As the 90th edition of the “Mondial de l’Auto” takes place from October 14 to 20, 2024, in Paris, Porte de Versailles, the electric car is in the spotlight. The steam car has long been forgotten… But the History and Archeology Association of the 20th arrondissement of Paris (AHAV) has decided to refresh our memories a little.
We have somewhat forgotten about steam cars; fortunately in the 20th arrondissement, rue Serpollet reminds us that a world speed record was reached by Léon Serpollet in 1902 at the wheel of a steam vehicle built in the Stendhal Street factories.
It all began in 1879, in a family carpentry workshop in Culoz, in Ain..Two brothers, Léon and Henri Serpollet, invented the instantaneous vaporization generator, a development of the steam engine, in order to operate their wood-cutting machines. Léon and Henri “go up” to Paris but Henri cannot stand life in the capital and quickly returns to Culoz. The two brothers continued their collaboration by correspondence for 25 years to perfect their invention.
Serpollet and Larsonneau, rue des Cloys, Paris 18th
Léon joined forces in 1888 with a businessman, Larsonneau: the Société des Matériaux Serpollet Frères began the manufacture of steam engines in the workshops of Larsonneau, rue des Cloys, and launched into the creation of a steam tricycle . This tricycle travels from rue des Cloys to Enghien at an average speed of 30km/h. Serpollet and Peugeot presented the Serpollet Peugeot, or Peugeot type 1 tricycle, at the 1889 Universal Exhibition.
In 1890, Serpollet left for Lyon with a new tricycle; he will arrive ten days later after a few technical incidents but to the ovations of the public. In 1891, he marketed a quadricycle; his first clients were prestigious: the industrialist Gaston Menier (buried at Père Lachaise), the Count of Greffulhe, the writer Robert de Montesquiou. He took advantage of his sister’s wedding at Saint-Ambroise church in January 1892 to parade five of his vehicles in the procession.
However, his modest factories on Rue des Cloys could not compete with his powerful competitors, such as Panhard-Levassor and Peugeot, who adopted the gasoline engine: in 1893, he abandoned his research on automobiles to devote himself to the propulsion of trams. and trains. Many European tram companies adopt the Serpollet engine. On the railways, Serpollet trains operate in France, Germany and Japan. But when trams and railways turn to electrification, orders become less frequent and the situation of the Serpollet company becomes catastrophic.
Serpollet Peugeot steam tricycle – Museum of Arts and Crafts – Wikimedia Commons
Serpollet and Gardner, rue Stendhal, Paris 20th
In 1898, Serpollet joined forces with an American magnate, Franck-Lacroix Gardner. The Gardner-Serpollet company settles rue Stendhal in a factory rented by Léonard Paupier, manufacturer of weighing instruments and railway equipment. Serpollet returns to automobile manufacturing and his passion for competition. His steam automobiles won the Gold Medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. In 1901, Gaston Menier awarded him the insignia of Knight of the Legion of Honor.
He won the Rothschild Cup three years in a row. In 1902, in Nice, he was at the wheel of the Easter Egg, a prototype vehicle which owes its name to its aerodynamic shape and the date of the event (April 13, 1902). By covering a kilometer at 120 km/h, Serpollet beats by 15 km/h the speed record established in 1899 by Camille Jenatzi on her electric machine, the Jamais-Contente. His competition victories stimulated the marketing of his automobiles. The King of England, the Shah of Persia, Louis Lumière and Doctor Yersin in Vietnam ride in Serpollet. An assembly factory was inaugurated in London in 1903, an Italian subsidiary was created in Milan in 1906.
Industrial buildings in operation on the site of the Gardner-Serpollet factories
Before (1898) Ateliers de Léonard Paupier – Wikimedia – After (1913) Imprimerie Henon – Art et Industrie
© Delcampe – © Gallica BnF
Serpollet and Darracq, in Suresnes
However, competition from gasoline cars is causing a decline in orders. In 1906, Gardner sold his shares to Alexandre Darracq. This entrepreneur invested the profits from his Gladiator cycle factory in an automobile factory in Suresnes. Darracq is one of the first manufacturers to produce “mass” vehicles. He wants to take advantage of the growth in public transport by partnering with Serpollet to build commercial vehicles, vans, trucks and omnibuses. Two trucks and a Darracq-Serpollet omnibus take the first three places in the Paris-Marseille-Paris heavy goods vehicle race, which brings immediate financial and commercial benefits.
Suffering from throat cancer, Léon Serpollet died in 1907 at the age of 48. His discreet brother Henri, with whom he carried out all his research and who always remained far from Parisian automobile circles, witnessed the triumph of the internal combustion engine before dying in 1915. The Darracq factories continued to manufacture steam-powered utility vehicles until in 1920. In the United States, with the Stanley brothers, steam cars still resisted until 1924. One of the weak points of the steam engine was undoubtedly the complexity of the starting process, as evidenced by this video where a passionate engineer takes us on the roads of the Alpes-Maritimes with his Stanley brand steam car… after ¾ of an hour of getting started.
Serpollet Street
The fortifications of Paris were decommissioned in 1919 and gradually destroyed until 1929. A decree of 1925 provided for the annexation of the territories of the former military zone to Paris. not to build. This annexation was carried out in three stages, the last of which reduced the territory of Bagnolet by 17 ha in 1930. At the request of Alphonse Loyau, municipal councilor who in his youth worked as a mechanic at Gardner-Serpollet. A street – opened in 1933 in the annexed area of Bagnolet (today in the Python-Duvernois district) – bears the name Serpollet.
>> Find the article “Serpollet pioneer of the automobile” (in full), on the AHAV website, the history and archeology association of the 20th arrondissement of Paris.
The first Serpollet car, called the “miracle car” © Gallica BnF
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Also read:
The history of the Tourelles barracks (Porte des Lilas): an internment camp in Paris between 1940 and 1945
History of the 20th century: in 1916, a German zeppelin bombed Ménilmontant
In 1958, the incredible story of the arsonist firefighters of Ménilmontant
In the 19th century, the history of the first tramways in the 20th arrondissement of Paris
The mysterious camera of the Père-Lachaise cemetery
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