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 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.

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.

"[4] In 1889 at the age of 26, Doriot finished his military service and took a job at the Peugeot bicycle factory in Beaulieu-sur-Doubs, Valentigney (or possibly 1887[5]).

By 1891 he had become a full employee at the factory and began working for the company's main engineer, Louis Rigoulot, installing Daimler engines into Peugeot's first vehicles, thus developing a four-wheeled petroleum-powered Quadricycle - the Peugeot Type 2 and the Type 3 with 2.5 hp, four forward gears plus reverse.

[6][7][8] In order to publicly prove the reliability and performance of the 'Quadricycle' it was officially entered (appended) into the 1891 Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race, Armand Peugeot having persuaded the organiser, Pierre Giffard of Le Petit Journal, of the benefits if his network of monitors and marshalls could vouchsafe the performance.

The intended distance of 1200 kilometres had never been achieved by a motorised vehicle, it being about three times further than the record set by Leon Serpollet from Paris to Lyon.

Additionally Rigoulot and Doriot loaded the Type 3 Quadricycle with tools, spare parts, luggage and water, and drove it 300 kilometres from Valentigny to Paris, a three-day journey.

Peugeot had to pre-seed the route with petrol supplies, so employees placed cans at strategic railway stations about 60 kilometres apart.

[6] Doriot drove for Peugeot in the Grandes Épreuves of the 1890s, consistently finishing near the top after many hours of competing on unsurfaced roads in difficult conditions.