We all know that Martin was not the inventor of all his toys himself.
Many of his toys were invented by small toy makers who took their inventions to the annual “Concours de Lépine” a competition in Paris to present and hopefully sell their inventions.
One of these inventors was Mr Boucheron from whom Martin has bought several inventions.
One of these inventions was the L’Autopatte.
On the box and the catalogue page of this Martin toy you can see that it won a “Grand Prix” price on the “Concours Lépine”.
In the magazine “La Nature” from 1909 page 204 a small article of this invention was described the L’auto-pattes
The translated description is as follows:
A production by M. Boucheron that solves wishes.
The L’ Autopatte is a motor vehicle a african boy sits in front of the person falling to the ground that is propelled in circular long durations.
The mechanism is simple.
A lever that performs the functions of the femur is placed in the extended mechanism where it is received in an arc.
A cam enhances this lever to move up and down.
Finally, each leg carries a lever.
The knee joints are more than primary.
The legs hang at the end of the knees.
But when the toy is walking, the controlled bars go up one by one, and the legs take the vertical position by their own weight, and when they are lowered, the legs touch the ground.
As the toy rolls, these feet stay on the ground for a short time and lengthen to return vertically to the next move.
Because this steering is alternate, the feet land on the ground one by one and the africa boy feels in fact he is actually responsible for the propulsion of the vehicle with his feet in reverse. –
Mr. Boucheron lived on the rue Rachel, in Vitry-sur-Seine.
In January 2023 a blog with more about this nice toy