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Tracta Constant Velocity Joint
Tracta was a French car maker based in Asnières, Seine, that was active between 1926 and 1934. They were pioneers of front-wheel-drive vehicles. The business The business was directed and cars were designed by the engineer Jean-Albert Grégoire, who controlled the business, with financial support from his friend Pierre Fenaille. The cars The cars were initially built in small numbers for competition use, but they were exhibited and offered for road use at the 1927 Paris Motor Show. They used a front-wheel-drive system featuring Grégoire's patented Tracta constant-velocity joint and sliding pillar independent front suspension and a live axle with quarter-elliptic leaf springs at the rear. 1100, 1200, 1500 and 1600 cc engines made by S.C.A.P. were available with optional Cozette supercharger. The 1500 cc car was claimed to reach 80 mph. The first cars were made in a workshop in Versailles but Grégoire soon moved to a small factory in Asnières. After about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constant-velocity Joint
Constant-velocity joints (also known as homokinetic or CV joints) are mechanical joints which allow a drive shaft to transmit power through a variable angle, at constant rotational speed, without an appreciable increase in friction or play. They are mainly used in front-wheel drive vehicles. Modern rear-wheel drive cars with independent rear suspension typically use CV joints at the ends of the rear axle halfshafts and increasingly use them on the drive shaft. History The universal joint, one of the earliest means of transmitting power between two angled shafts, was invented by Gerolamo Cardano in the 16th century. The fact that it failed to maintain constant velocity during rotation was recognized by Robert Hooke in the 17th century, who proposed the first constant velocity joint, consisting of two Cardan joints offset by 90 degrees, so as to cancel out the velocity variations. This is the "double Cardan". Many different types of constant-velocity joints have been inven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Versailles (city)
Versailles () is a commune in the department of the Yvelines, Île-de-France, renowned worldwide for the Château de Versailles and the gardens of Versailles, designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Located in the western suburbs of the French capital, from the centre of Paris, Versailles is a wealthy suburb of Paris with a service-based economy and is a major tourist destination. According to the 2017 census, the population of the city is 85,862 inhabitants, down from a peak of 94,145 in 1975.Population en historique depuis 1968 INSEE A founded at the will of King |
Continental Motors Company
Continental Motors Company was an American manufacturer of internal combustion engines. The company produced engines as a supplier to many independent manufacturers of automobiles, tractors, trucks, and stationary equipment (such as pumps, generators, and industrial machinery drives) from the 1900s through the 1960s. Continental Motors also produced automobiles in 1932–1933 under the name Continental Automobile Company. The Continental Aircraft Engine Company was formed in 1929 to develop and produce its aircraft engines, and would become the core business of Continental Motors, Inc. Company history In 1905, Continental Motors was born with the introduction of a four-cylinder, four stroke cycle L-head engine operated by a single camshaft. In August 1929, the Continental Motors Company formed the Continental Aircraft Engine Company as a subsidiary to develop and produce its aircraft engines. Continental Motors entered into the production of automobiles rather indire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Facel Vega FVS
The Facel Vega FV/FVS is a car produced by French automaker Facel from 1954 until 1959. It continued until 1962 as the HK500. History FV The Facel 'Vega' was launched at the 1954 Paris Salon. By 1956, the cars were called FVS (for Facel Vega Sport), with earlier cars often being referred to as simply "FV". The 1954 versions of the Facel were fitted with a DeSoto Firedome (Chrysler) 4.5 litre Hemi V8 engine, paired with either Chrysler's two-speed Powerflite automatic transmission or, at extra cost, a four-speed manual made by Pont-à-Mousson. At this stage, the FV was capable of a top speed from , depending on which rear axle ratio was installed. The chassis, designed by Lance Macklin, was tubular framed, featuring coil springs and double wishbones at the front, with a leaf-sprung live rear axle. The styling, by Daninos himself, was somewhat American and perhaps a bit heavy, with rudimentary tail fins. The body was an expanded version of the earlier, Facel-bodied Simca/F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AC Cars
AC Cars, originally incorporated as Auto Carriers Ltd., is a British specialist automobile manufacturer and one of the oldest independent car makers founded in Britain. As a result of bad financial conditions over the years, the company was renamed or liquidated many times until its present form. In 2022, the new corporate structure began the production of new AC Cobra models, with a slightly modified structure to adapt it to modern safety and technology requirements and obtain the European road homologation certificate History The Weller brothers prototype The first car from what eventually became AC was presented at the Crystal Palace motor show in 1903; it was a 20 HP touring car and was displayed under the Weller name. The Weller brothers of West Norwood, London, planned to produce an advanced car. However, their financial backer and business manager John Portwine, a butcher, thought the car would be too expensive to produce and encouraged Weller to desi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flat Engine
A flat engine is a piston engine where the cylinders are located on either side of a central crankshaft. Flat engines are also known as horizontally opposed engines, however this is distinct from the less common opposed-piston engine design, whereby each cylinder has two pistons sharing a central combustion chamber. The most common configuration of flat engines is the boxer engine configuration, in which the pistons of each opposed pair of cylinders move inwards and outwards at the same time. The other configuration is effectively a V engine with a 180-degree angle between the cylinder banks; in this configuration each pair of cylinders shares a single crankpin, so that as one piston moves inward, the other moves outward. The first flat engine was built in 1897 by Karl Benz. Flat engines have been used in aviation, motorcycle and automobile applications. They are now less common in cars than straight engines (for engines with less than six cylinders) and V engines (for engin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri Chapron
Henri Chapron (30 December 1886 - 14 May 1978) was a prominent French automobile coachbuilder. His carrosserie, created in 1919, was located in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. Chapron was born in Nouan-le-Fuzelier (Sologne), and began his career developing custom body designs for French luxury vehicles, like Talbot, Delage, and Delahaye, in the 1920s. France ceased building vehicles of this type in the 1950s, due to tax legislation that made luxury vehicles prohibitively expensive in France. Chapron switched his attention to the recently launched Citroën DS. Chapron’s first rebodied DS coupe was the 1958 ''Le Paris.'' At first, Chapron purchased these vehicles and customised them as one-off creations. Many of these became unique convertible variants. His DS convertible caused a sensation at the 1958 Motor Show. Citroën managers came to see him in Levallois to offer him a production agreement. For 2 years, the Chapron and Citroën teams worked hand in hand in order to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hotchkiss Grégoire
The Grégoire is a luxury car produced from 1950 to 1954 by the French automaker Hotchkiss. Only about 247 were produced, with serial numbers 500 to 747. The Grégoire was a modern-looking four-door saloon. Reportedly as a response to disappointing sales for the saloon, special-bodied coach-built coupé and cabriolet versions also appeared at the 1952 Paris Motor Show, including a streamlined Grégoire-based coupé with an eye-catching 'panoramic' rear window bodied by the coachbuilder Henri Chapron. For more than thirty years, each new Hotchkiss had represented a gentle evolution from the previous model. With the Grégoire the company made a radical bid to create a new generation of cars. The car carried the name of its designer, Jean-Albert Grégoire, a man who had made his name in the 1930s as a car designer, with experience in designing front-wheel-drive cars, and a man who had spent much time during the war working on the application of aluminium to car production. Directly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hotchkiss (car)
Hotchkiss were luxury cars made between 1903 and 1955 by the French company Hotchkiss et Cie in Saint-Denis, Paris. The badge for the marque showed a pair of crossed cannons, evoking the company's history as an arms manufacturer. The company's first entry into car making came from orders for engine components such as crankshafts which were supplied to Panhard et Levassor, De Dion-Bouton and other pioneering companies and in 1903 they went on to make complete engines. Encouraged by two major car distributors, Mann & Overton of London and Fournier of Paris, Hotchkiss decided to start making their own range of cars and purchased a Mercedes Simplex for inspiration and Georges Terasse, previously of Mors, was taken on as designer. Early cars The first Hotchkiss car, a 17 CV four-cylinder model, appeared in 1903. The engine of the 20 CV type C was heavily based on the Mercedes Simplex except that wherever possible it used ball bearings rather than plain ones (including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1930 24 Hours Of Le Mans
The 1930 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 8th Grand Prix of Endurance that took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe on 21 and 22 June 1930. It saw the first appearance of a German car and the first entry from female drivers.Clausager 1982, p.43-5 In the smallest ever field in the Le Mans history; there were only 17 starters. This was a race of two halves. At the start the Mercedes of Rudolf Caracciola/ Christian Werner was pursued by the supercharged ‘Blower’ Bentley of Tim Birkin. Twice he passed the white car on the Mulsanne Straight and both times he was thwarted by a rear-tyre blowout. Then Sammy Davis chased in a works Bentley. When that car was put into the sandbank at Pontlieue corner, it was the other works Bentley of Woolf Barnato and Glen Kidston taking up the Germans’ challenge. The lead changed a number of times into the night, until at 1.30am when the Mercedes was retired with a broken dynamo and a flat battery. After that it became a procession for the remaining Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1928 24 Hours Of Le Mans
The 1928 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 6th Grand Prix of Endurance that took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe on 16 and 17 June 1928. Bentley director Woolf Barnato and Australian-born Bernard Rubin in a Bentley 4½ Litre gave the company back-to-back victories after a race-long duel with the Stutz Motor Company, Stutz of Édouard Brisson and Robert Bloch (racing driver), Robert Bloch. In the process they won the inaugural prize for overall distance. The big publicity from the previous year's race and the White House crash raised manufacturer interest and several British and American companies brought teams to the race.Clausager 1982, p.38-9 In fact foreign cars outnumbered French ones for the first time. The race started at a record pace, but after two of the Bentleys and the Ariès retired early, it became a one-on-one duel between the Bentley and the Stutz. They traded positions through the night and into the next morning. Going into the final hours the British car was suf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hotchkiss Et Cie
Société Anonyme des Anciens Etablissements Hotchkiss et Compagnie was a French arms and, in the 20th century, automobile manufacturer first established by United States gunsmith Benjamin B. Hotchkiss. He moved to France and set up a factory, first at Viviez near Rodez in 1867, manufacturing arms used by the French in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, then moving at Saint-Denis near Paris in 1875. It was merged into and succeeded by Thomson-CSF, now Thales Group. Arms An example of the company's output was the Hotchkiss revolving cannon (see picture from a privately circulated book dated 1874 by Alfred Koerner, later chairman of the company). The cannon had five barrels each able to fire 43 shells a minute a distance of one mile; it was made in four sizes from 37 mm to 57 mm, the largest intended for naval use. At the turn of the twentieth century, the company introduced the gas-actuated Hotchkiss machine gun, a sturdy and reliable weapon which was widely used durin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
