Adolphe Kégresse
Adolphe Kégresse (1879, Héricourt, Haute-Saône - 1943) was a French military engineer, inventor of the half-track and dual clutch transmission.
Born at Héricourt, and educated in Montbéliard, he moved in 1905 to Saint Petersburg, Russia to work for the Russian Tsar Nicholas II. To improve the mobility of the imperial car park, he invented the Kégresse track to modify normal motor vehicles into half-tracks. He was also a personal chauffeur of Tsar Nicholas II
After World War I Kégresse was forced to return to his home country, where he was from 1919 employed by the Citroën company during the 1920s and 1930s to design half-track vehicles, together with engineer Jacques Hinstin.
After leaving the Citroën company he developed in 1935 the AutoServe gearbox-transmission system. In 1939 he pioneered the development of modern small guided tracked bombs. Kégresse died in 1943 at Croissy-sur-Seine.
Gallery
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Kégresse's 1913 design
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"Russo-Balt "C24-30" from the garage of Tsar Nicholas II with Kegresse track design of Adolphe Kegresse. Adolphe Kégresse possibly seated on the right of the photograph
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A Packard Twin-6 car with Kégresse track from the personal car park of the Tsar Nicholas II
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An Austin-Putilov Armoured Car with Kegresse tracks of the Red Army which was damaged during the Polish–Soviet War. In the area of Zhytomyr, 21 March 1920
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Lenin's Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with Kegresse track, converted by the Putilov plant, at Gorki Leninskiye
References
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kegresse. |
- Informationen über Leben und Werk von Adolphe Kégresse (German language)