The global magazine and marketplace for classic car enthusiasts, by enthusiasts.
Filter
Make a choice:
- Cars
-
Make >>
- Bikes
-
Location >>
- Parts & more
-
Make of car >>
-
Manufacturer >>
-
Category >>
- Bicycles & more
-
Year >>
-
Countries
AI or not AI? A puzzling picture of a Parisian landau
Yesterday, we looked forward to the new year, but today we reflect upon some of the events of the old. If 2024 taught us one thing, it is that "artificial intelligence" can make extraordinary progress and speedy habituation, which does make one wonder what’s coming next. The arrival of fake imagery has added an extra hurdle here at PreWarCar.com in the task of finding suitable photographs to discuss. Photographs have been tampered with practically since the beginning of photography, of course, but they always depicted something fundamentally real. That cannot be taken for granted anymore.
This picture had us stumped when we found it. It just seems so weird, blending such a strange mixture of apparatus and styles—it looks more like the imaginings of a modern-day "steampunk" enthusiast than a genuine early automobile—that we at first supposed it to be nothing more than the product of one of those image generators responsible for photographic fakery, such as the picture of Pope Francis wearing a white puffer jacket.
However, it seems we were wrong. This unlikely contraption is believed to be genuine, with the photograph dated circa 1898 and supposedly showing the landau of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia, drawn by a Heilmann electric tractor in Paris. Wow. We had to look that up, and we found that a French engineer and inventor by the name of Jean-Jacques Heilmann was indeed the man to patent the principle of the electrical operation of a steam-electric locomotive. And indeed, the Russian Grand Duke does resemble the bearded man in the back of the landau.
So, is it authentic? We are inclined to believe so... or are we falling for the A.I. trick ourselves? It certainly does look like an unlikely collision of eras and ideas!
Words: Jeroen Booij
Picture: source unknown
Published:
Thursday January 2nd, 2025
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
WhatsApp
Email
Copy
Comments
Rob Barrett
03 January 2025, 15:18
The landau of Grand Duke Alexis of Russia and his Heimann electric front end, 1898
Read more
Jaap ter Linden
02 January 2025, 14:14
A very well known picture. You can find it in lots of books.
Read more
Daniel Reuben
02 January 2025, 12:40
One wonders if this was marketed for extreme luxury. The attempt would be to isolate the rear occupants from as many vibrations from the motive source along with large wagon wheels which would be less affected by small road imperfections.
Read more
Tim
02 January 2025, 12:10
Happy New Year everyone. Here is a picture of a comparable vehicle. I think it looks more cohesive than the one shown above. Without being able to finally judge it, i think the original image seems to show a steam punk aesthetic that's too perfect to be real...
Read more
Ariejan Bos
02 January 2025, 10:53
No, not AI. I have uploaded a scan of the original photo by Jules Beau from 1899. One of the problems of the internet (or better, its users) is that the reference to the source often remains unmentioned. This photo was taken from the 10th album of Jules Beau with examples of his photographs, online available at the site of Gallica/Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Read more
Laurent Zoller
02 January 2025, 10:18
The French engineer Jean-Jacques Heilmann is indeed the inventor of this electric tractor. The French patent is dated June 8th, 1894, and bears the reference 239131. I am attaching a copy of the German patent filed on May 7th, 1899. An article from Motor Car Journal dated December 15th, 1899, shows this vehicle.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
L'ingénieur français Jean-Jacques Heilmann est bien l'inventeur de ce tracteur électrique. Le brevet français date du 8 juin 1894 et porte la référence 239131. Je vous joins la copie du brevet allemand déposé le 7 mai 1899. Un article de Motor car Journal du 15 décembre 1899 représente ce véhicule.
Read more
-----------------------------------------------------------------
L'ingénieur français Jean-Jacques Heilmann est bien l'inventeur de ce tracteur électrique. Le brevet français date du 8 juin 1894 et porte la référence 239131. Je vous joins la copie du brevet allemand déposé le 7 mai 1899. Un article de Motor car Journal du 15 décembre 1899 représente ce véhicule.
Richard Smith
02 January 2025, 07:44
Just a word of warning about AI. It's not all it's cracked up to be. The process now known as AI was formally known as scraping, a process by which bots hoovered up data from the internet to service the requirements of tech companies. Mark Zuckerberg is on record as having said that AI uses the same bots formerly used for scraping. Such behaviour is now being challenged in USA courts as theft of intellectual property.
Read more
In America, a pioneer engineer by the name of Walter Christie came up with a similar horse replacement designed specifically for the numerous fire-fighting trailers across the country. It was a very cleverly designed compact drive unit with only two wheels. The fire steam pumps of the day had also cost a lot of money and could continue to be used with Christie's drive unit for many years.
For 1907, Christie designed and built a 20-litre V4 front-wheel drive race car. This beast had the crankshaft laid east-west, with the drive taken directly from flywheels at either end of the engine to the wheels. It was capable of over 100mph in a straight line but was one hell of a challenge on the corners.
Christie went on to design suspension for tanks and became very successful in the field. Thank God the camera had been invented years before all of the amazing pictures could be taken.