What It's Like to Drive a 121-Year Old Sportscar
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- If you ate a magic time donut and travelled back to the year 1895 with the intent of buying a sports car, do you have any idea what you'd buy? It doesn't matter, because you'd really only have one choice: the Bollée Voiturette. This single-cylinder, three-horsepower, mid-engined monster was, arguably, the first production sports car ever made. Galpin Motors' very own Beau Boeckmann invited Jason to put this thesis to the test on his 1897 Léon Bollée Voiturette.
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You know, if the cop doesn't get the make and model correct on the ticket, it gets thrown out. :D
That grinding!! Those poor gears!! I was yelling at the screen "Take tension off the belt before you shift into second!!" The belt is the clutch. You were trying to shift without disengaging the clutch.
He was pushing it forward before trying to shift, you can see on the close up.
@@will3346 Pushing it forward puts tension on the belt. He needed to pull back on the handle not push forward.
Nutz4Gunz45 yeah my mistake misheard, but he still seems to be trying to do something with the forward backward motion whilst shifting.
I was thinking the same thing, i can see you are a car person that also understands the MECHANICS of how it works. Not the "its red so it must be fast" type blowhole. Who let this guy drive their vintage stuff. Like NO!
I could hear you yelling!
Torch's enthusiasm for the eccentric is why these videos, and his articles, are so entertaining. Love this series.
He's going to destroy that little car.
Hope springs eternal lol!
You have found a sound that is worse than nails on a chalkboard
I died a little inside hearing that grinding
Sounds like a metal trashcan full of bolts getting a tattoo.
Those grinds! Yikes
the owner must be hating him
They should be shot. F them! 😠😠😠😠
You idiots it's a straight cut unsyncrhonized transmission with a clutch that acts as the brake - it's almost impossible to shift without grinding between gears
MaxSpeed it’s hard to grind a car from even the 40s
It’s basically impossible to not grind gears, I have a 1929 Ford. A lot of vintage cars have unsynchronized transmissions
John Scheiss
don't ever come to Germany and tell someone your last name
use a fake name or say you are just John
it's for your own good
I wonder how his ancestor got to get this name... XD
@@jean-charlesweyland129 must be a fertilizer man
Similar thing with the actor Johnny Depp. The german word "Depp" means dumbass or idiot
Jalopnik uploads another episode of Jason Drives. Today is a good day.
At the time, common gasoline was about 30 octane*. That gas was very easy to light. Higher the octane AKI number, the harder it is to light combustion. Motors were very low compression and that low octane gasoline could be lit by that hot glowplug. You cant get shitty gasoline like that, so spark plug and maybe a cooling fan at the fins. It overheats like a Harley at a long traffic light.
Straight gears on basically a motorcycle tranny. They're going to grind a bit. The driver has to rev match and slam it. Being timid will grind the gears. Notice the last time, he got it. He built up confidence and just threw it, like a millwright would have done in 1890.
* That means 30% 8carbon chain (Octane), the rest 70% is Heptane, Hexane and Pentane. All very combustible.
That's what "octane" means. How much of the fuel is the heavier chains.
Makes sense because the Model "T" in 1926 - 27 had less horsepower than it did previously.
grind them till you find them :)
Another grind like that and he'll have to marry it.
Keyboard warriors who daily a Kia Sedona all talking about how they would never grind the gears tho 乁| ･ิ ∧ ･ิ |ㄏ
A MIX BETWEEN A MOTORCYCLE AND A CAR. 👍🏻
At first I thought that was a wheelchair and I had clicked wrong video
_It's not a wheelchair?_
It was pretty much a wheelchair with engine. Back in the day You won't not be able to wheeled a wheelchair on the street.
Jason Drives ...without doubt my favourite automotive CZcams videos. Always something interesting & quirky and always makes me laugh. Big thumbs up
It overheated because the cylinder oiler cup was empty. Hopefully the owner will do some research before taking it out again.
My heart sunk when I saw that
Kid Boeckman's got plenty of $$$...He Can Fix lt... ;-)
The owners a total idiot. Didnt even tell Jason how to shift
@@wildman510 The owner himself said that he never got it out of first. My guess is this was just a prop he doesn't use much.
Dear Jason Torchinsky,
With proper technique, any non-broken transmission can be shifted smoothly once the vehicle is moving. There aren't many of these cars left, and it's painful to watch you shorten their life span. I suggest daily driving an old car with a non-synchro transmission.
That's giving the synchros in his Beetle a lot of credit for having anything left to give after 45 years.
Unsynchronized is fine if you can
A toe and heel
B have beveled gears
This car has neither of those, these are straight cut gears and you can't be on the gas brake and clutch at the same time because of the design of the weird handle thing. It is 100% impossible to shift without grinding gears.
He literarily daily drives an old beetle with non synchro transmission
Slacken the belt before changing gear.
John Scheiss...?! Great last Name, I guess...
Finally! More Jason Drives!
Mister Torchinsky, you and your boss who drives the Yugo are the only reasons I watch and read Jalopnik.
It actually went faster once it overheated and that guy pushed it off the street.
Anyone with an ounce of mechanical sympathy would have not grinded the gears like that
How do you engage launch control
LS swap it!
By far my favorite video on this channel ! thanks for the smiles.
3 horsepower? That's a lot for something that age and that size.
Ooh, that grind.... Belt is the clutch. I would add a fan...
that gear grinding is worse than a dentist drill😩🍻
Thats a sport deluxe wheelchair
This thing is a monster compared to the 1886 Benz Motorwagen
It's a sportscar after all 🤣
Oh yeah! That 3 wheel death chair looks totally legit.
Man I'm really glad to see this kind of videos back on this channel.
1897... what crazy and amazing times those must've been! When the automobile was something new, exciting, and mildly terrifying...
And here we are now, ~120 years later, just a few steps away of having cars that only asks for a destination on a screen or by voice command, and it'll take us there without any other input... by then we've killed all the fun and games out of driving, just for our lazy-ass comfort-oriented society.
You should probably put oil in that oiler......
Imagine this with a modern bike engine and gearbox.... it would be a blast to drive...
The pimp my ride guy
The pimp my guy ride
Im surprised he didnt bondo on some ground effects and a big wing on that whip
@@Nakahat01 And don't forget the spinning rims yo!
I love the green Riv in the back!
It looks like a Victorian motorized wheelchair!
Jason drives! 👍👍
The problem with the overheating is also due to the fact that the engine is being run on gasoline, which didn't exist in 1897. The engine would have originally been run on paraffin, kerosene or alcohol, as were all cars & motorcycles, until the 1900's when 35 RON automotive Petrol was invented (by the British). In the US, the oil companies developed Gasoline, in the 1920's.
Thanks Jason
The reverse trike was born over 100 years ago! Go figure. Improving on old technology!
Living in a time warp!
Ouch, my mechanical sympathy.
The way it was actually sliding gears in and out of mesh for the transmission likely means it isn’t meant to shift when moving. If it was meant to shift when moving then the gears would stay in mesh and you’d move a shift collar to engage or disengage the gear.
its called having a feel for the machine,you just took 20 years off the gears dude
Unsynchronizes straight cut gears my friend, you cant shift without grinding.
This is NOT a standard manual transmission, this is completely different in every way.
In normal operation these vehicles needed constant maintenance bimonthly anyways, they wouldn't last 5 months in normal driving.
@@AiOinc1
It should grind for a fraction of a second.
Not 3 second straight.
@@AiOinc1 how stupid are you? You CAN shift without grinding. Plus he was shifting with the clutch engaged
@@AiOinc1 there is something on this car that is present on every car, it's called a clutch. To shift gears you have to disengage the clutch, then shift to the gear you have to shift to. It's not the car's design fault, the fault is to blame to the fact that in America you can tell a spooky story by saying "and the car HAD A MANUAL GEARBOX"
Me when I hear those unfortunate gears -------> >_<
IT HURTS
it's a steampunk polaris slingshot!
Impressive!
Do you think it will run 10s?
Yay your bike your 1 of the main reasons i liked this channel
If ridden properly by an educated driver, it could reach 37mph... No bad for 1895 considering that a Ford Model T was to have a top speed of 45mph 13 years later !
Cool!! Thanks for sharing a 19th Century car!
Those wierd little stirrup things for controls were the norm back in the 1800s.
A guy local to me collects antique bicycles, and alot of his stuff has them for steering control. Mainly highwheel trikes , also using straight cut gears and lots of brass and bronze.
Man, that really grinds my gears.
"Kick Start" John!!!
A badass wheel chair for bad ass people
crazy how ahead of its time this car is
OMG those grinds!...that is very cool vehicle..
I cant believe the guy in the GAS shirt, was telling him to keep grinding the gears.
Amedee Bollee Deserves More Attention as an Inventor of the Car.
Simple and complicated at the same time.i would love a chance to drive it
This 'Jason' guy has the mechanical aptitude of a cork.
He knows why you push a clutch in to change gears on a normal car, it’s to momentarily disengage the engine. So, why was it so hard fo him to figure out that you release the tension on the belt before you attempt to change gears? His confusion on this absolutely astounded me.
Jason is Amedee Bollee you great great grandfather? The resemblence is there...
The car is awesome, but the video is a disaster. Like others have said, that gear-grinding is the stuff of nightmares. Read TFM before you touch anything! Understand how the clutch (belt tensioning) works, get some training, use the brain!
You realize this is a straight cut, unsynchronized manual transmission, right?
It's not that easy. You have to rev match every single shift, which in more modern unsynchronized transmissions would mean toe and heeling - which you can't do here.
Being that this vehicle has no intruments of any kind to measure engine or vehicle speed, and that the leather belt based clutch and brake are the same thing, it's for all intents and purposes impossible to shift without making noise.
@@AiOinc1 He wasn't letting tension off the belt to shift the gears, and grinding them excessively at what was most likely too low a speed and rpm for the engine. You can hear how it shifts when they properly shift it in the video, before it overheats.
8:12 vs 8:27
Everything takes practice. I doubt he had much time to get the hang of it. Hardly a disaster - mostly just par for the course on a machine hardly anyone's driven in over a century. But I'm sure you'd be an expert within minutes. Maybe they should just give it to you.
@@sugarbooty Letting off the belt too much causes the car to stop because it also acts as a brake, which means that if you shifted with too little tension on the belt it would cause the gears to complain in addition to stalling the engine.
@@AiOinc1 I connected the belt to a modern day clutch, the car would still roll if you let off tension, you just need to shift quickly. I think I would have a lot of fun trying to do it correctly
Thats a very clever sports car mate :)
Has Jay Leno taken a spin in this fine car????
Must have been hell to try to talk on your cell phone while driving one of those
Damn how many brands does the dealer sell? Volvo, Ford, Lincoln, and Jaguar.
All were once under Ford so many dealers kept the brands together.
Most VAG Mazda aston too i think
The grind!!
That's so damn cool!
So good looking, such bad noises. I wish to see this better. Like if it were remade.
Jalopnik - As you know this car could have been electric. Imagine the OG Tesla version of this.
4:40 He: Primes it, while looking directly at an empty oiler.
Me: Oil it...
He: Proceeds to crank it over.
Me: Oil it!
Jason: Mentions the rocky idle.
Me: OIL IT!! OILLLLL ITTT!!!
The poor Voiturette: Overheats
Me (rolling eyes): Should've oiled it.
nice foxbody in the intro
It had some pioneering safety features: Carrying the wife or wife's mother provided wind bag crash protection for the driver.
"Fastest car in the world" slower than my running speed
If ridden properly by educated mechanics, it could reach 37mph.
That a sporty wheelchair at best :-)
Drive a curved dash Oldsmobile next
Ouch the grinding was so hard to watch
Also, this is pretty good proof against Mercedes being the first production car...
This guy was making series of 50 in the 1870s when it took Mercedes Benz another 10+ years to start making single digits!
POWER!!!
Take it to the Nurburgring.. .
Cool
Is that guy actually named John Scheiss, that means Shit in German ...poor bastard.
Wasn't the Ford Quadricycle the oldest car you ever reviewed?
6:29 *K-KANSEI DORIFTO???*
Only 3 hp but maybe 15-20 lb.ft. of torque from that big motor might not be so bad
Don’t let this boy near a manual
But how fast can it go in third?
Grind it till you find it!
the grinding was painful
could add water spray cooling
you can get a 50cc scooter for cheap with more horsepower and 100+mpg that'll top out at 40mph. but that was 120 years ago when they barely had gas.
They should make replica kits for this
the ape as in bee in Italian.. think apiary.. 3 whwwll fun machine is a hoot...
The thumbnail looks like TIMMAY!!!!
cool trike
I believe your actually suppose to stop and select which gear you want or it would absolutely kill the gear teeth in no time.
Yo ask the guys at Galpin if they know how Xibit is doing
More like the world's first trike