1904 De Dion Bouton
We carefully lift the coalscuttle hood off of the 1904 De Dion Bouton Henri Binder Tonneau 15 touring car and put a few drops of gasoline into each of the priming cups on the engine’s four cylinders. Chris Kidd, who owns Tired Iron restorations in Monrovia, California, then comes back around, retards the spark, opens the fuel tank valve, and sets the throttle to fast idle. He shoots a spritz of starter fluid into the updraft carburetor and opens the little priming cups, then he cranks the engine, being careful not to wrap his fingers around the crank or get his arm behind it in case the engine fires too early and slams the crank back. After a gentle tug to get one piston coming up on its ignition stroke, he pops the crank. Nothing happens.
He brings another piston up and pops the crank once more. This time there is a pfffft sound, the car shudders, and a little vapor meanders from the exhaust. Chris pulls again and the 112-year-old, 2,544-cc, five main bearing, inline four-cylinder engine roars to life in a haze of gray smoke accompanied by a cacophony of whirring, tapping, and staccato exhaust barks. Kidd then runs back, advances the spark, and adjusts the idle back to a grumble rather than a roar. The fenders stop shaking and the vibrations caused by the non-counterbalanced crankshaft even out. We climb in and set off.
The clutch is where the brake would be on a modern car and the brake is where the clutch would be. And if that isn’t confusing enough, the throttle pedal is right between the two of them. Car controls from this era were not yet standardized, and this car requires participation, concentration and anticipation in order to proceed without drama. Because I have been driving the standard way for a lifetime, my mind has to contradict my body to tell it to do something other than what it has learned to do long ago without any input from my conscious brain.
Despite this personal challenge though, I am awed by the fact that in most ways the De Dion is way ahead of most cars built in 1904. Its engine is in front rather than under the seat. It has a sequential, four-speed (including reverse) transmission much like a modern motorcycle, and an expanding band dry clutch in its flywheel at a time when most cars had only a two-speed planetary setup and bands. That means, while most contemporary cars had a top end of 25 mph, the De Dion can do 45 mph all day long using its more sophisticated gearing. Fact is, in 1904, the De Dion was a supercar of its time.
We chuff along the boulevard in what must look at first glance like a gigantic Fabergé egg from la belle epoch in France. Its copious brass is polished to dazzling perfection, its maroon paintwork sparkles, and its white natural rubber tires look like some sort of sweet confection. People along the road stop and stare. Others whip out their cell phones and take pictures—motorists pace us, smile and wave.
The transmission shifts smoothly and we are soon up to speed in suburban traffic. Visibility is unlimited. Indeed, it is like sitting in a well-upholstered leather sofa that is somehow being conveyed down the road. You have to look down at the toe board to see that you are in an automobile. Another feature on this French masterpiece that is ahead of its time is the two-wheel rear brakes that are internal and expanding rather than external and contracting around the drums, covered wagon style, as was typical at the time.
In addition, the car has a unique foot-operated brake and decelerator pedal that actuates brake bands on the driveshaft and simultaneously changes the valve timing to reduce engine speed as you slow down. A separate hand brake operates the rear wheel brakes. Our De Dion doesn’t stop on a dime, but it does stop much better than cars I have driven that were built a decade later that only had two-wheel external, contracting rear brakes.
However, perhaps the most intriguing feature of this early French touring car is its semi-independent rear suspension and transaxle. Many cars today still have elements of this design in their rear—and front—drivelines and suspensions. At a time when many automobiles were using chains and sprockets for their final drive, De Dion already had a fully enclosed combined transmission and differential in the rear, driving through halfshafts to the wheels. It became known as a De Dion rear end, and it soon became famous.
The design was so revolutionary that, years later, Harry Miller used it for the front drives on his Indianapolis racers of the ’20s and ’30s. The De Dion rear transaxle is mounted to the chassis and halfshafts with universal joints at each end, allowing for suspension flex and bounce because the shafts are mounted to journals on the elliptical leaf springs. A bar across the rear ties the axles together and telescopes in the middle. This reduces unsprung weight dramatically, which results in a comfortable ride even on the roads of the era.
Many of us here in the States have never even heard of De Dion Bouton, but they were the first major car company ever, before even Oldsmobile and Ford, and were building 400 cars and 3,200 engines a year by 1900, making them the largest auto company in the world at a time when other companies were cobbling together primitive, one-off horseless carriages in small garages. By 1904—the year our touring car was built—the company made some 40,000 engines for cars and motorcycles for companies across Europe, as well as 2,000 automobiles under their own name.
Indeed, the French were far ahead of other countries before World War I in automotive and aviation technology. The war and its devastation—resulting in the loss of much of their younger male generation—crippled the country for years after. As a result, today much of France’s early progress is forgotten. For example, most Americans think Cadillac built the first production V8 in 1914, even though De Dion offered one in 1910 that displaced 372.3-cubic inches, and trumped their introduction of the first inline four-cylinder engine in 1903. That would be a nice size V8 today.
De Dion built bigger V8s and even V12s soon after, and during World War I they built a vehicle they dubbed the Autocannon. It had a larger version of the V8 in it, and mounted behind the driver there was a 75-mm cannon. It was called the Autocannon not because the gun was automatic, but because it was mounted on a large automobile chassis and was portable. Contemporary accounts say that the gun could be fired at a pretty rapid rate and was quite devastating.
De Dion Bouton contributed more to the development of the motorcar before World War I than any other car company anywhere. Their innovations were eventually adopted by other manufacturers, and are often erroneously attributed to other carmakers in other countries but the truth is De Dion acquired 394 important patents between 1883 and 1926 including the De Dion rear axle invented in 1893, a cam-controlled breaker-point ignition in 1894, full pressure lubrication in 1902 and rubber motor mounts soon thereafter.
The company began in 1881 when Compte Jules Felix Albert de Dion Malfiance, a gentleman of noble birth and noble girth and stature, was out shopping for a couple of holiday gifts in Paris, when he happened upon a novelty shop that had a small working steam engine in its window. He was so fascinated by it that he purchased it and inquired as to who made it. He was sent around to a tiny workshop run by an equally tiny fellow named Georges Bouton who—along with his brother-in-law Charles Trepardoux—was a steam engineer who crafted precision model engines for subsistence wages.
It took little persuasion for the two of them to throw their meager fortunes in with De Dion in a new enterprise to build a steam-powered automobile. Their first car was on the road by 1883, pre-dating the Benz internal combustion automobile by two years. It steered from the rear and was driven by belts to the front wheels.
A tricycle model came shortly thereafter. If an owner of a tricycle version of the De Dion Bouton Trepardoux wanted to take extra passengers, a small two-wheeled trailer was also offered. The tricycle was a big success in the 1880s, but the short, mustachioed Bouton and the tall, corpulent Count De Dion soon decided to branch out into internal combustion engine-powered cars. However, Trepardoux wanted to stay with steam, so decided to go his own way.
Soon Bouton was experimenting with different gasoline-powered automotive and aircraft engine configurations, including a very prescient and innovative 10-cylinder, air-cooled rotary engine of a type that would later become common in French and German fighter aircraft in the first world war. Rotary engines were designed so that the crankshaft was stationary and bolted to the firewall, and the engine block and cylinder barrels spun around it. The propeller was bolted to the block.
The reason for this strange design was to provide adequate cooling for the cylinders. This arrangement had a couple of shortcomings though, because for one, there was no way to control the throttle. The engine ran at a constant speed, and the only way to slow it down was to use a kill switch intermittently. The other problem was that the presessional force generated by the spinning engine, made maneuvering a bit tricky. It may sound crazy, but it resulted in an excellent lightweight, powerful aircraft engine. Both the Fokker D1 Triplane and the Neuport 17 were powered with this type of engine.
Our 1904 De Dion looks a lot like a contemporary, coffin-nose Renault except the radiator of the De Dion is down low in front, under the engine, whereas the Renault’s is positioned behind and above the engine and in front of the firewall. Our De Dion used the later location for water and oil tanks instead.
Entrance for the driver and front-seat passenger is on the passenger side of the right-hand drive car, because the spare tire and the hand brake would be in the way from the driver’s side. The rear seat passengers enter through a door at the rear of the car between the seats. Whether the steering wheel was to be on the right or left had not been decided in those early days.
Downshifting to get up hills is fairly easy and the car pulls nicely without bogging down. Steering takes some upper-body strength and is not self-centering. In other words, the car continues to go exactly where you point it. All in all though the steering on the De Dion is quite sophisticated, considering that Packard was the first car to use a steering wheel, and that happened in 1900, just four years earlier. In fact, in 1904, some cars were still piloted using tillers.
The headlamps on our De Dion were optional, and our example didn’t have them originally so Chris Kid had them made to the correct dimensions and specifications. They certainly add an exciting touch to the front of the car, and due to their size they look as if they would be blinding at night. The white, treadless rubber tires were typical of the time because rubber in its original form is white. Later, soot was added to the rubber to make tires black so they wouldn’t show the dirt as much. Tires were also colored red using pigment at the time.
Our De Dion does not have a temperature gauge, but it does have a water pressure gauge in the cooling system, which tells you all you need to know. As the temperature goes up the pressure goes up. This too was far ahead of its time because even into the late 1920s cars had no temp gauge at all unless you added an aftermarket accessory on top of the radiator cap out front.
Another feature that was unique in 1904 was that the car had an oil sump and a pressurized lubricating system. Most cars of the era actually had open crankcases with oilers at the bearings, and the excess oil just ran out onto the ground. This meant carrying a large supply of oil with you as well as gasoline. Their transmissions were also commonly open, and you could see the flywheel, clutch and gears whirling around if you opened the rear hatch.
Because of national catastrophes such as World War I and finally the Depression, the De Dion Company began to struggle financially. The V8 continued after the war and was equipped with aluminum pistons—again way ahead of their time—but sales did not pick up. During 1927, the company ceased production altogether for a time and when production resumed it was to build a new 2.5-liter, straight-eight and a two-liter four-cylinder engine. Sales were discouraging, so the company decided to increase the displacement of the four-cylinder engine to three liters in 1930, but by that time the Depression was crippling company after company, including De Dion.
Finally, in 1932, the last automobile built by the company was constructed. However, De Dion continued to produce trucks until the close of the 1940s, after which it shifted its focus to servicing automobiles, trucks and motorcycles. The great early automaker is all but forgotten today, even though its legacy of innovations continues to influence modern automotive engineering.
Driving around in the hills behind Chris Kidd’s renowned restoration shop is absolutely delightful in the early fall with the smells of the sage and the eucalyptus trees in the air. At modest speeds, the car is smooth, quiet and comfortable. This is an automobile from an age when motoring was a special treat for the senses. Now we all have cars, but somehow we have lost much of the pleasure of the journey in our efforts to get there as soon as possible in our anonymous, hermetically sealed cocoons. We are there but we are not there. Insulated and oblivious to the world around us.
Specifications
Type Series: Series production Car built in: France Engine: Inline-4 Horsepower: 8 at 1,500 rpm Position: Front, longitudinal Aspiration: Normal updraft single-barrel carburetor Displacement: 2544 cc / 155.24 cubic inches Front suspension: Solid axle with semi-elliptic leaf springs Rear suspension: De Dion Axle with platform leaf springs Wheelbase: 3030.2 millimeters / 119.3 inches Transmission: 4-Speed (including reverse) manual transmission Clutch: Single-plate Brakes: Two wheel rear internal-expanding, plus driveshaft
