Léon Serpollet

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Léon Serpollet's steam tricycle from 1891
Gardner-Serpollet (steam) 5HP Double phaeton from 1900

Léon Serpollet (born November 25, 1858 in Culoz , † February 1, 1907 in Paris ) was a French entrepreneur and automobile pioneer . His steam cars are well known .

constructor

Raised in a family of carpenters from Culoz in the Ain department , he contributed to the completion of the first steam generator with direct evaporation from 1878 . The principle was discovered by chance by his older brother Henri (1848–1915). The boiler was registered for a patent on October 25, 1879, which was granted in 1881.

Léon now lived in Paris where he was employed as a carpenter and studied engineering at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM). In the evening he worked on his designs for steam boilers and steam cars. In 1883 the state released its patent for general use and the Serpollets needed a new basis for economic exploitation of their ideas. By 1886, Léon had completed and patented a considerably simplified boiler.

Entrepreneur

They found an enthusiastic partner in the factory owner Larsonneau , who left them premises at 27 Rue des Cloys in Montmartre ; Larsonneau was also the largest investor in the Société des Moteurs Serpollet Frères , a company that the brothers founded together with Larsonneau in Paris in 1886 could.

Here, the Serpollet steam tricycle was one of the first industrially manufactured motor vehicles . It had an oil-fired Serpollet boiler and a four-piston steam engine with poppet valves and a crankcase, which was quite advanced for the time . Léon Serpollets' license to drive on public roads, issued by the City of Paris in July 1888, is believed to have been the world's first driving license . Further long-distance journeys followed; one to a family visit to Culoz and another to Great Britain . In 1888 the brothers separated on business by mutual agreement because Henri wanted to return to Culoz.

Four Serpollet steam tricycles built under license were the first self-built automobiles by the Peugeot brothers , which also went down in automotive history as the Peugeot Type 1 .

In January 1890, Léon Serpollet, accompanied by his friend, the aviation pioneer Ernest Archdeacon (1863–1950), took a trip from Paris to Lyon in one of the Peugeot built under license to visit production facilities there. The arduous winter drive, interrupted by numerous breakdowns, is likely to have been the first motorized business trip in history.

In 1898 Serpollet entered into a partnership with the American Frank L. Gardner. The gasoline engine increasingly replaced the steam engine and the construction of passenger cars became secondary, Serpollet switched to steam trucks and buses. Financial problems in the company led to the dispute and the separation from Gardner, who sold his shares to Alexandre Darracq in 1905 . Construction of a commercial vehicle factory next to the Darracq factory began in Suresnes. Léon Serpollet did not live to see its completion; At the age of 52, he succumbed to throat cancer in February 1907 .

Speed ​​record

In addition to his work as a designer and manufacturer of vehicles, Léon Serpollet drove a few races, albeit with moderate success. However, he was the first driver of a non-electrically powered vehicle to hold the land speed record over the flying kilometer. His egg-shaped steam car Œuf de Pâques ( Easter egg ) reached a speed of 120.8 km / h on April 13, 1902 in Nice on the Promenade des Anglais . He broke the record of electric car designer Camille Jenatzy from 1899, who was the first person to drive a vehicle faster than 100 km / h. Only once did a steam car once again set the world record for land vehicles when Fred H. Marriott reached 121.57 mph (195.647 km / h) on the Stanley Rocket on January 26, 1906 in Daytona Beach .

Honors

Always humble and polite, Léon Serpollet was accepted into the Legion of Honor shortly before his death .

Anecdotes

  • Serpollet also had to acquire a proper driving license later, only to lose it for a long time in 1890–1891 due to driving too fast; probably, in the absence of precise measurement methods, at the discretion of the police officer.
  • In 1891 Serpollet, at his request, took a boy he did not know on an extended tour on a tricycle . The spark probably jumped over; when they met again a few years later, Louis Renault (1877–1944) had become one of the leading French car designers and manufacturers.

literature

  • Musée National de l'Automobile - Schlumpf Mulhouse Collection (Ed.): The greatest cars of the century: 74 stories never before told . Editions Belles Terres, Strasbourg-Schiltigheim 2005, ISBN 2-913231-07-1 , p. 136, 143 .
  • Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
  • Richard v. Frankenberg, Marco Matteucci: History of the Automobile. Sigloch Service Edition, STIG Torino 1973.
  • Hans-Otto Neubauer (ed.): Chronicle of the automobile. Chronik Verlag in Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1994, ISBN 3-570-14338-4 .
  • GN Georgano (Ed.): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. 2nd Edition. Dutton Press, New York 1973, ISBN 0-525-08351-0 . (English)
  • Halwart Schrader (Ed.): Motor Men: People, myths and engines of automobile history. 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-613-03202-6 .
  • Richard J. Evans: Steam Cars (Shire Album). Shire Publications, 1985, ISBN 0-85263-774-8 . (English)
  • Anthony Bird, Edward Douglas-Scott Montagu of Beaulieu: Steam Cars, 1770-1970. Littlehampton Book Services, 1971, ISBN 0-304-93707-X . (English)
  • Floyd Clymer, Harry W. Gahagan: Floyd Clymer's Steam Car Scrapbook. LLC, 2012, ISBN 978-1-258-42699-6 . (English)
  • Anthony Bird: De Dion Bouton - First automobile Giant. ; (Ballantine's Illustrated History of the Car marque book No 6). Ballantine Books, New York 1971, ISBN 0-345-02322-6 . (English)

Web links

Commons : Léon Serpollet  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j gazoline.com: Serpollet, à tout vapeur
  2. ↑ a b Speed ​​Record Club: Outright Land Speed ​​Records. Retrieved December 16, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Serpollet, Leon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Culoz
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1907
Place of death Paris