Lucy O'Reilly Schell (26 October 1896 – 8 June 1952) was an American racing driver, team owner, and businesswoman. Her racing endeavours focused mainly on Grand Prix and rallying. She was the first American woman to compete in an international Grand Prix race and the first woman to establish her own Grand Prix team.
Pierre Eugène Alfred Bouillin (22 December 1905 – 11 June 1955) was a French sportsman and racing driver. He took the racing name Pierre Levegh [ləvɛk] in memory of his uncle Alfred Velghe, a pioneering driver who died in 1904. Levegh died in the 1955 Le Mans disaster which also killed 83 spectators during the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans automobile race.
Jean-Albert Grégoire (7 July 1899 in Paris – 19 August 1992) was one of the great pioneers of the front-wheel-drive car. He contributed to the development of front-wheel-drive vehicles in two ways. The first way was in developing and promoting the Tracta joint (designed by his friend Pierre Fenaille), which was, until manufacturing techniques had progressed sufficiently to allow the successful manufacture of the constant velocity joints commonly in use today, the preferred choice of most manufactures of vehicles that had driven front wheels. Tracta joints were used by many of the pioneers of front-wheel drive, including DKW between 1929 and 1936 and Adler from 1932 to 1939 as well as the cars designed by J A Grégoire that will be mentioned later. The Tracta joint was fitted to most of the military vehicles that had driven front wheels used by most of the combatants in the Second World War. They included Laffly and Panhard in France, Alvis and Daimler in the UK and Willys in the United States that used the joint in a quarter of a million Jeeps and many others. This was to continue after the war, the first Land Rover being so fitted.
The second way he contributed to the development of front-wheel-drive vehicles was in designing and in some cases manufacturing front-wheel-drive cars. The Tracta Gephi was his first design and it was this car that inspired him to design a constant velocity joint. All subsequent Tracta cars, and there were about two hundred manufactured between 1927 and 1932, used it. The first of these was raced at Le Mans in 1927 completing the 24-hour race. The Tracta cars used engines from S.C.A.P. from 1100 cc to 1600 cc, and Continental and Hotchkiss, from 2700 cc to 3300 cc.
J.A. Grégoire designed an 11cv 6-cylinder car for Donnet in 1932. Only four prototypes were produced, one being shown at the Paris Salon of 1932 before Donnet went into liquidation. He then worked with Lucian Chenard to design two cars for Chenard et Walcker. They were of advanced design but were not a commercial success. In 1937 he designed the Amilcar Compound, produced by Hotchkiss from 1938 to the Second World War, by which time 681 examples had been made. It was constructed using another of Grégoire's ideas, a cast Alpax (light alloy) chassis frame. Other advanced features were rack and pinion steering and all independent suspension. But the car had its bad points, cable brakes and gear-change linkage and a side-valve engine although the latter was still common at this time. An overhead valve version came later. During the Second World War he secretly worked with his design team at his works at Asnières-sur-Seine on a small car the Aluminium "Francais-Grégoire". It had a chassis-body frame of light alloy, front-wheel drive, an air-cooled flat twin engine and independent suspension on all wheels. A four-seat car weighing only 880 pounds (400 kg) and could reach 60 mph (97 km/h) while returning 70 mpg. This design was to form the basis of the 1950 "Dyna" Panhard. In 1950 another Hotchkiss car the Hotchkiss Grégoire, was produced again with an alloy chassis and body. With independent suspension on all four wheels and fitted with a water-cooled flat four engine of 2 litres, ahead of the front axle, it was fast, with a top speed of 94 mph (151 km/h), but the car was expensive and only 250 examples were made by 1954. In 1956 Grégoire produced a two-seat convertible with a 2.2-litre supercharged flat-four engine producing 130 PS (96 kW; 128 hp) and, as in the case of the cars mentioned previously, front-wheel drive. All ten cars made were fitted with bodies designed and built by Henri Chapron.
All the cars mentioned previously were front-wheel-drive cars. Grégoire also designed a couple of rear-wheel-drive machines: the first electric car with the machinery in the mid-engine position and a gas turbine car, the experimental SOCEMA-Grégoire with a front-engined, rear-wheel drive layout.
Marcel Renault (14 May 1872 – 26 May 1903) was a French racing driver and industrialist, co-founder of the carmaker Renault. He was the brother of Louis and Fernand Renault.
Marcel Renault, Louis Renault, and Fernand Renault co-founded Renault Frères based on a automobile prototype built by Louis. The brothers took orders to construct new automobiles as early as 1899.Renault was born in Paris; he and his brothers jointly founded the Renault company on 25 February 1899. He and Louis raced the cars it built starting the next year. He died in Payré, at the age of 31, of severe injuries he sustained during the Paris-Madrid race.
After his death, a statue was built in Renault's memory which later would be destroyed by the German attacks during World War II.
Charles Pozzi (27 August 1909 – 28 February 2001) was a French racing driver who participated in one World Championship Formula One race in 1950, the year of its inception.
Camille du Gast (Marie Marthe Camille Desinge du Gast, Camille Crespin du Gast, 30 May 1868 – 24 April 1942) was one of a trio of pioneering French female motoring celebrities of the Belle Epoque, together with Hélène de Rothschild (Baroness Hélène van Zuylen) and Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart the (Duchess of Uzès).Du Gast was known as "one of the richest and most accomplished widows in France," and as an accomplished sportswoman—a balloonist, parachute jumper, fencer, tobogganist, skier, rifle and pistol shot, horse trainer—as well as a concert pianist and singer. She was the second woman to compete in an international motor race.In France, she later became renowned for her extensive charity work. She was president of the Société protectrice des animaux (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, SPA) until her death, and her campaign against bullfighting included disruptive direct action protests. She provided health-care to disadvantaged women and children in Paris, and continued whilst under German occupation in World War II.She was the central figure in the Parisian scandal of La Femme au Masque where she was maliciously but mistakenly named as the nude model in a notorious painting by Henri Gervex. This salacious story involved three court cases, and was reported around the world.Her exuberant social and sporting lifestyle was changed by a traumatic experience around 1910, when her daughter attempted to have her murdered in order to inherit. In the middle of the night, in her own house, she challenged the gang and they fled. Afterwards she devoted herself to French government work in Morocco, and charitable works with animals, disadvantaged women and orphans.A pioneer feminist, she served as vice-president of the Ligue Française du Droit des Femmes (The French League for the Rights of Women) after World War I. In 1904 she became the only woman official of the Automobile Club de France (A.C.F.).
She was known in the press by the sobriquets l'Amazone and la Walkyrie de la Mécanique (Valkyrie of the motor car).