Was Pipe’s show car a world first?

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Well, well, what have we got here? This is a 1910 Pipe (pronounced ‘Peep’), made in Belgium, and with its raked and divided windscreen one that immediately catches the eye. Unfortunately, we do not know much more than just that. Pipe (Brussels, 1898-1922) is mentioned in a few sources but this specific car remains mostly shrouded in mystery. One source mentions it was bodied by Kellner of France and used a massive 80hp engine. Another source even mentions it being a 121hp. The only fact seems to be that it was on display at the Salon de l'Automobile in Paris in 1910. That’s it.

So let’s have a bit of a better look at the car itself then. The idea of raking the windscreen may well have been a first? Laurence Pomeroy’s Vauxhall C97 ‘Prince Henry’ is often credited as ‘world’s first sports car’ with its narrow v-shaped front and raked windscreen, but that was a later car and its screen certainly wasn’t raked in such dramatic fashion as the one on this Pipe.

By 1910 there were a few car designs which were far ahead in their slipperiness. There was something in the air – literally, perhaps, as motor car design was aided by the lessons learned from aviation. French engineer Gustave Eiffel – you’ll know his famous tower – started researching aerodynamics deeply in 1910 also, using another one of his towers for drop tests and even coming up with a wind tunnel. The term ‘résistance de l’air’ – air resistance – came from him.

Hang on - the first vehicle to break the 100 km/h barrier had of course been the all-electric and torpedo-shaped Jamais Contente and that even dated back to 1899 (when it was driven – ridden? - by Camille Jenatzy, another Belgian). But fast forward another 11 years by which time motor manufacturers were beginning to see that the future was in aerodynamics. Their pioneering vehicles were mostly racing cars though. There was the 1910 American Buick ‘Bug’, the 1910 German Benz ‘Prinz Heinrich’… These cars didn’t even have windscreens.

So… over to you. Did Pipe have a world first with this show car? And apart from that – what happened to it? We’d be delighted to hear from you.

Words by Jeroen Booij.

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