De Dion-Bouton Steam Quadricycle

This De Dion-Bouton & Trepardoux is one of the oldest surviving automobiles in the world.

This is one of the oldest surviving automobiles in the world. The steam boiler mounted at the front and the connecting rods to the rear wheels make this car resemble a shunting locomotive. Nevertheless, it is one of the first practical and therefore also successful applications of a steam engine in a small automobile. The two cylinder compound engine (combination of a high and a low pressure cylinder) mounted under the floor can even be operated by a single man, so no stoker is needed. The water tank is located under the seats, and the coal bunker is mounted around the boiler. The vehicle can raise steam in 50 minutes and reach a top speed of about 60 km/h. The firm De Dion, Bouton et Trepardoux is one of the very first and most important automobile manufacturers. The company was founded in 1880, when brothers in law Georges Bouton and Charles Trepardoux set up a small business near Paris making toy steam engines. Their refined engineering attracted the attention of the wealthy Count Albert de Dion, who then began financing the enterprise with the aim of producing steam vehicles for passenger and freight transport. In the early years of motoring, steam was one of the emerging propulsion technologies, alongside electricity and the petrol engine. When De Dion encountered the petrol engine at the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris (the event to which the city owes the Eiffel Tower), he saw new possibilities in it. The inventive Bouton even developed a petrol engine that outperformed the competition in many respects. Trepardoux, however, continued to cling to steam and left the firm in 1893.