Émile Levassor

French engineer and a pioneer of the automobile industry and car racing in France.

Levassor graduated at École Centrale Paris, then started his career in 1872 in a company that produced wood-working machines, where he met René Panhard. The company also built gas engines and when, in 1886, a Belgian industrialist Edouard Sarazin got a licence to build Daimler engines he chose Levassor to build them in France. When Sarazin died in 1887, Levassor married his widow, Louise, and together with Panhard they started building cars. The first appeared in 1890, with an engine built under Daimler licence. Levassor also took part in motor racing, finishing fifth in Paris to Rouen race in 1894, and arriving first in (but not winning) the Paris–Bordeaux–Paris race the following year (both in his own cars). In 1896, when taking part in the 1896 Paris–Marseille–Paris race, he was seriously injured in a crash while trying to avoid hitting a dog. He never recovered from the injury, and died in Paris on 14 April 1897.