Peugeot_Tri-moteur

Peugeot Tri-moteur

And the goods were delivered in a jiffy
and with a smile.

Hans Arend de Wit

We took our Peugeot Tri-moteur with us
to the terrace in Pesmes
where we daily drank our café noir.

“Young people nowadays see it as a pathetic, antique contraption,” Christophe Houzet said, “from a romantic working class movie just after the war, but when the Tri-moteur was launched it was a great excitement, I assure you. When I think of those days, when the Tri-moteur appeared in the streets and on the roads in the country, I am told, and the villages as around here, I imagine what the Tri-moteur meant for the economy. After the war businesses were totally ‘kaput’ and with enormous energy products were produced again, which had to be distributed in the cities and in the villages, and plumbers and workmen carried their tools and materials around on foot, on bicycles and in hand pushed carts. Suddenly Peugeot introduced a motorized three-wheeler cart, a Tri-moteur, also called with the collective noun Triporteur. That was a giant leap ahead, a new dimension in logistics as we now call it. That was the practical and economic side, carrying the goods, more and quicker to more places in a given time frame. And reliable, with comfortable ease and fast! For the young guns it was like driving a hotrod!”
Christophe seems to be in his thirties. He tells the story as if he was his father reliving his youth, but he is a young man who in his daily life deals with grand yesteryear automobiles.
A day earlier I discovered a Tri-moteur in a scale model shop, Jura Miniatures, in Dole in France and I bought it on the spot, 1:18, probably from China, although that was not stamped on the bottom. I had never seen this three-wheeler before, not in the streets and in books either, and I was intrigued, The following morning I toured a bit around on the breakfast table, sandwiching between croissants, cheese - La Vache Qui Rit - and jam jars and I told my friend Luuk that I wanted to make photos in couleur locale. ‘Why don't you first try the lavatoire, just outside the gate of the castle?’ he said.
The communal Roman basin where in the old days the women washed clothes and laundry was an excellent backdrop for the Tri-moteur, although the roof made it a bit dark. It was built next to a brook, against the background of the castle and it looked like a mediaeval setting for a castle romance. Parking the Tri-moteur close to the edge of the basin it became immediately evident that it had been used to bring the laundry had to the washing place. It indeed would have been ideal to make the photo with a heap of scale garments or bed linen. I was busy rolling it into positions where the build of the Tri-moteur would make a convincing image. Suddenly a giant man loomed over the cart, the master of the castle, Christophe Houzet, who I met last year, when I photographed a troupe of Citroëns in his courtyard.
“Allo,” he said, “nice model you have! When you come to my office I’ll show you the Tri-moteur that I have got.”
In his office Christophe showed me a 1:24 Solido model in beige, smaller than mine, with the box painted as a real wood paneled box. “It’s more detailed than mine,” I said. “And I think it’s more original.” “A larger scale does not always mean finer or nicer, or more authentic,” Cristophe said. “Do you want to see the larger scale model I’ve got as well?”
We walked through the garage with various Tractions in varying stages of restoration, a dark blue Ferrari and a stunning, black Lincoln Zephyr Coupe. In the next garage stood a beige colored Tri-moteur, compared with the 1:24 a surreal giant model. “Would you like to photograph this one as well?”
We pushed it to the backside of the courtyard that was partly used as scrap yard. It was in an immaculate condition, only the striping on the mudguards had to be done, and the headlights had to be mounted, otherwise it was new.
“This is a giant Solido model,” I said.
The language barrier prevented us to freely talk about his driving experiences. But from what he told in French, German and English I imagined him driving as the young man who he was, on this cart on the narrow empty roads, winding up and down, through small villages of a few houses, cows in the fields. It surely was a fantastic barn find that I understood was used for shopping in Gray and Pesmes. It was clear that Christophe really loved it for its history as well as for the fun he got out of it.
In the garage I discovered a postwar Peugeot saloon that must have been of the same age as the Tri-moteur. I would have made the reportage complete when I photographed them both in one picture, but that would mean a lot of pushing and pulling of the cars that were standing in front of it, to much effort to ask. Later, at home, I thought of making a photo of my own Tri-moteur and the Peugeot scale model that I bought last year.
After walking back via the office Christophe showed me a folder that would complete the story, a sober, practical layout with the basic technical data.
My own Tri-moteur was still standing on the edge of the deserted Roman basin, waiting for more shoots that I had planned for the coming days. The first photo was shot in the wide high street of Pesmes, in front of the florist. Then some photos in front of the barn up the road at the end of the street of the house where we were staying. The next day I drove to Gray where I shot the three-wheeler next to the river the Saône, with in the background a branch office of Randstad, a former client of mine.