Quiz Archive

About quiz #200: Emile Levassor

This was the kind of quiz in which either you knew the answer or you didn’t, because every reply we received had the correct name of the man on the statue. He was Emile Levassor, who died on April 14th, 1897, which today is exactly 110 years ago. In 1895 Levassor finished first in the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris road race, but was later disqualified. The statue that in 1907 was erected in his honour still stands at the Porte Maillot in Paris. Many of you had all (or most) of the answers to our questions correct. However, we did ask you to go the extra mile and that is just what Richard Armstrong did. His answer (see Read More) stood out from the others and contained all we wanted to hear. So our congratulations go to Richard Armstrong. The PreWarCar T-Shirt is on its way. (photos: Rutger Booy) “Emile Levassor urges his Panhard forward during his almost non-stop run of 48 hours and 48 minutes in the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race of 1895. This was the first "real" motor race and is today considered (at least by the French!) to have been the first French GP. That revisionist history has a parallel in the fact that this statue is in existence at all. It overlooks the Porte Maillot in Paris, which was the start and finish point of the race, but, despite averaging a mind-blowing 15mph, poor Levassor was denied the first prize of 31000 francs because his car only had two seats! The year before, Comte de Dion had been demoted from his rightful first place in the Paris-Rouen Trial because his steam car needed two people to operate it: strange, when you consider that the automatic fuel pump had yet to be perfected...
Koechlin's Peugeot was declared the winner of the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris, but who remembers him today? Levassor would, in death, achieve immortality, for he is said to have been the first racing driver to succumb to injuries incurred during a race. In September the following year, he was leading the Paris-Marseille-Paris when a dog rushed out in front of his car: Levassor swerved and his car overturned, tipping both Emile and his mécanicien d'Hostingue into the road. Levassor's chest hit the tiller as he exited the car, smashing a rib and receiving internal injuries. He continued, but had to retire due to the pain. He remained in poor health and suffered a fatal coronary embolism in April 1897.
But Emile's greatest legacy was destined not to bear his name: the Syst?me Panhard. He had been involved with the Panhard company for some years - they were building cars equipped with licence-built Daimler V2 engines - and it was he who realised that the early mid-engined designs were impractical. Levassor came up with the front-engined, rear-wheel drive design which would dominate the industry for decades. It is surely only his early demise which precluded us calling it the Syst?me Levassor. His name lived on for a few years in the company's name before being dropped and eventually even the proud name of Panhard was subsumed by the monolith of Citröen.
And the statue? That was erected ten years after Emile's death and is usually attributed to Camille Lefebvre, although it was based on work by Aimé Jules Dalou, who had died in 1902.”
Richard Armstrong

Friday, 13 April 2007