Serpollet is noted in France to-day as the champion of the steam automobile. In 1887, he appeared in Paris with his three-wheeler, two rear drive and one front steering wheel. With its light and safe generator his machine attracted much attention, but its use in the streets of the capital was temporarily prohibited, until the granting to him in 1891 of the first unrestricted license for such use resulted from his initiation of the prefect of police by driving that important personage in the steamer.
His generator, known as the “flash boiler,” has been developed to a high state of perfection. The tubes of his boiler were heavy, flattened tubing, strengthened in that form by being transversally bent or grooved. He was helped doubtless to no small extent, in his work, by his association, about 1897, with a wealthy American, F. L. Gardner, who made possible the development of the large Gardner-Serpollet establishment in the Rue Stendhal, Paris.
While Serpollet has achieved a brilliant and well-deserved reputation in his native land, he is also recognized in other countries as one of the greatest living promoters of the steam branch of the automobile industry. His adherence to steam as the motive power in self-propelled road vehicles has been unremitting and energetic. Few men have done more than he to improve carriages in this class.
In 1900, Serpollet was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. His sales to that date of five machines for the Shah of Persia and landaulets for the Maharajah of Mysore and other notables had given him much prominence at that time.
LEON SERPOLLET
Louis and Marcel Renault
Born in Boulogne, France, the Renault Brothers, with general technical education, perseverance and ability, entered the field of automobile manufacturing only some six years ago, although they earlier gave to the subject much attention and study.
Having appreciated through personal experience the shortcomings of the gasoline tricycle, Louis Renault in October, 1898, manufactured, in his private shop, a small two-passenger vehicle, with a one and three-quarters horse-power motor, which eliminated the pedalling for starting, but was otherwise small and light as a tricycle. In January, 1899, he brought out a small four-wheeler with one and three-quarters horse-power motor in front, three speeds and chainless, or as now called propeller drive. The demand was immediate and large and resulted in the establishment of the works of Renault Frères, who began to make the first lot of these small vehicles in March of the same year. These won prizes in the Paris-Trouville, the Ostende and the Rambouillet runs, and one completed a three thousand six hundred kilometer tour through different parts of Europe and over the Alps.