The Jeantaud was a French automobile manufactured in Paris from 1893 until 1906. It was the brainchild of Charles Jeantaud, a coachbuilder who built his first electric carriage in 1881. Among the vehicles he constructed was the first car to set a land speed record (39.24 mph (63.15 km/h) , driven by Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat), as well as coupes and hansom cabs; in these the driver sat high, and to the rear. Some cars had an unusual bevel-gear front-wheel-drive layout. From 1902 to 1904, Jeantaud offered a range of gas-engined cars similar to 1898 Panhards.
The first recorded motoring competition was in 1894 from Paris to Rouen in which all kinds of improbable cars driven by steam, electricity and petrol engines took part.
The first race proper was in the following year from Paris to Bordeaux and back. In these early days the two main champions of the electric car were the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat and the Belgian, Camille Jenatzy.
The Marquis was a founder member of the Automobile Club de France in 1895, and his driver was his younger brother, Count Gaston.
Count Gaston took it to a deserted stretch of road outside Paris near the hamlet of Acheres, between the villages of St. Germain and Constans to make what became the first attempt on the World Land Speed Record.
The timekeepers operated their primitive apparatus in one direction only over a flying kilometre, and were no doubt thankful to be finished on a cold, wet day and to seek shelter. Count Gaston was told, after due calculation, that he had achieved a time of 57 seconds, giving him a speed of 39.24 miles an hour.
This car, whose thunder was largely stolen by the much better-known "La Jamais Contente", is really entitled to a place in the hall of fame on several counts. It was the first car to hold the World Land Speed Record. It was the first (but not the last) electric car to do so, and also held the record twice.
Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat then re-built and re-bodied the car and took the record for a third time in 1899. This car took part in, or was in fact the cause of, the three-cornered battle between steam, electricity, and the petrol engine which was fought during the first five years of the motor car and decided what the whole world would use for the next 65 years at least.
Count Gaston made his records over a flying kilometre in one direction only, before there was much control over these attempts. His car was an ugly chain-driven machine in which he sat high off the ground and steered by a vertical handle projecting from the first steering wheel on record in times when the tiller was universal. It was strictly a sprint machine as the batteries of the day gave him only a short range without recharging.