Adolphe Kégresse
{{More citations needed|date=November 2017}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Adolphe Kégresse
| honorific_suffix =
| image = Sankt-Peterburg oldfoto 13635.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption = Adolphe Kégresse seated behind the wheel of the Imperial "Benz". At the main entrance of Catherine Palace, Tsarskoye Selo, Russia, September 9, 1911.
| native_name =
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| nationality = French
| citizenship =
| birth_name = 1879
| birth_date =
| birth_place = Héricourt, Haute-Saône
| death_date = 1943
| death_place = Croissy-sur-Seine
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| module = {{Infobox engineering career
| discipline = Military engineering
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| employer = Tsar Nicholas II
| significant_projects =
| significant_design = Half-track and dual clutch transmission
| significant_advance =
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}}
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Adolphe Kégresse (1879, Héricourt, Haute-Saône - 1943) was a French military engineer who invented 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 and the Head of the Mechanical Department of the Russian Imperial Garage at Tsarskoye Selo.{{cite web|url=http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/impgarage.html |title=The Imperial Garage - the Tsar and His Cars |df=dmy }} The Aide-de-camp to Tsar Nicholas II, Prince Orlov wrote in a letter to the Tsar's Minister of the Court on May 15, 1914:
"... I consider Kégresse an irreplaceable worker and I am afraid his leaving will be a great loss for the garage. Your Highness knows, of course, how much His Majesty appreciates Kégresse."
In 1908, the architect Lipsky VA designed a second two-storeyed Art Nouveau building for the Russian Imperial garage at Tsaskoye Selo / Pushkin, Saint Petersburg it had a total area of 367.6 sq. M. It housed the garage-residence Adolphe Kégresse. The building is noteworthy and identifiable for inclusion of a grand staircase with an external bas-relief image of one of the first car races held regularly in Tsarskoe Selo before the First World War.{{cite web|url=http://www.tsar-auto-club.spb.ru/club/building_history.html |title=Tsarskoye Selo Imperial Garage |df=dmy }}
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
File:Russian Imperial Tsar's Garages Puskin Tsarskoye Selo 5.jpg|Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg where Kégresse was Head of the Mechanical Department
File:Russian Imperial Tsar's Garages Puskin Tsarskoye Selo 4.jpg|bas-relief image of a car race, Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg
Image:Kegresse pt1913.jpg|Kégresse's 1913 design
File:Automobil mit Schneeraupe, Skiern, Mannschaftsschlitten - CH-BAR - 3241598.tif|Kégresse track 1914-18 at Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg
File:Automobil mit Schneeraupe, Skiern, Mannschaftsschlitten - CH-BAR - 3241598. 15.07.17.jpg|Former Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg in July 2017
File:Automobil mit Schneeraupen beim Geländefahren - CH-BAR - 3241596.tif|Kégresse Track 1914-18 at Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg
File:Automobil mit Schneeraupen beim Geländefahren - CH-BAR - 3241596. 15.07.17.jpg|Former Tsar Nicholas II Car Garages, Pushkin, Saint Petersburg in July 2017
File:Automobil mit Schneeraupe und vorne Skiern - CH-BAR - 3241597.jpg| Kégresse Track outside Alexander Palace, Tsarskoye Selo, January 1917
File:Russo-balt5.jpg|"Russo-Balt "C24-30" from the garage of Tsar Nicholas II with Kégresse track design of Adolphe Kégresse. Adolphe Kégresse possibly seated on the right of the photograph
Image:Kegresse tsar17.jpg|A Packard Twin-6 car with Kégresse track from the personal car park of the Tsar Nicholas II
File:Automobil mit Schneeraupen im Tiefschnee - CH-BAR - 3241599.tif| Russia 1914
File:Automobile mit Schneeraupen und Skiern ausgerüstet - CH-BAR - 3241595.jpg| Russia 1914
File:Austin-Kegress «Ukrainets» in Zhytomyr, 1920.jpg| An Austin-Putilov Armoured Car with Kégresse tracks of the Red Army which was damaged during the Polish–Soviet War. In the area of Zhytomyr, 21 March 1920
File:Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Kégresse.jpg|Lenin's Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with Kégresse track, converted by the Putilov plant, at Gorki Leninskiye
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
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- [http://www.doublechevron.de/Historisches/Adolphe_Kegresse.php Informationen über Leben und Werk von Adolphe Kégresse] (German language)
- [http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/impgarage.html Information concerning the Tsar Nicholas II garage at Pushkin and A. Kégresse as Head of the Mechanical Department]
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Category:People from Héricourt, Haute-Saône
Category:French military engineers
Category:20th-century French engineers