The modern car was born HERE !

In the last quarter of the 19th century the little village of Fontaine le Bourg in Normandy still moved to the rhythm of its textile machines, which guaranteed  development and prosperity. The river Cailly, which flows through the village, enabled the installation of six cotton mills. The energy needed to supply these industrial establishments, once driven by water wheels, was, however,  insufficient. Steam engines now needed coal-fired furnaces.

François Delamare Debouteville, an industrialist, realised  he had to rapidly modernise his workshops. However, the distance to the port of Rouen and the neighbouring railway stations had become an insurmountable obstacle. He called in his younger brother Edouard to meet the challenge. This brilliant scientist set up his office on the premises adjacent to the Mont Grimont mill. He engaged the services of several professionals and made Pierre, Charles, Léon Malandrin  his main collaborator.

In 1882 he motorised his textile machines and created a first tricycle that was driven by a low-powered four stroke engine (1.5 HP). Ignition happened via a pressure balance valve. After a few accidents, due to lighting gas, Edouard decided to run this engine on petrol. They found this work interesting but the Normandy engineer and his faithful  mechanic wanted to produce a motor vehicle with more traction.

For Edouard Delamare Deboutteville the challenge was huge; he had to do better, and much better, than his predecessors, E.Lenoir, S.Marcus and N.Otto. The creation of the first tricycle demonstrated the difficulties of producing a metal vehicle capable not only of dealing with the degraded road surfaces but also, and especially, of carrying the weight of the engine. This explains, in part, the type of chassis used, a former horse-drawn shooting break.

With great tenacity and genius, Edouard and his chief mechanic soon managed to produce the first fast car. This was a heavy vehicle (a weight of 1800kg) that ran on an 8HP horizontal, parallel twin cylinder engine and was fuelled by petrol and 3% oil. The trials on the Cailly road enabled the necessary mechanical adjustments to be made. For its inventors the car was  viable, despite some recurrent electrical problems.

On February 12th 1884 Edouard Delamare Deboutteville filed an application for a 15 year invention patent at Armengaud, lawyers in Paris. The patent, which also associated Léon Malandrin, carried the number 160267. This first irrefutable and professional document was the first in the world to be filed for an automobile car powered by a four-stroke engine using a carburettor, electric ignition with distributor, gears and differential transmission for bends in the road.

The modern car was born!

Alain Dugard