This car appears to have an early form of front-wheel-drive system, with a rigid axle on semi-elliptic springs, and a chassis-mounted transaxle with jointed driveshafts. So it's something like the de Dion system, but used at the front of the car.
So after a bit of digging, it looks like this is a prototype called the Festina, built by Joseph Laviolette, somewhere around 1913 or 14. He had previously worked for Spyker in the Netherlands, and had been involved with their 60 HP four-wheel-drive racer.
It seems that there were two Festina prototypes, and the puzzle photo shows both. The earlier is the one with four seats, which was taken to England in 1915 to try to find a factory which would produce it, but despite successful trials and good press reports, the project did not go ahead.
After WWI Laviolette moved to France and built a second Festina, which is the one with only two seats.
