1908 Lion Peugeot VA with Solex Radiator

 

Giosue Giuppone  (1878-1910) We are advised that the driver in the photo is Giosue Giuppone , initially an Italian cycling champion at the turn of 1900s with over 250 races, many of which bought him success and fame. Although renowned for long distance and cross-country cycling events, most of his successes came in middle distance events in Italian Cycling Championships of 1903 and 1904.  He also became very well known in Italian cycle racing Velodromes where motorcycles (Entaineurs) would be pacing the cylists (Stayers) reaching speeds of 100+kph riding in the motorcycle slipstream. At that time Giosue was working as a mechanic for a Turin company who were the representatives in Italy for Peugeot bicycles and motorcycles. As both were at the centre of Italian Velodrome racing, Giosue began to compete as both a Enteineur and a Stayer, and also as a Coach, featuring Peugeot bicycles and motorcycles.  Further successes resulted on him being signed on by Peugeot and eventually moving to France where he became the darling of the French cycle road races and the Velodrome scene,

This part of Peugeot bicycles and motorcycles was under the auspices of Lion Peugeot, the continuation of the old part of Peugeot, 'Fils de Peugeot Freres'. Despite the agreement that the breakaway part "Société des Automobiles Peugeot" were the only ones to make cars, 'FIls' did go into production of automobiles as "Lion Peugeot' and paid a royalty on every car to their cousins. Giosue Giuppone was employed by Robert Peugeot to be their first 'works driver' for Lion Peugeot, racing their small car in the under 450kg class. The guys to beat at the time in this class were Sizaire and Naudin, against whom Peugeot fielded models based on their VA and the VC models. These soon began to gain supremacy, and in the 1908 and 1909 seasons and Lion Peugeot became the 'Team to Beat'. Giosue Giuppone was unfortunately killed practicing for the 1910 Coupe des Voiturettes trying to avoid a cyclist crossing the road, resulting in rolling the car, which killed Giosue and injuring the riding mechanic. The photo above was taken apparently in 1906 which would have been the beginning of his Lion Peugeot Automobile career. The two arms of Peugeot re-joined in 1910, amalgamating car production.

 

Goudard & Mennesson develop the SOLEX Centrifugal Radiator.    The radiator at the front of this car, similar or same as the enquiry, was a "bolt-on-goody" made by the Goudard & Mennesson company in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, formed 1906, from an idea of Goudard and money from Mannesson's Gramdmother. It was not an immediate success in the private car market, and it was not until the Paris General Omnibus Company launched a competition for the supply of 400 radiators for their busses, which G&M won in 1909, that manufacture began to increase. The trademark "Solex" was officially introduced in 1910 and all GOC Paris vehicles from then until 1926, whatever make, had to use the Solex radiator. Most old postcards of Paris show busses with the three-pointed star on the radiator indicating a Solex radiator, (which had absolutely nothing to do with Mercedes). The success with the CGO extended the Solex radiator into use on French commercial vehicles and lorries and many manufacturers used them on their very heavy vehicles. A notable example was the De Dion Bouton company, which was exporting Solex radiatored lorries all over the world, including the USA. The design of the "Solex" circular centrifugal radiator and early patents for it, started when cars did not have a front mounted radiator but had 'coalscuttle alligator bonnets', with the radiator being located behind the engine by the bulkhead, a-la Renault. Basic engine cooling started with simple air passing over the engine, but as the number of cylinders and their size grew, so cool air was not reaching the back cylinders and water cooling had to be introduced. Development of a simple thermosyphon tank holding recycled hot water soon resulted in external finned tube radiators, which later had ventilator fans propelling air through the matrix. Goudard & Mannenson had determined early-on that the employment of the ordinary helical/screw type of fan behind a conventional flat honeycomb radiator was not very efficient because much of the air is churned up behind the radiator and never gets near to the cooling surfaces of the tubes, and results in lots of waste of power and no cooling. The Solex radiator is an entirely self-contained narrow circular section unit, which can have the air inlet at either the front or at the back of the unit. Envisage a car tyre where the tyre tread would be the exit cooling matrix. One of the open centres of the tyre, where the wheel would be, would be the inlet, and the other open centre would be completely closed off. Whichever side is the entry, the other side is closed off. In the middle of the central area is a big wide flat bladed fan (envisage Mississippi steamer with large side paddles) which exhausts the air tangentially from the centre out through the cooling tube matrix in the periphery of the circular housing. In the case of the of the rear mounted Radiator the air would be drawn up at the rear below the floorboards of the car, would enter the radiator going forward and exit via the cooling tubes on the periphery. No air is able to go through into the engine compartment because the side is blanked off, so no dirt can enter the engine bay. When Solex eventually introduced the front mounted radiator, this was reversed and the 'open side' of the radiator assembly was always supplied as standard with a decorative front grille with a three-point fan mounting bracket which gave the impression of a Mercedes logo (no connection with Mercedes). Front air entry was through  the wire gauze on the face  and through the raised front openings, and rear entry in this case was closed off. The 'cooling core' of the rear or front mounted radiator, (the 'tyre tread' in the analogy). is comprised of two semi-circular batteries of closely bundled copper tubes, one running top-to-bottom along the left outer edge of the housing and the other along the right outer edge. Each side has its own water header and there is also a main supply header/reservoir fitted to the top of the housing. The Radiator would be supplied as a complete separate cased unit ready to bolt directly to the chassis and would operate on a thermosyphon system with hoses to the engine water jacket. The only external thing needed would be a shaft drive to a pulley, and a belt, to drive the centrifugal fan. Ideally, the car would need to have a circular bonnet to accommodate the round Radiator. And this was one of the drawbacks. We have covered previously the subject of the development of the De Dion Bouton Company, which used Solex radiators exclusively on their Commercial Vehicles,  at some depth relative to an enquiry from the American Chamber of Commerce in Manila  in the Philippine on the subject of De Dion Bouton involvement in the origination of Bagio Town and the Kennon Snake Road. Sales of Solex radiators began eventually to decline so Goudard & Mennesson purchased a small carburetor maker Jouffret and Renée and re-named the products Solex. The Solex carburetor became world famus and had factories in a number of countries. After World War II Goudard & Mennesson went into manufacture of front engined bicycles which they had developed earlier, and  made the first of the eight million VeloSolex motorised bicycles, which became trademark of France. History of these vehicles we covered in an article  http://www.svvs.org/junebug20.shtml , half way down.    It may also be worth noting that our Member Michel Gossett has a direct connection with the Solex operations of the time. One of Michel's two Jaguars, both with steering wheels on the wrong side, is a 1955 Jaguar Mark Seven which belonged to the then Solex Managing Director Maurice Goudard as his personal transport but which was also a mobile test-bed for experiments with Solex carburetors. This is presumably why Michel also had a VeloSolex.

Photos courtesy Jean-Max Rouchon ; URBAN TRANSPORT MUSEUM. PARIS, FRANCE     Click to enlarge below

Solex Radiator Front

Solex Radiator Back

Solex Radiator Core and Fan

Solex Radiator Fitted to Drive

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