De Dion Bouton motor tricycle

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De Dion Bouton
1900 De Dion-Bouton Tricycle.JPG
De Dion Bouton motor tricycle (1900)
De Dion Bouton motor tricycle
Manufacturer De Dion Bouton
Production period 1897 to 1905
class motorcycle
design type Trike
Motor data
Four-stroke engine , air-cooled single-cylinder engine, drop lubrication, surface carburetor, battery ignition
Displacement  (cm³) 138-955 cc
Power  (kW / PS ) 0.5-8 horsepower at 1,500-1,800 min -1
Top speed (  km / h) 30-109.1 km / h (record)
transmission Direct drive
drive gear
Brakes front: block brake
rear: band brake
Wheelbase  (mm) Track width 92 cm
Empty weight  (kg) 80 kg

The De Dion Bouton motor tricycle from 1897 was the most successful motor vehicle in Europe until the turn of the century. With around 15,000 units sold, the De Dion-Bouton motor tricycle achieved its first breakthrough in the spread of motor vehicles. In particular, the high-speed De Dion Bouton engine set new standards for built-in engines and is considered the forerunner of all motorcycle engines.

development

Albert de Dion , the technician Georges Bouton and his brother-in-law Charles-Armand Trépardoux founded a workshop near Paris as early as 1882. The first project was the production of steam boilers, then a very successful steam-powered tricycle from 1887, which is said to have reached a speed of 65 km / h. Trépardoux, who stuck to the further development of steam engines, left the company in a dispute in 1893; De Dion and Bouton decided to develop gasoline engines after seeing Daimler's engines at the Paris World's Fair in 1889 .

engine

In 1895 the first four-stroke engine was ready for series production. From a displacement of 138 cm³ (bore 50 mm, stroke 70 mm), the single-cylinder engine with surface carburetor achieved 0.5  HP at a speed of 1500 min −1 , an astonishingly high speed for the time. For comparison: Hildebrand and Wolfmüller achieved 240 min −1 , Daimler's riding car engine ran at a maximum of 750 min −1 . Bouton found that glow tube ignition was the obstacle to higher speeds. He developed a high - voltage battery ignition with an interrupter for the engine . The dry battery for the ignition was located under the upper frame tube (on the motor tricycle), and the ignition could be adjusted with a small lever. The controlled exhaust valve was actuated via a gear-driven camshaft, the intake valve was designed as a poppet valve . The design advantage is said to have been that the inlet valve opened very early (0-5 degrees after top dead center ). The cylinder head was removable and screwed to the crankcase with four bolts. The weight of the cast iron engine including all ancillaries was less than 20 kg. "Simplicity and lightness were the advantages of this engine."

Motor tricycle

Only in 1897 was the almost 80-kg De Dion-Bouton tricycle, now with a displacement of 211 cc and a power of 1.5 HP (1.1 kW) at 1,800 min -1 , in production, although in 1895 the The engine had been experimentally installed in a tricycle. The tricycle with a track width of 92 cm was chosen because for De Dion and Bouton "a bicycle seemed too unstable for this purpose".

The motor and the necessary to compensate for the different radii of curvature differential sat on the rear axle. The engine was upright and mounted so that the crankshaft was perpendicular to the direction of travel. In order to keep the center of gravity exactly in the center plane of the car, the engine was shifted slightly to the left and the differential to the right accordingly. The very compact drive train consisted of a small gear mounted directly on the crankshaft and a larger gear on the rear axle; it in turn passed this on to the wheels via the differential and asymmetrical semi-axles. The size of the two gears could be experimented with. Most of them got a small one with 11 to 15 teeth and a very large one with 102 to 106 teeth on the axle. At the end of the 1890s, these motor tricycles were considered to be the fastest motorized means of transport.

The relatively high purchase price was 1,000 to 1,500 gold marks . The motor tricycle remained in the production program for almost ten years, and the displacement and output were constantly increased. The final model (1904) had a 955 cc (100 mm bore, 120 mm stroke) increased motor and made 8 hp (5.9 kW) at 1800 min -1 . On April 13, 1902, the French racing driver Georges Osmont set a speed record of 109.1 km / h with a De Dion Bouton motorized tricycle in Nice .

Licensee and Copies

In 1895, after the start of series production of the engine, and in 1897, with the production of the motor tricycle, engines or complete tricycles were either copied under license from numerous manufacturers or copied with slight changes, including by manufacturers in:

gallery

  • De Dion Bouton motor tricycle around 1898

  • De Dion Bouton motor tricycle from 1899

  • De Dion Bouton motor tricycle from 1899, with a push-in car

  • De Dion Bouton motor tricycle from 1899

  • Peugeot motor tricycle with De Dion Bouton engine from 1900

Remarks

  1. ↑ From 1897 to 1901, without licensees and copies.
  2. ↑ Around 200,000 engines are said to have been manufactured in total.
  3. ↑ According to Bugatti by Borgeson , p. 30: not very clear; the British Bugatti Club (Bugatti Trust) names the company Société Rochet in Paris as the manufacturer of the frame . This in turn made similar vehicles, but used Aster engines.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Encyclopedia of the Motorcycle. Instituto Geografico De Agostini, 1996. ISBN 3-86047-142-2 . P. 132
  2. ^ LJK Setright: The Guinness Book of Motorcycling. Facts and Feats. 1982, ISBN 0-85112-255-8 , p. 23
  3. ↑ a b Ferdinand CW Käsmann: World record vehicles . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89602-527-9 , p. 328
  4. ↑ a b Juraj Porazik: Motorbikes from the years 1885 to 1940. Slovart Verlag, 1983. ISBN 978-3768402408 , p. 54
  5. ↑ a b c d e Cyril Posthumus and Dave Richmond: Motorcycles Yesterday and Today. Munich 1978, ISBN 3-453-52080-7 , p. 15 ff.
  6. ↑ Peter Kirchberg: Oldtimer - Cars from Yesterday , Urania-Verlag Leipzig, 4th edition 1981, p. 30
  7. ^ Griffith Borgeson: Bugatti by Borgeson (1981), Osprey Publishing Limited, London ISBN 0-85045-414-X . P. 32
  8. ↑ Oscar Koch: The current state of motorcycles. In: Polytechnisches Journal . 323, 1908, pp. 312-314.
  9. ^ Christian Bartsch (ed.): A century of motorcycle technology. VDI-Verlag Düsseldorf. ISBN 3-18-400757-X . P. 54

Web links

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