"La Jamais Contente" looked like a torpedo on wheels. This is a replica made by a team of students at the Université de Technologie et du Lycée Technologique de Compiegne. Martyn Goddard
"La Jamais Contente" looked like a torpedo on wheels. This is a replica made by a team of students at the Université de Technologie et du Lycée Technologique de Compiegne.
The electric car was made to break speed records, not for comfort or production. Martyn Goddard
The electric car was made to break speed records, not for comfort or production.
Camille Jenatzy was the first motorist to break the 100 kilometer per hour mark, in 1899. Martyn Goddard
Camille Jenatzy was the first motorist to break the 100 kilometer per hour mark, in 1899.
The car was made of aluminum alloy, to save weight, and it sat on a wooden undercarriage. Martyn Goddard
The car was made of aluminum alloy, to save weight, and it sat on a wooden undercarriage.
The controls were pretty rudimentary. Martyn Goddard
The controls were pretty rudimentary.
Nothing like what you see on cars made in the 21st---or even 20th---century. Martyn Goddard
Nothing like what you see on cars made in the 21st---or even 20th---century.
The original La Jamais Contente is kept at the Palais de Compiègne in France. Martyn Goddard
The original La Jamais Contente is kept at the Palais de Compiègne in France.
Around the turn of the last century, people the world over were building their own version of the horseless carriage, and Karl Benz’s internal combustion engine wasn’t the only approach to propulsion. Steam and electricity also were used to make bizarre but excellent machines, like this phallic record-setter.
La Jamais Contente—French for “never satisfied”—was once the fastest car in the world, and the first to break the 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) barrier. It was built and driven by one of the most hot-headed men in motorsports history. That’s saying a lot considering his competition.
As the 1900s drew to a close, the internal combustion engine was barely developed, and hardly a lock to become the dominant form of propulsion. EVs offered a dignified silence, they didn’t require a hand crank to start, and their limited range wasn’t much of an issue in the days before highways (and there was no network of gas stations, anyway). More importantly for Camille Jenatzy, they were the fastest things on the road.
Jenatzy, a Belgian engineer, entered the electric car industry in the late 1890s, financed by his family’s rubber business. He built the car he brought to his first race, a hill climb in November, 1898. He set the day’s record of 17 mph. (In an era without radar guns, speed was determined using distance markers, pocket watches, and basic math.)
Rolling on pneumatic tires made by Michelin, this EV was at one point the world’s fastest car. Conseil général des Yvelines
Three weeks later, Frenchman Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat doubled that, setting an official land-speed record of 39.2 mph in his EV, built by competing auto maker Jeantaud of France. Jenatzy saw an opportunity to make news and draw the attention of potential customers, so he challenged the Count, beginning one of the motoring world’s first rivalries. The two men raced repeatedly, with each race resulting in a new land speed record. Chasseloup-Laubat hit 43.7 mph on January 17, 1899. Jenatzy hit 49.9 mph later that month. In March, Chasseloup-Laubat topped him again, hitting 57.6 mph.
Determined to take back the title, Jenatzy spent two months building a new car, the first specifically built from scratch to set a record. The result was La Jamais Contente, a phallic machine driven by a pair of 25-kilowatt electric motors and two 100-volt, 124-amp batteries. The car made about 68 horsepower and its torpedo-like aluminum alloy body was thought to be aerodynamically efficient. Riding on a wooden undercarriage, it traded in the typical solid rubber tires for a pneumatic set, provided by Edouard and Andre Michelin. The car was a success: On April 29, 1899, Jenatzy broke 100 kilometers per hour, achieving 105.9 kph (65.8 mph).
Jenatzy continued his racing career, earning the nickname “the Red Devil.” In a 1913 article announcing his death, the The New York Times wrote, he “was regarded as the most daring of all racing motorists, his driving being characterized by demoniacal fury and stark determination.” He also once, mid-race, “jumped from his car and struck an inoffensive onlooker whose demeanor displeased him.”
Eventually, Jenatzy quit racing and went into his family’s rubber business. He died on a hunting trip, after his friend Alfred Madoux shot him in the thigh. Sources offer two (not mutually exclusive) accounts of what happened. According to Hemmings , Jenatzy thought it would be funny to hide in some bushes and grunt like a wild boar, but was so convincing, he fooled Madoux into firing. But Drive contends that since Madoux was married to Jenatzy’s mistress, maybe it was no accident, and the boar prank served as a handy excuse for murder.
After Jenatzy’s death, the internal combustion engine began to overtake battery power as the popular choice. By the 1920s, discovery of oil sources made gasoline more available, expanding highway infrastructures meant drivers could travel more than a few miles per day, and the invention of the electric starter in 1912 eliminated the need for the hand crank. When Henry Ford started the assembly lines, the internal combustion engine took over. Then, as now, gasoline let you go faster and farther.
In 1994, a team of students at the Université de Technologie et du Lycée Technologique de Compiegne built a working replica of La Jamais Contente. The original is displayed at France’s Musée National de la Voiture et du Tourisme (National Car and Tourism Museum).
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