De Dion Dampfschlepper Paris-Rouen

1894 · Steam Traction Engine with Trailer · Work 273 of 1,871

De Dion Dampfschlepper Paris-Rouen, 1894, Steam Traction Engine with Trailer

The De Dion steam tractor of the Paris to Rouen trial hauling a wheeled carriage behind it, tall boiler at the back of the tractor, driver and stoker seated side by side.

What it was used for
The Petit Journal's Concours des voitures sans chevaux ran from the Porte Maillot to Rouen on 22 July 1894. It was not a race: there was no timekeeping, and the prescribed travelling pace was 12.5 kilometres per hour. The entry figures diverge, Goodwood giving 102 and Histoire de Normandie 106; 21 vehicles started, six of them on steam, and 17 finished. De Dion's machine was not an automobile but a tractor which, in the jury's own words, "s'attelle à une voiture comme un cheval". It arrived first at 5.40 pm, with a running time given as 6 hours 48 minutes. The first prize of 5,000 francs was shared between Panhard et Levassor and Peugeot; de Dion received the second, the prix Marinoni, of 2,000 francs. Goodwood gives as the reason that the steam tractor did not altogether comply with the conditions, a mechanic being necessary to look after the engine.
What was new
Not the first automobile, and steam was nothing exotic in the field: six of the 21 starters ran on it. What was new was the tractor-and-trailer principle, a steam tractor pulling any carriage body rather than uniting engine and vehicle in one machine. The jury justified the second prize by the hill performance: the tractor gave, with an admittedly powerful engine, "une vitesse absolument au-dessus de toute comparaison, principalement à la montée des côtes". The widespread story of a disqualification needs care: in the surviving wording of Le Petit Journal the first prize is awarded to the two other firms positively and "d'acclamation", and no explicit statement of rejection against de Dion can be found in the French original. The second-man reason exists only in English (a mechanic) and in French paraphrase (a stoker).

Further reading