For Sale: A Steam Powered Car

steam powered car

This week RM Auctions will sell what it calls the oldest known automobile. The company expects the car to sell for at least $2,000,000. From the RM Auction site:

When the young Comte de Dion stopped at the Giroux toy shop on Paris’s Boulevard des Italiens in December 1881, he was looking for toys to give as prizes at a ball he was planning. But he was intrigued by the quality of the workmanship of a model steam engine and asked who had built it.

Directed to the workshop out back, he found Georges Bouton and Charles-Armand Trepardoux. They were earning a measly seven francs a day building model boats and steam engines and scientific instruments. De Dion promptly offered them 10 francs a day and asked them to build a full-size engine, such as might power a carriage. So, in much the same way as the aristocratic Charles Rolls engaged engineer Henry Royce some 20 years later, a multi-class partnership was formed between a wealthy entrepreneur and working class craftsmen.

RM Auctions: 1884 De Dion Bouton Et Trepardoux Dos-A-Dos Steam

There are several more photos on the site.

See also: 1899 electric car (yes, that’s right) sells for $550,000

(Thanks Nick!)

The Women of the Future from 1902

femme general

This postcard series from France in 1902 depict visions of women in various occupations in the future.

Les Femmes de l’avenir postcards

(via Coilhouse)