Amédée and Dauplay from Le Mans revisited

We had a long telephone conversation with veteran expert Malcolm Jeal regarding the recent two cylinder 1899 Amédée Bollée quiz car. He was kind enough to take the time and look up whatever was available. Yet hasted to add that information regarding coachbuilder Dauplay is as scarce as information regarding Amédée itself. It is his impression that car journalists of the period were primarily interested in what happened in Paris. Le Mans was not the name that it is today.

Malcolm found: "The information about Carrossier Dauplay is from L'Invention de L'Automobile by Jean-Pierre Delaperrelle, published in 1986. I can find no references to Dauplay in any of my French reference sources of the period, and if it comes to that, there's not that much about Amédée Bollée either, presumably because they were not in Paris! Apart from cars made in the Capital, and to a degree in Lyon, the staff of the French motoring press seems not to have travelled much.

I've included the picture of the 6-seater for three reasons. One because I think it could well have been bodied by Dauplay as it has styling characteristics that are similar. Secondly, it is so odd, the 6 passengers must have made it really hard work for the driver to see where he was going, and yet he must have done so as it took part in the 1897 Paris-Amsterdam-Paris race in the Tourist Class. In the six-seater cars category it took first place but I wonder if it had any competitors?! Thirdly it survived at least until 1907 when it was exhibited in La Salon Rétrospective at the Paris Salon which had a wonderful display of historic vehicles.

Attached the shot from a similar but even more commodious car than the one in the quiz, but very similar overall.

Text: Malcolm Jeal.

Editor: any additional information about coachbuilding by Dauplay from Le Mans is most welcome.

Originally published: Saturday May 21st, 2016

Pubblicato:

domenica gennaio 23rd, 2022

Peter Latreille

24 Gennaio 2022, 05:35

This PreWar.com conversation during 2016 has been of considerable interest and assistance to me in respect to identification of the most likely coachbuilder to have constructed ‘La 2 Litres Léon Bollée Carossee En Torpedo’ as illustrated on page 411 of OMNIA journal in 1924, and the car likely to have been displayed at the Paris Salon that year. By then it was Delaroche & Turquet who, by 1923, were the successors of the old-established coachbuilder Gaudichet & Turquet who are recorded to have built, from the earliest times, bodies on chassis by Amédée Bollée, Léon Bollée, Delahaye, Renault, Corre, Lorraine-Dietrich, Gobron-Brillié, Chenard-Walcker and La Licorne. The pre-existing commercial relationship with the Amédée and Léon Bollée would likely be traced right back to the days of the Belle Epoque, with both companies, and Gaudichet & Turquet were well established in the provincial city of Le Mans.
The chassis in which the torpedo body was added then was a 10cv TypeM Léon Bollée, otherwise marketed to the British 'and her colonies' as the 12/35hp 2 litres Léon Bollée. The only identifiable colonial export appears to be the 'provincial' city of Geelong to the south of Melbourne in Australia. That is where one of only two known examples of this model are known to exist, one now equipped with the torpedo body of 1924,, now an exacting copy of a photograph that came to the writer in May 1972.

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Sconosciuto

25 Maggio 2016, 15:07

IN RESPONSE, BOTH the BODY and the(commensurate) ENGINE are MONUMENTAL, the engine should be disclosed in "photographic form"(unaltered) for posterity to relish.

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Sconosciuto

24 Maggio 2016, 15:50

(Dearest) Editor,
You are not correct on this one, earlier("About Quiz #419-1899..." the engine of the A-D is NOT described as "parallel twin cylinder", the expression used was "horizontal 2 cylinder petrol engine", which totally opens the door to the "opposite opposed" configuration.

Any photos of this weird(?) engine, so we can identify it terminally for posterity?

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Sconosciuto

23 Maggio 2016, 20:14

Anyone, two(2) questions:
- what was the cost(incentive?) of this A-B in 1899?
- since BENZ patented the FIRST opposite opposed engine(flat engine) in 1896, did A-B use Benz as a proprietary engine manufacturer?

EDITOR: earlier we described the engine of the Amédée as a parallel two cylinder. This may not be the right expression. But it most certainly is not an opposing two. Basically it is a flat mounted two cylinder in line. With the two cylinder moving forward and backward simultaneously! Weird but working. Hope this helps a little.

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Sconosciuto

22 Maggio 2016, 20:55

Dauplay was not a very common name in France, so after some research I was able to construct the following story, though still with lots of gaps. In 1821 Louis Gustave Dauplay was born in St.-Eustache-la-Fôret near Le Hâvre. In 1848 he married in Bolbec, where he worked from 1858 as a saddlemaker. He died in 1886 and in the same year the Dauplay frères started a carrriage building and saddle making business somewhat more to the south-east, in Évreux. Undoubtedly they must have been his sons. In 1894 G. Dauplay started a business in carriage building at the Rue du Cirque 6 and 8 in Le Mans, taking over the business of Bordereau. Possibly he was one of the Dauplay brothers, starting on his own after finding an opportunity to take over the Bordereau firm. Probably his first name was not Gaston but Gustave after his father (on the coachbuilders plate his first name is abbreviated as Gve.). Around 1900 he had established a firm relationship with Amédée Bollée, evidenced by several pictures of the Bollée vehicles on the firm's letterhead.
In 1907 the firm was taken over by Gaudichet and Turquet, who moved to the Route de Sablé 60 on the outside of Le Mans. They continued the relationship with the Bollée family, though Léon Bollée was now the more regular client. His vehicles can be seen on several interior postcard pictures of the new firm.

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Sconosciuto

22 Maggio 2016, 11:05

The image of the 6 seat Paris-Amsterdam Bollée, which was also shown earlier in an article of The Automobile (July 2015) originates from a publication on the Exposition Rétrospective during the 1907 Paris Salon. Comparing this image with the car during the actual race, it is clear that apart from some other minor changes the wheelbase of the car in 1907 was much larger than in 1898 (not 1897 of course). This leaves the question if we see artistic freedom, a later alteration or just another car. The fact that De Bertier still owned the car after 10 years seems to rule out the last suggestion however.
During the Paris-Amsterdam race De Bertier had entered his car in the tourist section in a field of 5 participants (Class A, Series 3 for cars carrying 6 persons or more). Only two cars reached Paris: De Bertier and on second place Courtois on a Delahaye. The whole tourist section had been decimated when reaching Paris again by the way, with only 12 finishers out of 28! Another interesting fact is that the car of De Bertier was the only car in the race still having solid tyres, the other participants having pneumatics, all but one supplied by Michelin!

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Sconosciuto

22 Maggio 2016, 07:15

In 1901, Dauplay is listed among the French carrossiers, but the location is given as Evreux, not Le Mans. Evreux is about 180km north-east of Le Mans.

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Amédée and Dauplay from Le Mans revisited

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