EMILE LEVASSOR (1844-1897) – French-man

At the first meeting of the French Automobile Club (which is also the first automobile club in the world) in the fall 1895 The most significant people of Paris met in the year: Count Albert de Dion - organizer of the first Paris-Bordeaux-Paris car races, his friend Baron Van Zuylen, with enormous wealth, Paul Licorice – famous Parisian journalist, markiz de Chasseloup-Laubat, which in 1898 year set an official speed record (63,137 km/h), James Gordon Bennett - owner of the New York Herald” and other members of the founding council, as well as players. The ceremonial banquet was coming to an end, when the famous physicist Marcel Deprez, member of the French Academy, he took the floor: “I raise a toast to the times, when the car will develop fifty speeds, sixty, and maybe more kilometers per hour, and not thirty as before”. Emile Levassor replied skeptically, one of the first creators of the car: "Detriment, that such a beautiful meeting must always be spoiled by someone, who tells such nonsense”.

In the same year, Emile Levassor - designer, producer and competitor in one person - he achieved at the races from Paris to Bordeaux and back, on a route length of almost 1200 km, time 48 hours 47 minutes, which meant medium speed 24,5 km/h, thus becoming the moral winner of the world's first motor racing. And despite his skeptical predictions, the speed of the cars continued to increase. The following year, at the Paris-Marseille-Paris races, he achieved average speed himself 31 km/h. And the actual speed at the moment, as he passed the dog in the road under Avignon, it couldn't be much less than fifty, which ended in a crash – after this accident, he never recovered, a year 1897 he died as a result of accident complications. First race winner and first casualty.