The Aérocarène 700 was a small

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...

developed in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and first exhibited at the

Paris Motor Show The Paris Motor Show (french: Mondial de l'Automobile) is a biennial auto show in Paris. Held during October, it is one of the most important auto shows, often with many new production automobile and concept car debuts. The show presently take ...

at the end of October 1947. The vehicle was developed during the previous year by two engineers called Desbenoît and Bodu. It was a

streamlined Streamlines, streaklines and pathlines are field lines in a fluid flow. They differ only when the flow changes with time, that is, when the flow is not steady. Considering a velocity vector field in three-dimensional space in the framework of ...

three-wheeled coupé which had no doors. The top slid back to grant access to the passenger compartment. Spats enclosed the front wheels, on top of which the

headlights A headlamp is a lamp attached to the front of a vehicle to illuminate the road ahead. Headlamps are also often called headlights, but in the most precise usage, ''headlamp'' is the term for the device itself and ''headlight'' is the term for ...

were mounted. The headlights and their spats were turned with the steering of the wheels. It had a 684 cc 2 strokes aircooled engine and a 4 speed Cotal gearbox. The Aérocarène 700 weighed less than 300 kg. The Aérocarène's maximum speed was 140km/h. The vehicle's appearance at the Paris Motor Show was supported by the production of a sales brochure, but the project backers had failed to win round the government representatives. Under the dirigiste governments that ruled in France in the years directly following the

Vichy Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais. It is a spa and resort town and in World War II was the capital of ...

experience automakers needed the authorisation of government to build cars. The absence of such authorisation made it impossible to purchase materials, and accordingly the Aérocarène project had to be abandoned.

References

* Georgano, G.N., "Aerocarene", in G.N. Georgano, ed., ''The Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars 1885-1968'' (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1974), pp.29.

Notes

{{Reflist Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of France