Auguste Doriot

Auguste Doriot
Auguste Doriot (second from right) driving a Vis a vis (Face to face) Peugeot 3hp during the 1894 Paris-Rouen Contest
Born	Auguste Frederic Doriot (1863-10-24)24 October 1863 Sainte-Suzanne, Doubs in Franche-Comté
Died	1955 Menton, France

Auguste Frédéric Doriot (24 October 1863 – 1955) was a French motoring pioneer who developed, built and raced cars for Peugeot before founding his own manufacturing company D.F.P. in combination with Ludovic Flandrin and the Parant brothers. In 1891, Doriot and his Peugeot colleague Louis Rigoulot completed the longest trip by a petrol powered vehicle when their self-designed and built Daimler powered Peugeot Type 3 completed 2,100 kilometres (1375 miles) from Valentigney to Paris and Brest and back again. They were attached to the first Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race, but the duo reached Brest one day after the winning cyclist, Charles Terront, finished in Paris, and they then finished six days after him.

Doriot's son, Georges Doriot, emigrated to the United States and became a professor at the Harvard Business School, where he later became known as the father of Venture Capitalism. He also became a brigadier general during World War II.

Auguste Frederic Doriot was born on 24 October 1863, the second youngest of eight children of Jacques Doriot, in the village of Sainte-Suzanne, Doubs in Franche-Comté. On 27 September 1894 at Valentigney he married 24-year-old Berthe Camille Baehler from Voujeaucourt, known as Camille, who had a Swiss father from Uetendorf and a French mother. She had been orphaned aged three and was raised by her grandmother and three older sisters. The couple went on to have two children, Georges Frederic was born in September 1899 and Madeleine Georgette (Zette) was born on 11 August 1906 at the family home in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Doriot was a cold, stern, driving, ambitious father, unlike Camille. Even Georges' successes were met without enthusiasm, and 'his cool stare was worse than any physical punishment'. Georges was trained in the D.F.P workshops and was able to enlist as an Artillery engineer after WW1. After the war the family sent him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA but he switched to the Harvard Business School where he became a Professor and the father of Venture Capitalism. He also became Brigadier general (United States) during WWII. Georges also noted: "I think that my father worked 24 hours a day."