the first v engine of record was not a de dion bouton but was the antoinette v of antoinette had a degrees crankshaft did all others until wright who was making the hispano suiza 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 lage s book about hispano suiza page line that design came from a frenchman with a background in art l on marie joseph clement 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 the antoinette engine was designed and built in france by l on levavasseur named after the designer's daughter it was europe's most widely used engine until the first antoinette engine dated from about and was used in a speedboat by levavasseur had produced a water cooled engine with eight cylinders 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 power to weight ratio was not surpassed for years antoinette vii designed by l on 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 santos dumont 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