Amédée Bollée

Amédée Bollée in this catalog means the elder French steam-vehicle builder, not his son Amédée Bollée fils or the later Léon Bollée companies. Bollée's L'Obéissante of 1873 demonstrated a practical multi-passenger steam road vehicle, and La Mancelle of 1878 is widely treated as one of the first automobiles built in a small series; roughly fifty examples are commonly reported. His steam vehicles used compact boiler and engine arrangements, steering and suspension solutions intended for ordinary roads, and coachwork that anticipated later automobile layouts. The steam-car activity declined around the early 1880s, after which the Bollée family produced several different, separately attributable vehicle programs. The catalog keeps La Mancelle under the elder Amédée Bollée and does not merge his work with Amédée Bollée fils's later petrol cars or Léon Bollée's voiturettes.

Text adapted from “Amédée Bollée” on Wikipedia ↗ · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗