De Dion-Bouton Tricycle - 1898

The Tricycle was a three-wheeled vehicle produced from 1896 to 1902 by the French car manufacturer De Dion-Bouton. In 1890, Count Albert De Dion, holder of the majority shareholding of the company De Dion, Bouton et Trepardoux in Paris, proposed to start experimenting with new internal combustion engines, engines that began to spread a little everywhere, thanks to the birth of some Houses like Peugeot in France and to the affirmation of others, like the Benz, in Germany. However, there were problems: Trepardoux, one of the three partners, as well as an avid supporter of steam engines, did not accept and in 1894 resigned from the company. Company that at this point could begin its projects with regard to internal combustion engines. After changing the company name to De Dion, Bouton et compagnie, which however became known to all as De Dion-Bouton, the Puteaux company took a few years to develop its first internal combustion engine: in 1895, therefore, he built a single cylinder from 137 cm³ and adapted it on a tricycle supplied by the small French company of Decauville. The engine in question had several advanced technical solutions, such as electric ignition and the use of an aluminum alloy to increase the lightness of the engine itself. Thanks to these solutions, this air-cooled engine was able to turn at a maximum of about 2000 rpm, an enormous level of rotation, if we consider that at that time the average rotation level of an internal combustion engine was 600-700 rpm In any case, the tricycle equipped with this engine was put on sale only the following year, after the engine itself was increased to 185 cm³ of displacement. In this configuration, this single cylinder was capable of delivering a maximum power of 4 hp, which, also thanks to the lightness of the car body, allowed excellent performance for the time. Also in 1896, the tricycle took part in the Paris-Marseille-Paris, where it ranked third, behind two larger and more powerful Panhard & Levassor. This result gave excellent light to the tricycle, for which the orders grew more and more, to the point of forcing the newborn car company to move to a new factory, more suited to meet these demands. The tricycle of De Dion-Bouton, which for the record was the first, a real car produced by the House of Puteaux, was taken out of production in 1902.