1895 Paris - Bordeaux - Paris relieve drivers

It is well documented that Émile Levassor drove solo for more than 48 hours, mainly because his designated relieve driver was still asleep when he arrived at Ruffec well ahead on schedule, at 3:30 am. But what about the others? Every entrant had made arrangements for relieve drivers to take over somewhere between Paris and Bordeaux, to let the main driver catch some sleep and retake the controls on the return journey.

One can make some educated guesses as to the identity of these relieve drivers: Hippolyte Panhard seems to be an obvious choice for one of the works P&L cars, as well as the Monsieur Dubois who drove in both the 1894 and 1896 events for the marque, and maybe Monsieur Merkel (2nd in '96). Maybe even Paul Daimler???

What about the Peugeots? Albert Lemaître and E. Kraeutler were regulars of the team, yet not entered in 1895 as leading drivers. Maybe Isaac Koechlin and Étienne-Édouard Michelin for their respective brothers? Léon or Camille Bollée for their brother?? Eugen Benz for Johannes Thum or Émile Roger???

Does anyone here at TNF posess any information about that matter????

With the usual tools nothing can be found. Perhaps in the daily newspapers “Le Vélo” and “Le Vélo-Sport”, still present at the Bibliothèque Nationale/Paris, but hardly accessible to the “commun des mortels”, the rank and file.
Jacques Ickx (the father of Jacky) in his book “Ainsi naquit l’Automobile” did not mention any relief driver, neither did Pierre Souvestre in his “Histoire de l’Automobile”.

On board of no. 3 De Dion steamer were Albert de Dion, Georges Bouton and the Comte Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat, while his brother, the Marquis Louis de Chasseloup-Laubat, was one of the race starters.
No. 5 Panhard was driven from start to finish by Levassor, but mechanic d’Hostingue took the tiller from time to time.
No. 6 Panhard was driven from Versaille to Ruffec by Mayade.
No. 7 Panhard was driven from Versaille to Ruffec by Prévost, then returned to Paris by Mayade.
No. 8 Peugeot = Doriot + 3 passengers.
No. 15 Peugeot = Rigoulot + Douvelande
No. 16 Peugeot = Koechlin + Rubichon
No. 18 Panhard = Boulanger
No. 24 Bollée = Amédée Bollée + his two sons Amédée Fils + Léon + 3 mechanics
No. 37 Vincke et Delmer = Paul Thuillier (a well-known cyclist) + Arthur Vincke + a mechanic called Frédéric + a Belgian mechanic called Léopold.

No. 14 Wolfmüller/Duncan et Suberbie/”Pétrolette“ = Osmont
No. 42 Millet = Millet

= = = = =
First names/pseudonyms/personalities in general :
Gilles Hourgières was the pseudonym of Georges Huillier (later a director at Mors, in 1904 he married Suzanne Carnaud in the famous Madeleine church).
Paul Rousseau = director of “Le Vélo”, later (1903) of "Le Monde Sportif".
Georges Leys.
René Loysel.
Georges Berteaux.
Albert Lemaître had a brother : Émile.
Augières = pseudonym of one of the Auger Brothers (famous Parisian jewellers).
André Axt or Axt = André Hachette.

Thanks, Robert - somehow I knew you'd have something to offer!

This is a very interesting post, several issues I'd like to comment on:

1) Thanks for confirming that Georges Osmont rode the Pétrolette! I'd read the amusing anecdote of Osmont testing the Pétrolette and dropping the filler cap, only for a bystander to help searching for it - with a lighter! :crash: :boom: But I never found a mention of him actually racing that thing. Now that's solved.

2) So Bollée Sr. drove the steamer?! One of those things I always wondered about - after all, he was well over 50 years old, so I assumed Jr. to have been the main driver of "La Nouvelle". But I think we can savely assume that both father and son and probably also Léon did their bit of driving.

3) Vincke & Delmer: With your profound knowledge of the period I take this spelling as definite - Gerald Rose has at least three versions of spelling Vincke, and credits the drive to Frédéric, btw.

4) Speaking of Rose, he credits the #7 P&L to Mayade and #6 to Prévost, yet a little further on writes about P&L "confiding #7 to amateur hands"! Now Mayade was anything but an amateur, so your version makes a lot more sense: Apparently, Mayade drove #6 until he hit a dog and broke a wheel somewhere between Ruffec and Angoulême. The wheel was replaced, but the car out of competition although it seems to have completed the distance, but obviously Mayade took over #7, while Prévost may have continued with #6.

Btw, is this (Charles Prévost) the same man that later (early 1900s) quite successfully raced motorcycles (Alcyon)? Also, I have one Provost appearing on an Henriod Voiturette in Paris-Madrid (retired) - the same???

5) About the De Dion-Bouton steamers, Rose has the Comte himself driving #1 (the old tractor) and the Comte, i.e. Gaston Chass'bat (if I may use this abbrev.;)) on the new break #3. In fact, Louis Chass'bat gets only ever mentioned as a member of the Comité, never as a driver! Are you positive he drove #1?

Originally posted by robert dick
No. 5 Panhard was driven from start to finish by Levassor, but mechanic d’Hostingue took the tiller from time to time.

Not really surprising...

Originally posted by robert dick
No. 18 Panhard = Boulanger

... I hope you mean No. 28!!!


P.S. Thanks also for completing my entries for G. Berteaux and E. Lemaître!;)

According to Lord Montagu's "Steam Cars", the Bollée La Nouvelle carried: Amedée Bollée pere "his three sons and their four passengers", which I count as two more than Robert makes it. Question is - were there three sons? I thought there were only two, Amedée fils and Léon.

Fantastic thread, and fantastic knowledge, Robert

Just one short note to add: #5 Hans Thun with Fritz Held (sorry, no notes about my source : )

Originally posted by Vitesse2
According to Lord Montagu's "Steam Cars", the Bollée La Nouvelle carried: Amedée Bollée pere "his three sons and their four passengers", which I count as two more than Robert makes it. Question is - were there three sons? I thought there were only two, Amedée fils and Léon.

... plus Camille

Just to add to the confusion, Gerald Rose claims the Bollée carried seven occupants!

Originally posted by fines

... plus Camille

Just to add to the confusion, Gerald Rose claims the Bollée carried seven occupants!

"Seven occupants" or "seven passengers"? The latter could mean "in addition to the driver", so eight in total. And I saw your reference to Camille afterwards ....

Originally posted by Gerald Rose
The Bollée omnibus held seven (...) The seven occupants had no light task.

All the reports I've seen about this race have the Michelin brothers (or André) driving a Peugeot. But this is from the Michelin website:

"En 1895, les frères Michelin envisageaient de s'inscrire à la course Paris-Bordeaux-Paris mais aucun constructeur ne se rangeait à l'idée de monter des pneumatiques sur les véhicules engagés. Ils décidaient donc de fabriquer trois voitures "maison" : l'Hirondelle, l'Araignée et l'Éclair.

"Le 3 juin 1895, les trois voitures quittaient Clermont-Ferrand pour se rendre à Paris. Seule l'Éclair, ainsi nommée à cause de sa direction qui la faisait rouler en zigzag, rejoignait Paris.

"L'Éclair prenait le départ le 11 juin 1895 et, après de multiples péripéties, atteignait Bordeaux 38 heures après le premier concurrent, Émile Levassor.
En quittant Bordeaux, l'Éclair faisait partie des 12 véhicules encore en lice. Elle arrivait à Paris neuvième et dernière mais sans avoir dépassé la limite des 100 heures maximum fixées par le règlement pour effectuer le trajet. "

English version:


"In 1895, the Michelin brothers planned to enter the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race but no manufacturer was interested in the idea of fitting tyres on the vehicles involved. They therefore decided to build three "home-made" cars: the Hirondelle, the Araignée and the Eclair.

"On June 3rd 1895, the three cars left Clermont-Ferrand to go to Paris. Only the Eclair, thus named because of its steering which made it move in zigzag, managed to reach Paris.

"The Eclair set off on June 11th 1895 and, after numerous adventures, reached Bordeaux 38 hours after the first competitor, Emile Levassor. Leaving Bordeaux, the Eclair still belonged to the 12 vehicles in the race. It arrived in Paris ninth and last but without exceeding the maximum limit of one hundred hours fixed in the rules for covering the distance. "

http://retrofr.miche...ecleprogres.htm

Was this a case of badge engineering, or was the Éclair really a Peugeot?

The convoluted negative of the final sentence makes it unclear whether the company is claiming that the car finished within the 100 hours or not, but they are claiming that it finished, which contradicts the published results I have seen.

Amédée Bollée had three sons. Souvestre did not mention Camille and mentioned only three mechanics. But since in addition there should have been a representative of the press... In any case there was a functioning WC on board!
= = = = = =
The Marquis Louis de Chasseloup-Laubat was one of the starters (waving the flag) of the race, not a driver.
= = = = = =
The Éclair was a modified Peugeot.
After the numberless pneumatic punctures of the Éclair, Levassor commented: “Why don’t you fill your tyres with cotton, cork or hay!”

Mechanics who were responsible for the assembling at Panhard in the Avenue d’Ivry :
Nisson, Schoeffer, Mertz, Gleize, Merckel and Breugnon.
Everyone of them was a potential driver/relief driver.

Originally posted by robert dick
The Marquis Louis de Chasseloup-Laubat was one of the starters (waving the flag) of the race, not a driver.

Thanks! Got that wrong, I'm afraid...

Still, this begs the question who drove #1

Éclair = Frame of the Peugeot quadricycle number 3 + Daimler V-2 coming from a boat. The original Daimler V-2 (a smaller one) was defective, and hence had to be replaced. The boat engine was too large to take the usual place under the seat and was mounted behind the rear axle. In addition the differential was defective and simply cancelled.
Tyre width was 65 millimetre, the usual width of all Michelin pneumatics till 1897. No precision concerning the overall diameter, probably 900. The Michelin Brothers had to change their tyres after 150 km at the latest, meaning two hours of hard work.
The Éclair arrived in Paris two hours after the control had been closed. Strictly speaking it “did not finish”.

Originally posted by robert dick
Strictly speaking it “did not finish”.

That was my understanding, too!

And now we even have a chassis number for the car, thanks to Robert's incredible knowledge! Do you know per chance the size of the V2? Bore 78, 75, 72 or 67? Stroke 146, 140, 126, 120 or 108? Or even smaller?


__________________
Michael Ferner

I am not a priori against war - indeed I am of the opinion that every available option
to get rid of the people who pull the strings on George W. Bush should be evaluated.

The bore/stroke dimensions of the original Daimler V-2 mounted in the Peugeot quadricycle number 3 were either 60/100 or 67/108 mm.
The replacement V-2 had probably 72/140 mm.

Originally posted by Egon Thurner
Fantastic thread, and fantastic knowledge, Robert

Just one short note to add: #5 Hans Thun with Fritz Held (sorry, no notes about my source : )

Egon, do you mean that Held was riding mechanic or relief driver? Maybe both?


__________________
Michael Ferner

Mr. Bush and cohorts have done a lot of damage to the relationship with their European friends and allies, and it will take them a lot of effort to patch things up.
Yet they haven't even stopped damaging - Does it really take that long to wake up???