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This medal has been minted to commemorate the French military engineer, Nicolas-Joseph CUGNOT, 1725 – 1804.
The medal
has been designed by the French medalist, Jean VEZIEN.
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (26 February 1725 – 2 October 1804) was a French inventor who built the world's first full-size and working self-propelled automobile, yet it was not the first prototype of a self-propelled vehicle since the very first prototype of a self-propelled vehicle was made by Leonardo da Vinci.
See the link for the video of the working
replica;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP_oQHYmdRs
Av. The inscription in
French;
The
Lorraine landscape carries the chateau and the Roman bridge of the villa of
Void - where he was born. In a cartouche, on the right;
“To Nicolas Joseph
Cugnot / mechanical engineer / born on February 26, 1725 In Void (Lorraine) /
Death in Paris on October 10, 1804 / And of whom no portrait exists”
rv.
The fardier – the first self-propelled vehicle
diameter – 69 mm (2⅞“)
weight – 198.50 gr, (7.00 oz)
metal – silver, mint patina
French Army captain Cugnot was one of the first to successfully
employ a device for converting the reciprocating motion of a steam piston into
a rotary motion by means of a ratchet arrangement. A small
version of his three-wheeled fardier à vapeur ("steam dray") was made and used in 1769 (a fardier was
a massively built two-wheeled horse-drawn cart for transporting very heavy equipment,
such as cannon barrels).
In 1770, a full-size version of the fardier à vapeur was
built, specified to be able to carry four tons and cover two lieue (7.8
km, or 4.8 miles) in one hour, a performance it never achieved in practice. The
vehicle weighed about 2.5 tonnes tare, and had two wheels at the rear and one in
the front where the horses would normally have been. The front wheel supported a
steam boiler and driving mechanism. The power unit was articulated to the
"trailer", and was steered from there by means of a double handle
arrangement. One source states that it seated four passengers and moved at a
speed of 3.6 kilometres per hour (2.25 mph
The vehicle was reported to have been very unstable owing to
poor weight distribution, a serious disadvantage for a vehicle intended to be
able to traverse rough terrain and climb steep hills. In addition, boiler
performance was also particularly poor, even by the standards of the day. The
vehicle's fire needed to be relit, and its steam raised again, every quarter of
an hour or so, which considerably reduced its overall speed and distance.
After running a small number of trials, variously described as
being between Paris and Vincennes and at Meudon,
the project was abandoned. This ended the French Army's first experiment with
mechanical vehicles. Even so, in 1772, King Louis XV granted
Cugnot a pension of 600 livres a year for his innovative work,
and the experiment was judged interesting enough for the fardier to
be kept at the arsenal. In 1800 it was transferred to the Conservatoire
National des Arts et Métiers, where it can still be
seen today.
241 years later, in 2010, a copy of the "fardier de Cugnot" was built by students from ParisTech, in conjunction with Cugnot's native commune of Void-Vacon. This replica worked perfectly, demonstrating the validity of the concept and the veracity of the tests carried out in 1769. The replica was exhibited at the 2010 Paris Motor Show before returning for exhibit in Void-Vacon.