De Dion-Bouton Type LB History

Alongside the four-cylinder Type LA, De Dion-Bouton offered the Type LB, powered by a 2,496 cc straight-eight engine — a bold configuration for a company on the financial ropes. It was positioned as a luxury car, but its price was very high and sales were minimal.

In a final attempt to attract buyers, the straight-eight was enlarged to approximately 3 litres for 1930, but the improvement came too late and the customer base was too thin. The Type LB's failure to find volume sealed De Dion-Bouton's fate; passenger car production ceased in 1932, ending nearly half a century of automotive innovation that had started with a coal-fired steam runabout in a Paris workshop.