1914 Peugeot L45 Grand Prix

This car and its 4.5-liter engine are thought to be the great grandfather of the modern internal combustion engine. It is one of the most important surviving vehicles in the history of the automobile. Virtually every automobile engine built in the last hundred years owes a debt to the genius and inventiveness of Jules Goux, Georges Boillot and Paolo Zuccarelli "The Charlatans".

They were drivers and mechanics who joined forces with engineer Ernest Henry for the creation of the new Peugeot four cylinder engine for the Peugeot Grand Prix cars in 1912. Their idea was to locate the cams above the valves (the first double overhead cam design) and went to four valves per cylinder with pentroof pistons.

The first engines in 1912 were 7.6-liters and the cars debuted at the 1912 Coup de l'Auto, a marathon of 956 miles which Georges Boillot won in his L7.6 liter Peugeot. In 1914, the Automobile Club de France (ACF) reduced the maximum engine size in 1913 to 5.6 liters and in 1914 reduced it again to 4.5 liters.

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