[9] The only Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede made, on loan from the Musée de l'Île-de-France, Sceaux, was the first machine viewers saw upon entering the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum rotunda in The Art of the Motorcycle exhibition in New York in 1998.

[4][10] Motoring author L. J. K. Setright commented that, "the simplest way to define a motorcycle is as a bicycle propelled by a heat engine; and if we accept this we must go on to admit that its prototype is unidentifiable, shrouded in the mists of industrial antiquity.

[6][11][12][13] The earliest year suggested for the Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede is 1867,[2][3] which could be either the same year, or earlier than the Roper velocipede, which some authorities also date as early as 1867,[14][15] while others such as motorcycling historians Charles M. Falco and David Burgess-Wise, and Motorcycle Consumer News design columnist Glynn Kerr date the Roper later, to 1868,[3][8] and the AMA Hall of Fame member and author Mick Walker have it as 1869.

Design columnist Glynn Kerr, ignoring the Michaux-Perraux altogether and championing the Roper, feels it would be more accurate to call the Daimler Reitwagen, "the predecessor of all gasoline-driven vehicles on land, sea, or air", but not a true motorcycle because it used two outrigger wheels to remain upright and could not lean.

[1] The Michaux-Perreaux machine was constructed using the first commercially successful pedal bicycle, a boneshaker which Michaux had been building over 400 of annually since 1863,[20] and the single cylinder alcohol fueled Perreaux engine, which used twin flexible leather belt drives to the rear wheel.

[9] The alcohol-fueled engine had a similar bore and stroke to the original, and developed a steam pressure of 3½ atm (250 kPa) in its 3 US qt (2.8 L) boiler, resulting in a speed of 15–18 mph (24–29 km/h).