Pierrot in the background.
I was going nuts trying to figure out this chaotic scene, but your comment + thorough Googling put it all together, thank you!!
So these are all characters in an antiquated form of improv theater, the Commedia dell’Arte. Harlequin (passenger) is escaping with Columbine (De Dion-Bouton pilot), daughter of merchant Pantalone (red vest), seen here with his frienemy The Doctor (top hat) and his servant Pierrot (white pajamas).
Excellent artwork, and way, way, way ahead of it’s time despite referencing a nearly extinct type of performance. I think I even see a nip slip!
Right, Harlequin and Columbine are riding the trike (Photo courtesy of Marlene Thyssen).
I should have recognized them from seeing them in “The Nutcracker” once too often. 🙂
I thought the guy was wearing 1890’s sleepwear. Pajamas of the day, maybe. Dad is in the top hat, Mom’s next to him on the left, and Grandpa’s on the right.
That makes a lot more sense than my so called thoughts!
Fascinating stuff! I am amazed at the ways people got fuel and air into an engine before the carburetor came along.
Cool article, I got lucky enough to see one run recently. The one I saw was an 1899 and was equipped with a float carb. The owner says that it was one of the first 12 vehicles equipped with such in the world as De Dion pioneered that also.
I believe that the DeDion engine was the power for some (or several) early bikes made by others. Norton comes to mind but I could be wrong. I know that when we were doing stories on bikes that the name came up. This story helps make that relevant.
I just have to ask whether it had a De Dion rear supsension.
Not the trike, obviously. It was first used on their larger steam “Bogie” (tractor pulling passenger carriage) starting in 1896.
This ad looks like a “wardrobe malfunction” waiting to happen! The steam tricycle looks pretty cool, too; just the thing to drive to the train station to take the Orient Express for Constantinople.
This was a very interesting post. Now I now where the DeDion axle arrangement came from. The video was very interesting, can you imagine trying to maneuver this machine through the crowds on a Paris street. I followed some of the video links and watched a 1905 Harley Davidson single being ridden, very graceful. I imagine that the top speed was probably around 35-40 mph. Then I watched a video of a 1915 Harley Davidson 61 in. V twin that could hit a top speed of 60 mph. Wow that was much faster than most cars of the day. Amazing. These were real usable motorcycles. The gentleman in the video said that many of these models are currently ridden in cross country rallies. I thought I was a hero driving cross country on my “77” Sportster!
Those old bike ‘could’ do 60, but I doubt if you’d want to for any distance. 45mph cruising speed was normal in the twenties, if you got over that speed you were starting to use (not necessarily burn) oil faster than the drip feed was putting oil back into the crankcase (total loss oil system, not recirculating) – so you’d have to pull the hand pump built into the oil cap and start pumping additional oil into the crankcase.
Now, there’s no set amount of pumps per mile or anything like that, and besides speedometers were optional extras anyway. When I had the Indian my father in law just told me “watch the exhaust”, which may have had a lot of meaning to him back in his twenties when the bike was new, but it was completely meaningless to me.
Fortunately, on a visit to the Indian museum in Springfield, MA I ran across another person who owned a pre-34 Indian, and he gave me the accurate answer. This is not a joke:
“If you’re throwing smoke out of the exhaust like a destroyer on convoy duty, stop pumping and let the oil level go back down. If you hear the main bearings rattle, you’ve got about thirty seconds to start pumping before your bottom end goes.”
And the bike took 60 weight oil. Anything thinner would leak thru the cases.
Your father-in-law probably meant that if the amount of oil smoke in the exhaust dropped too low, start pumping. I don’t imagine that bearing rattle should be the normal trigger.
At any rate, it would have been exhiliarating going that bloody fast at that time. I can only imagine what they thought.
I tried to see if my old ’63 Beetle would run with the carb removed and the fuel line from the pump zip tied into the top of the intake manifold. Great idea, what could possibly be unsafe or go wrong? It actually started and did run, though badly, of course. What a great ad and amazing trike. Wonder if the ad was trying to infer it was faster then a speeding bullet?
Love the old ad. If you want something new to fly, make it sexy, fun, and give it a youthful twist. The trikes are cool as well – there was quite a sense of adventure about riding one of these, and I must say that I’m a little jealous of anyone who gets to ride such a classic. Great story.
Those Frenchies… toujours sexué
I saw one of these trikes at Hershey a couple of years ago. It was the oldest vehicle at the show.
Butler was 1st in 1865.
Correction needed.
I am writing a book on White Steam Cars – yes, it is related to the de Dion – and would love to know what museum or collector could provide a high resolution scan.
Windsor White, one of the three brothers associated with the White Steam Car (and bicycles) was racing his three wheeled French motor tricycle on the streets of Cleveland in November 1898.
Yes, they went with steam, but they did think about electric cars as well!
Thank you!
Don Hoke
The Virtual Steam Car Museum, Inc.
Dallas, TX