Léon Bollée (1 April 1870 – 16 December 1913) was a French

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ran ...

and

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

Life

Bollée's family were well known bellfounders and his father,

Amédée Bollée Amédée-Ernest Bollée (11 January 1844 – 20 January 1917) was a French bellfounder and inventor who specialized in steam cars. After 1867 he was known as "Amédée père" to distinguish him from his similarly named son, Amédée-Ernest- ...

(1844–1917), was the major pioneer in the automobile industry who produced several

steam car A steam car is a car (automobile) propelled by a steam engine. A steam engine is an external combustion engine (ECE) in which the fuel is combusted outside of the engine, unlike an internal combustion engine (ICE) in which fuel is combusted ins ...

s. Both Léon Bollée and his older brother Amédée-Ernest-Marie (1867–1926) became automobile manufacturers. The third brother was Camille.

Early invention

In 1885, at the age of 14, an early inventor, Léon Bollée made himself known by the construction of a kind of pedalo.

Calculating machines

In 1887, in order to help his father, a founder of bells, and to avoid errors in many calculations required for their manufacture, Bollée began work on three calculating machines: the ''Direct Multiplier'', the ''Calculating Board'' and the ''Arithmographe''. Bollée's ''Multiplier'' was the second successful direct-multiplying calculator (the first was

Ramón Verea Ramón Silvestre Verea Aguiar y García ( Curantes, 11 December 1833 – Buenos Aires, 6 February 1899) was a Galician journalist, engineer and writer, known as the inventor of a calculator with an internal multiplication table (1878). Works No ...

's) and it won a gold medal at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Three versions of the large multiplier and several smaller machines were developed by Bollée and the devices were patented in France, Belgium, Germany, the USA and Hungary.

Transport

Steam locomotive

In 1892, his father,

produced a

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

for the

Chemin de fer du Finistère Chemin or Le Chemin may refer to: Arts and media * ''Le chemin'' (Emmanuel Moire album), 2013 album by French singer Emmanuel Moire * ''Le chemin'' (Kyo album), 2003 album by French band Kyo ** "Le Chemin" (song), title song from same-titled Kyo ...

Automobiles

Bollée and his father entered a steam car, La Nouvelle, in the 1895

Paris–Bordeaux–Paris The Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Trail race of June 1895 is sometimes called the "first motor race", although it did not fit modern competition where the fastest is the winner. It was a win for Émile Levassor, who came first after completing the 1,1 ...

race and Bollée went on to develop a gasoline-powered vehicle in 1895 which was entered in the 1896 Paris–Marseille–Paris.

Car manufacturing

Bollée founded the company ''

Léon Bollée Automobiles Léon Bollée Automobiles was a French company founded by Léon Bollée in Le Mans to build a first vehicle called "Voiturette". Bollée family brands The Bollée family, all car makers, created three brands: * steam vehicles, Amédée Boll ...

'' in 1895 in

Le Mans Le Mans (, ) is a city in northwestern France on the Sarthe River where it meets the Huisne. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Man ...

. In 1896 he patented and began manufacturing the three-wheeled vehicles he had invented in 1895 which he called the ''

Voiturette A voiturette is a miniature automobile. History ''Voiturette'' was first registered by Léon Bollée in 1895 to name his new motor tricycle. The term became so popular in the early years of the motor industry that it was used by many makers t ...

''. The position of the passenger, at the front, earned the ''

'' the nickname "Mother-in-law killer" ("Tue Belle-mère", in French). These had a horizontal motor and were equipped with rubber tires. A new model with many modifications was brought to the 1897 Paris-Dieppe race, driven by Paul Jamin, and the Paris-Trouville race and won both events with respective speeds of and . In April 1898, in France, Bollée won the "Critérium des Motocycle". In 1903, Bollée produced his first big car. The company built two 4-cylinder models, one 28hp 4.6-liter, and one 45hp 8-litre engine. Both won the "Blackport Southport Speed Trials", in September 1904, in front of

Dorothy Levitt Dorothy Elizabeth Levitt (born Elizabeth Levi; 5 January 1882 – 17 May 1922) was a British racing driver and journalist. She was the first British woman racing driver, holder of the world's first water speed record, the women's world lan ...

's Gladiator. In 1908, when Wilbur Wright visited France to demonstrate the Wright Brothers aircraft, Bollée let Wilbur use his

automobile factory. Bollée's wife Carlotta (née Messinisi) (c.1880-?) was fluent in Greek, French and English and acted as interpreter as neither man spoke the other's language. She translated the technical discussions over a period of several weeks, whilst heavily pregnant. In recognition of this, Wright promised that his first French flight would be on the day her baby was expected, 8th August 1908. Baby Elisabeth actually arrived on the 9th August, Wilbur Wright became her godfather. Carlotta Bollée flew for the first time on 8 October 1908, alongside Wright. Her flight was at an altitude of about 25 metres and lasted around four minutes. Bollée was injured in a flying accident in 1911 and never really recovered as he also had a pre-existing heart problem. He died in 1913. In 1920, his widow Carlotta Bollée travelled to visit the Wright family in American after the death of Wilbur and gave them an album and memorabilia of Wilbur’s time with her family. In 1927 she donated an engine to the Museum of Le Mans, which had been reassembled by Wilbur Wright and her husband from the two originally sent out from the USA. Madame Bollée continued to run the company successfully but in 1924 it was bought by

Morris Motors Morris Motors Limited was a British privately owned motor vehicle manufacturing company formed in 1919 to take over the assets of William Morris's WRM Motors Limited and continue production of the same vehicles. By 1926 its production represent ...

and the company was renamed ''Morris-Léon Bollée'', the intention being to use the new company to sell Morris designs in France and circumvent the then current French import restrictions. Morris sold the company in 1931 to a group of investors who renamed it ''Societé Nouvelle Léon Bollée'' and production continued until 1933.

Family

The Bollée's daughter Élisabeth, a poet, married the Count Jean Maurice Gilbert de Vautibault in 1927, and later divorced de Vautibault to marry the artist

Julien Binford Julien Binford (December 25, 1908 – September 12, 1997) was an American painter. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in France. Settling in Powhatan County, Virginia, he was known for his paintings of the rural population of ...

. She published under the name Élisabeth de Vautibault, and died 11 July 1984.

References

External links

Picture of Léon Bollée

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_(Viêt_Nam.html" ;"title="Ho Chi Minh City">The 'Institut international d'informatique Léon Bollée' of Ho Chi Minh City
(Viêt Nam">Ho Chi Minh City">The 'Institut international d'informatique Léon Bollée' of Ho Chi Minh City
(Viêt Nam)] is named from the French engineer.
Histomobile
Video * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bollee, Leon 1870 births 1913 deaths Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of France People from Le Mans