The first V engine of record was not A De DionBouton but was the Antoinette V of  Antoinette had a  degrees crankshaft did all others until Wright who was making the HispanoSuiza of  cu In and  cu in in about  or a later wanted to put the  degree crankshaft into the  engine but the Navy and the Army Air Corp wanted air cooled Radials so this left it up to Cadillac to do it in  This is recorded in Manuel Lages book about HispanoSuiza page  Line   httpwwwtecsocorgpubshistorydechtm That design came from a Frenchman with a background in art LonMarieJosephClement Levavasseur  He started work on his new engine in about  His engine had eight cylinders but instead of putting them in a straight line Levavasseur arranged them in the shape of a V It was a powerful and compact design and when he received a French patent on December   Levavasseur became the first person to patent what we now call a V engine   httpwwwhubertlathamwindkillercomMonoplanehtm  The Antoinette engine was designed and built in France by Lon Levavasseur Named after the designers daughter it was Europes most widely used engine until  The first Antoinette engine dated from about  and was used in a speedboat By  Levavasseur had produced a watercooled engine with eightcylinders arranged in a degree V and with direct fuel injection It was safe strong and fairly powerful generating  horsepower  kilowatts and weighing about  pounds  kilograms Its powertoweight ratio was not surpassed for  years  Antoinette VII Designed by Lon Levavasseur who was an artist as well as a gifted engineer the Antoinette range possessed an almost art nouveau sense of elegance The engine also named Antoinette came first being designed by Levavasseur in  to power motor boats Both SantosDumont and the Voisins used this engine to power their early machines The motor was of advanced design utilizing direct fuel injection and evaporative steam cooling  which took place in long tubes fixed along the sides of the fuselage     M L Anderson