1891 – Peugeot Type 3 Quadricycle Debuts
Running alongside the peloton at the inaugural Paris–Brest–Paris on 6 September 1891, the Peugeot Type 3 quadricycle made more than a technical demonstration: it staged Peugeot’s first public automotive outing. The little Type 3 — a light four-wheeled, single-cylinder vehicle developed from Peugeot’s earlier steam and bicycle work — followed the cyclists during the long-distance event, drawing attention from riders and spectators and establishing the machine as a practical horseless conveyance. That same demonstrator later became the company’s first customer sale, a rare early example of a motorcar effectively proving itself in a sporting, long-distance public forum and converting curiosity into commerce.
1901 – President McKinley Carried by Electric Ambulance
Shortly after he was shot at the Pan‑American Exposition’s Temple of Music, President William McKinley was carried from the scene on a stretcher and loaded into an electric ambulance for the short trip to the Exposition Emergency Hospital on the afternoon of September 6, 1901. Contemporary medical accounts describe surgeons operating that same afternoon in the exposition hospital; the use of an electric-powered vehicle to move the president is a striking reminder that battery-driven transport had practical applications in public service well before the modern EV era. The incident is often cited in medical and historical reports from the period.
1911 – Birth of Charles Deutsch, Aerodynamicist
Born on September 6, 1911 in Champigny‑sur‑Marne, Charles Deutsch would become one of France’s most inventive aerodynamic engineers and a founding partner of Deutsch‑Bonnet (DB). Deutsch applied aircraft-inspired streamlining to small sports cars and racing machines, pursuing light weight and low drag in a period when those ideas were still experimental. Through the DB cars and later under the CD name he built lightweight, aerodynamically efficient racers that competed in hillclimbs and endurance events; his engineering emphasis on body shape and weight rather than brute power made him a distinctive voice in mid‑century French sports-car design.
1939 – Enzo Ferrari Leaves Alfa Romeo
On 6 September 1939 Enzo Ferrari formally severed his contract with Alfa Romeo, ending a long association with Alfa Corse and setting him on an independent course. With the separation he used the resources at hand to found Auto Avio Costruzioni in Modena — an engineering and parts workshop that would build the Tipo 815 sports car and lay the practical groundwork for what would become his own marque. The move came at a fraught historical moment, but it established Ferrari’s autonomy as a constructor and directly led to the small-scale engineering efforts that bridged his Alfa years and the later Ferrari racing and road-car enterprise.
2006 – Nissan Presents the Qashqai to the World
In a Paris press event on 6 September 2006, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn unveiled the production Qashqai to journalists ahead of the public Paris Motor Show, presenting the compact crossover that the company positioned between hatchback and SUV. The production Qashqai shown in La Courneuve carried the series design details that would reach showrooms in early 2007, and press photography from the day captured both the car’s coupe‑like roofline and its urban‑oriented proportions. The presentation was billed as the model’s world premiere and put Nissan at the forefront of the growing crossover segment in Europe.
