Classic stories
…a fit of temper gave rise to the first high-speed petrol engine
IN the 1880s, Count Albert de Dion, a tall, card-playing sportsman and a respected member of Parisian society, developed a passion for steam engines. After seeing a model in a toy shop with a glass cylinder to show the working piston, he bought it and was inspired to trace the constructors down to a shed in Paris.
The door was opened by Georges Bouton, almost the exact opposite of the Count in appearance. He was melancholy but friendly, and af rmed that he and his brother-in law, Charles Trépardoux, had indeed built the little steam engine. De Dion confessed his fascination for steam power and persuaded the two men to join him in a new venture to build full-size steam engines. Bouton agreed, but the morose and somewhat ungracious Trépardoux needed a lot of persuasion.
The company De Dion, Bouton et Trépardoux was duly formed and, over a decade, built a variety of steam-powered vehicles. By 1893, however, it became clear these vehicles were too heavy and impractical for everyday road use, prompting De Dion and Bouton to begin experimenting with petrol engines. Trépardoux, true to form, was less enthusiastic, declaring himself to be “disgusted” and that “to work on the explosion engine is to work against steam”. Monsieur Trépardoux promptly walked out of the company, which was then hastily renamed De Dion, Bouton et Compagnie.
In 1894, the rm completed its rst petrol engine, a 137 cm3 air-cooled overhead-valve single cylinder that was the rst of its kind to feature a coil and contactbreaker ignition. It was supposed to run at 900 r/min, an advance from the usual 300 to 500 r/min of contemporary engines, but near that speed the engine was rough and destroyed its bearings.
One day, while on a test bench, the engine misbehaved as usual and Bouton got so frustrated and angry that he reduced the dynamometer load so that the engine could speed up and hope- fully destroy itself. He stood back and listened to the roaring engine, expecting it to blow up at any moment. Only, it didn’t. Instead, it happily ran smoothly at speeds of up to 3 500 r/min. Et voila! The world’s rst high-speed engine.
He developed the engine further for production and, in 1896, started to sell it in a tricycle frame. The unit developed nearly 1 kw at 2 000 r/min from 185 cm3. Production of the tricycle (but not the engines) stopped in 1901, by which time the output had doubled and the engines proved to be tough and trouble-free. The engine was later tted to four-wheel De Dion cars that were a great commercial success.