1. Pierre-Joseph Ravel was a Swiss civil engineer and inventor, father of the composer Maurice Ravel.
11 Facts About Pierre-Joseph Ravel
1. 2.
Pierre-Joseph Ravel invented and drove the steam-powered automobile in the late 1860s, developed an acetylene-powered two-stroke engine, built a racing car that could achieve speeds of up to 6 kilometres per hour, and built a vehicle that could perform a somersault.
3.
Pierre-Joseph Ravel was born in Versoix, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland in 1832.
4.
Pierre-Joseph Ravel's father, Aime Ravel, was born in Collonges-sous-Saleve in France.
5.
Pierre-Joseph Ravel moved to Versoix where he worked as a baker and became a Swiss citizen in 1834 through marriage to a young Swiss girl, Caroline Grosfort.
6.
Pierre-Joseph Ravel drove his steam-driven automobile for short trips in the industrial areas around Paris just before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
7.
Pierre-Joseph Ravel met his future wife, Marie Delouart, in Aranjuez, near Madrid.
8.
Three months later the Pierre-Joseph Ravel family moved back to Paris.
9.
Pierre-Joseph Ravel abandoned the design after a series of accidents culminated in a huge explosion.
10.
In 1897 Joseph and Edouard Pierre-Joseph Ravel made a new two-stroke engine.
11.
Pierre-Joseph Ravel suffered from a brain hemorrhage, and in August 1906 went with his son Maurice to recover in Hermance, at the end of Lake Geneva.