De Dion-Bouton La Marquise History

Built in 1884 by Georges Bouton and Charles-Armand Trépardoux for the Marquis de Dion — and named after his mother — La Marquise was the partnership's second steam prototype and a genuine landmark in automotive history. Measuring roughly nine feet in length and seating four passengers back-to-back, it was powered by twin compound steam engines fueled by coal fed automatically through a hopper, with a 40-gallon steel water tank and a boiler that could raise steam in about 45 minutes.

In 1887 Bouton drove La Marquise in what is regarded as Europe's first motor-car race, a 20-mile Paris-to-Versailles-and-back run; he was the only competitor to arrive, averaging 16 mph and touching 37 mph on the straights. The car survived intact and sold at auction in 2011 for $4.62 million — still drivable — making it the world's oldest running automobile.

La Marquise is a unique one-off, not a production vehicle, but it established the De Dion-Bouton-Trépardoux name and demonstrated that self-propelled road vehicles were viable, directly funding the partnership's expansion into steam tricycles and, eventually, petrol-powered cars.