André Ouine, volunteer mason and firefighter at the Saint-Victor-l’Abbaye rescue and fire center, near Dieppe (Seine-Maritime) was a “great handyman”. He built a lot of models and flowery corsos for his town. Died three months ago, he had even reconstructed from the original plans, a Delamare-Deboutteville, the first car with an explosion motor in the world.
On April 12, three of his children came to offer it to the museum of firefighters in France in Montville, near Rouen, one of the most famous museums dedicated to fire soldiers with that of Lyon. “We have accepted it, because it is an exceptional machine which is anchored in local history and beyond. It is the only copy in the region. The second is at the Cité de l’Automobile in Mulhouse, “said the Colonel retired Jean-Pierre Collinet, co-founder of the Musée des Sapeurs firefighters and president of the Association of Friends of the Museum.
She will be released during exhibitions and events
“It will not be put in the permanent collection, because it is not a firefighter vehicle,” admits the colonel, but we are committed to presenting it during events and exhibitions. The family accepted this formula. An anthology car and it is the whole history of the automotive adventure that reappears, a saga that (we forgot) started not far from there on a small Norman country road.
This need to return to the golden age of textiles in France. In the 19th century, in Seine-Maritime, along the majority of rivers were then established spinning and other weaving factories. They turn thanks to the power of the coal and the steam. Édouard Delamare-Deboutteville (1856-1901) resumed with his brother the family industry after studying engineering in Rouen.
In 1883, to facilitate the transport of raw materials, with its workshop manager Léon Malandin, the duo adapted on a hunting break an oil with oil (and 3 % oil) of eight horses (8,128 cc) twin -cylinder of their invention called Simplex. A revolution. A year later, on February 12, they filed the patent n ° 160 267 in Paris, the first concerning an automobile. Not without having traveled the distance Saint-André-sur-Cailly-Fontaine-le-Bourg (9,700 meters) at the speed of… 10 km/h. The first four -wheeled automobile powered by an explosion engine was born.
The Germans Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler will later win, by dint of advertising, on the new automotive market. For their part, Édouard Delamare-Deboutteville and Léon Malandin will receive many medals and even the Legion of Honor, because the Simplex equipped in 1894, the first ship with an oil engine, then coupled with a dynamo, in 1998, the Lyon electric tram. Recognized by all the major automotive brands, they will be entitled to their stele erected 140 years later in Fontaine-le-Bourg, near Rouen. We will have a thought for them, as well as for their admirer André Ouine, by going to visit the museum of firefighters in Montville.