De Dion-Bouton Motorette Company

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De Dion-Bouton Motorette Company
legal form Corporation under US law
founding 1900
resolution 1903
Reason for dissolution insolvency
Seat New York City ( USA )
management Fred C. Cocheu, James C. Church, PH Flynn, CJ Field, AA Halsey, VV Torbensen
Branch Automobile manufacturing
As of January 10, 2015

The De Dion-Bouton motorette Company was a short-lived American automakers pioneer times, a Voiturette of De Dion-Bouton nachbaute under license. The brand name was American De Dion .

Company history

The French engine and automobile manufacturer De Dion-Bouton had been making efforts to gain a foothold on the US market since 1897 . It is unclear whether there was already a collaboration with the founders of the De Dion-Bouton Motorette Company for the construction of single-cylinder engines or, at best, tricycles ; both were manufactured under license by several companies in the USA. The first Cadillac had a Leland-Faulconer engine based on De Dion-Bouton patents. License versions of the same engine were also used for the first models from Pierce and Peerless .

Although several companies also imported the coveted French De Dion-Bouton products to the USA, the De Dion-Bouton Motorette Company was the only manufacturer who tried to obtain a license for the Voiturette Vis-à-Vis . Fred C. Cocheu, James C. Church, PH Flynn, CJ Field and AA Halsey founded the company specifically for this purpose, based at the intersection of 37th Street and Church Lane in Brooklyn ( New York ). and US $ 150,000 in capital, making it one of the few in its industry not chronically underfunded. A salesroom was set up on West 66th Street in Manhattan.

American De Dion-Bouton Voiturette Type New York Motorette with 3½ HP from 1900. The design corresponds to the first production model De Dion-Bouton Type D.

The representative of De Dion-Bouton in the USA and thus responsible for the issuing of licenses was the lawyer Kenneth A. Skinner, 179 Clarendon Street, Boston ( Massachusetts ) , who occasionally raced with tricycles of the brand . The De Dion-Bouton motorette Co. had to agree with him about the use of the trademark and production rights. Viggo V. Torbensen , who later produced his own automobiles and built up a very successful company for the manufacture of axles for trucks and cars, was won as chief engineer .

Initially, an exact copy of the first series-built De Dion-Bouton Voiturette Type D with a tubular steel frame, single-cylinder engine , draw-wedge gear and, as the most important innovations, the De-Dion axle (developed for their steam cars ) and power transmission via cardan shaft was produced . It was offered as a two-seater model Brooklyn Motorette and four-seater vis-à-vis New York Motorette 3½ HP or as a two-seater Doctor's Brougham with 3½ or 5 HP. As with the original, the prices for the license building were also rather high; the Brooklyn Motorette runabout cost from US $ 850. That was US $ 200 more than the 4½ hp Oldsmobile Curved Dash with its slightly more powerful engine . Apparently, the company's costs soon got out of hand and the price was even increased to US $ 1500. That was US $ 300 more than was charged for the Packard Model C with a significantly more powerful 12 bhp motor . One reason for this may have been the poor roads in the USA; the company invested a great deal of time and money in reinforcing the structure.

It helped little that the British motorcycle racer CG Wridgeway 1900 a motorette - prototypes public appeal from Brooklyn to Chicago ( Illinois ) went to ask about its reliability.

The end of the company was inglorious, but not atypical for this time. In 1901, the sheriff had to intervene so that three dissatisfied car buyers could get their money back. One of them was James Lawrence Breese (1854-1934), a wealthy banker from Southampton, New York . He was a racing car driver himself and was involved in Ormond and neighboring Daytona Beach becoming the first centers of motorsport in the USA. Later he was involved in organizing the Vanderbilt Cup . He had taken action against De Dion Motorette because the delivery time for the car he had ordered had been exceeded by two months.

Torbensen found a job in the same position at Searchmont and later founded the Torbensen Motor Car Company .

As early as January 1902, Skinner wrote out the license again because the previous owners had "violated the license agreements". However, no other interested party was found.

According to one source, Skinner himself was involved in the company, but this is less likely due to the company's history and the withdrawal of the building license.

technology

The American De Dions, like their French counterparts, have rear-engine and rear-wheel drive. The chassis consists of welded round tubes; it widens behind the front seats. At the front, three semi-elliptical leaf springs form a kind of platform. Two are conventionally aligned lengthways; the front ends of which hang from the front end of the chassis longitudinal members, these ends are in turn bent downwards. The third leaf spring hangs upside down and at right angles to the direction of travel on a chassis cross strut. Their ends are therefore connected to the ends of the other two leaf springs at a 90-degree angle.

In addition to the gearbox, the engine is mounted across the rear axle in a housing directly under the driver's seat, which is mounted far back. The water-cooled single - cylinder four-stroke engine is a further development of the engine introduced in 1893 and known from the De-Dion-Bouton tricycles . It had an atmospheric inlet valve and a mechanically controlled outlet valve ; the latter by means of a gear-driven camshaft . Some components were made of aluminum to save weight; the engine block, however, was made of cast iron . It made 3½ hp from a displacement of 402.2 cm³ . The bore and stroke were each designed to be 80 mm square. The engine was started using a crank from the body under the driver's seat. The "snake" radiator was suspended from the front axle. The power was transmitted via an easy-to-use draw wedge gear with two gears that were switched using a lever on the steering column. In this transmission, all gear pairs of a gear (one each on the input and output shaft) are permanently in rotation, but only that of the "engaged" gear is connected with a force fit. When changing gears, the active gear pair is released from the shafts and another is connected. This is done using draw wedges.

The optional increase in performance in the Doctor's Brougham was probably due to the engine of the De Dion-Bouton Type L , a version that differed from the Type D only in that this same larger engine with 699 cc and 7 hp. It was available in France from late 1898 to 1900.

A surviving New York Motorette with the same engine (the one described below with chassis number 128) suggests that the De Dion-Bouton Motorette Company installed it in any of their vehicles upon request.

Occasionally an improved type motorette is also mentioned, for which this 5 HP machine is said to have been intended. If there was, it could not save the company.

American De Dion-Bouton today

Several American-made vehicles have survived; so far only four-seater New York motorets could be detected. One is part of the collection in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn (Michigan) , one was or is in the National Automobile Museum, The Harrah Collection in Reno (Nevada) (see also the picture above) and one in the Seal Cove Auto Museum in Maine.

Motorette No. 128

The second example (chassis no. 128, engine no. 5222) was used in the 1951 MGM film musical Excuse my Dust with Red Skelton , where it played a role alongside the Philion Road Carriage of 1892 (which is also part of the Harrah Collection ). The film also had Buster Keaton in an advisory capacity. Contrary to the information in the catalog, No. 128 was given a 5 HP machine with 700 cm³. Many components have labels stating that they were made in the USA and not imported; Photos also show that it is a version without drum brakes on the rear wheels (i.e. with a gear and differential brake each operated by a foot pedal); this configuration was only used in France for a few months. The vehicle later belonged to one of the founders of the internationally leading Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and was auctioned in Carmel-by-the-Sea in 2013 for US $ 191,400 (CHF 171,412) including hammer price, the highest known amount for such a vehicle.

Motorette No. 159

The vehicle with the no. 159 and engine no. 5638 corresponds to the French version type E . This was an intermediate model with the 4½ hp type D engine in an improved chassis that now had a steering wheel, gear lever and drum brakes acting on the rear wheels.

The last known change of ownership took place at a Bonhams auction in the USA in 2012. At that time the vehicle achieved a sales price of US $ 110,400 including buyer's premium.

Trivia

It seems that Kenneth Skinner coined the term, which is made up of "motor" and "voiturette". Motorette was later a brand and model name that was used more often in the USA.

literature

  • Anthony Bird: De Dion Bouton - First automobile giant ; Ballantine's Illustrated History of the Car marque book No 6. (1971) Ballantine Books Inc. 101 Fifth Ave., New York, No. 02322-6 (English)
  • Anthony Bird: The single-cylinder De Dion boutons ; Profile Publications No. 25; Profile Publications Ltd., Leatherhead, Surrey, England (English)
  • Beverly Rae Kimes (Editor), Henry Austin Clark Jr.: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805–1942. 2nd Edition. Krause Publications, Iola WI (1985), ISBN 0-87341-111-0 . (English)
  • George Nick Georgano (Editor): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present ; Dutton Press, New York, 2nd edition (hardcover) 1973, ISBN 0-525-08351-0 (English)
  • Beverly Rae Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels: The Dawn of the Automobile in America. Published by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Permissions, Warrendale PA 2005, ISBN 0-7680-1431-X (hardcover). (English)
  • James J. Flink: America Adopts the Automobile - 1895-1910 , MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 1970. ISBN 0-262 06036-1 (hardcover). (English)
  • Beverly Rae Kimes (editor); Packard, A History of the Motor Car and the Company , General Edition (1978), Automobile Quarterly, ISBN 0-915038-11-0 (English)

Web links

Commons : De Dion-Bouton Motorette Company  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ vintagemotoring.blogspot.ch: De Dion-Bouton Paris-to-Madrid Racer
  2. ↑ a b c d Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels (2005), p. 151
  3. ↑ a b c d e Kimes / Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars (1996), p. 39
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h bonhams.com: Auctions / Quail Lodge Auction, Carmel CA, 2013, Lot No. 134: American De Dion-Bouton Motorette # 128 (1901)
  5. ↑ a b Kimes / Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars (1996), p. 1473
  6. ^ Kimes: Packard, A History of the Motor Car and the Company (1978), pp. 774-775.
  7. ^ Southamptons James L. Breese and the Vanderbilt Cup races
  8. ↑ a b c d e bonhams.com: Auctions / Quail Lodge Auction, Carmel CA, 2012, Lot No. 437: American De Dion-Bouton Motorette # 159 (1901)
  9. ↑ a b Bird: Single-cylinder De Dion Boutons p. 10
  10. ↑ imdb.com: Excuse my Dust
  11. ^ Turner Classic Movies: Excuse my Dust