PastImperfect: La Jamais ContenteCamille Jenatzy is remembered in Ireland as the winner of the great Gordon Bennett Race of 1903, but in 1898 - then a manufacturer of electric vehicles in Paris - he took part in one of motoring's most famous contests. The journal La France Automobile organised a hillclimb competition up 1,800 metres of the Chanteloup Hill. Realising that the short distance involved would suit an electric vehicle very well, Jenatzy entered a car of his own make.
Jenatzy set the fastest time to win the event in November 1898 at an average speed of just over 16mph. The paper organised another contest, this time to resolve whether or not mechanical traction had reached the level achieved by a racing cyclist. The holder of the kilometre record at that time was the famous cyclist Albert Champion, and it was arranged to settle the debate with a contest over the perfectly straight new main road at the Parc Agricole d'Achères. Jenatzy entered but failed to start, and the contest was won by the electric vehicle driven by the Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat, and built by Jeantaud, Jenatzy's great rival.
In the process the record-breaking cyclist was beaten by 9 seconds.
The following day, Jenatzy issued a challenge to the winner. The rivals met again on January 17th 1899 at Achères, with Jenatzy running first, recording a time of 41.4mph, but then Chasseloup-Laubat recorded 43.7mph. A return match followed 10 days later, and again Jenatzy ran first, establishing a speed in excess of 50mph over the flying kilometre. Chasseloup-Laubat burned out his motor and his run was postponed until March 4th when he set a new record of 57.6mph.
Jenatzy resolved to settle the matter once and for all, and set about designing and building a new car with the express purpose of gaining the speed record. The result was unlike any car that had ever been built before. The car La Jamais Contente (Never Satisfied) was the first car to be designed for outright speed. Cigar-shaped with a special body made of partinium, an early form of aluminium alloy, it had four small wheels with the electric motor mounted directly on the driving axle so as to eliminate friction losses in the transmission.
On his return to Achères on April 29th 1899 he raised the record out of Chasseloup-Laubat's reach recording a speed of 65.8mph (105km/h) - the first vehicle ever to exceed 100km/h. On May 14th Chasseloup-Laubat formally withdrew from the contest. The record brought fame to Jenatzy, but aware of the limitations of electric power for cars he soon turned his attention to petrol cars, in the process becoming one of the most famous and charismatic racing drivers of the Heroic Age of motor racing.