Auguste Doriot

Early life

Auguste Frederic Doriot was born on 24 October 1863, the second youngest of eight children of Jacques Doriot, in the village of Sainte-Suzanne, Doubs in Franche-Comté. On 27 September 1894 at Valentigney he married 24-year-old Berthe Camille Baehler from Voujeaucourt, known as Camille, who had a Swiss father from Uetendorf and a French mother. She had been orphaned aged three and was raised by her grandmother and three older sisters. The couple went on to have two children, Georges Frederic was born in September 1899 and Madeleine Georgette (Zette) was born on 11 August 1906 at the family home in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Doriot was a cold, stern, driving, ambitious father, unlike Camille. Even Georges' successes were met without enthusiasm, and 'his cool stare was worse than any physical punishment'. Georges was trained in the D.F.P workshops and was able to enlist as an Artillery engineer after WW1. After the war the family sent him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA but he switched to the Harvard Business School where he became a Professor and the father of Venture Capitalism. He also became Brigadier general (United States) during WWII. Georges also noted: "I think that my father worked 24 hours a day."

Peugeot

In 1889 at the age of 26, Doriot finished his military service and took a job at the Peugeot bicycle factory in Beaulieu-sur-Doubs, Valentigney (or possibly 1887). Armand Peugeot, seeing his technical potential and ambition, sent him on a series of apprenticeships to develop his skills. By 1891 he had become a full employee at the factory and began working for the company's main engineer, Louis Rigoulot, installing Daimler engines into Peugeot's first vehicles, thus developing a four-wheeled petroleum-powered Quadricycle - the Peugeot Type 2 and the Type 3 with 2.5 hp, four forward gears plus reverse. This enterprise saw Doriot promoted to foreman.

World's longest drive Paris–Brest–Paris

In order to publicly prove the reliability and performance of the 'Quadricycle' it was officially entered (appended) into the 1891 Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race, Armand Peugeot having persuaded the organiser, Pierre Giffard of Le Petit Journal, of the benefits if his network of monitors and marshalls could vouchsafe the performance. The intended distance of 1200 kilometres had never been achieved by a motorised vehicle, it being about three times further than the record set by Leon Serpollet from Paris to Lyon. Additionally Rigoulot and Doriot loaded the Type 3 Quadricycle with tools, spare parts, luggage and water, and drove it 300 kilometres from Valentigny to Paris, a three-day journey. They reached 20 kilometres an hour on flat roads but Rigoulot had to walk behind up the hills, ready to push. Peugeot had to pre-seed the route with petrol supplies, so employees placed cans at strategic railway stations about 60 kilometres apart. Unfortunately some were lost or disposed of by station masters on safety grounds so the 'racers' had to acquire dry cleaning fluid.

The Peugeot left Paris behind the cyclists on 8 September, covering 200 kilometres on the first day and 160 kilometres on the second, but then lost 24 hours when a gear failed near Morlaix. After effecting a repair using local resources (a shoemaker's tools) they arrived at Brest after dark where they were received by a large crowd and the local Peugeot bicycle dealer. Le Petit Journal reported their arrival in Brest on 12 September, one day after it reported winning cyclist Charles Terront's finishing the race back in Paris. Doriot and Rigoulot arrived in Paris with cyclists 88-96 on 16 September to complete the Paris–Brest–Paris race six days after the winner.

Throughout the 1890s Doriot worked for Peugeot at Doubs, and was regarded as Armand Peugeot's protegé, developing and testing the cars, plus competing in the Grandes Épreuves. Armand Peugeot appointed Doriot as director of Peugeot's Paris factory and new showroom on the Avenue de la Grande Armée.

Racing

Doriot drove for Peugeot in the Grandes Épreuves of the 1890s, consistently finishing near the top after many hours of competing on unsurfaced roads in difficult conditions. On 22 July 1894, he finished third in the Paris-Rouen Trail, covering the 126 kilometres in seven hours. In 1895 he finished fourth in the Paris–Bordeaux–Paris Trail, carrying three passengers for the 59-hour race. In 1896 he finished eighth in the ten-day Paris-Marseilles-Paris Trail, covering the 1,710 kilometres in 81 hours. In 1897 he finished 29th in the Paris-Dieppe Trail, taking six hours for the 170 kilometres. He finished seventh in the 1898 Paris–Amsterdam–Paris after taking 36 hours to cover the 1,431 kilometres. In 1899 he was second in the Paris-Saint Malo trail and 10th in the Paris-Ostende trail driving Peugeot voiturettes. In 1900 he finished fourth in the Coupe des Voiturettes averaging circa 36 kilometres per hour.

D.F.P.

Doriot left Peugeot in 1902, and worked for Clément-Bayard for a short time while preparing to establish his own company.

In 1906 Doriot cofounded Doriot Flandrin (DF et Cie) with Ludovic Flandrin, also from Clément-Bayard at 169 Boulevard St Denis in Courbevoie, near Paris, where they manufactured a small car with single cylinder 1.1 litre engine. It was sold as a Doriot Flandrin. In 1908 the brothers Alexandre and Jules René Parant joined and the company became D.F.P. Doriot, Flandrin & Parant, adding a new range using 4-cylinder Chapuis-Dornier engines for 2 litre (10 hp), 2.4 litre (12 hp) and 2.8 litres (14 hp).

D.F.P. started to make their own high quality engines in 1912, a high performance version of which was used by W. O. Bentley at Brooklands.

After World War I they used proprietary engines but by 1922 they started to make their own engines again, which they supplied to the recently reborn British manufacturer GN until 1923. Production finished in 1926 and the factory was sold, by which time Doriot was 62 years old.

Doriot died in Menton, France in 1955.