Car Info

What Was The First Car?

A Quick History of the Automobile for Young People by William W. Bottorff

Several Italians recorded designs for wind driven vehicles. The first was Guido da Vigevano in 1335. It was a windmill type drive to gears and thus to wheels. Vaturio designed a similar vehicle which was also never built. Later Leonardo da Vinci designed a clockwork driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels.

A Catholic priest named Father Ferdinand Verbiest has been said to have built a steam powered vehicle for the Chinese Emperor Chien Lung in about 1678. There is no information about the vehicle, only the event. Since Thomas Newcomen didn't build his first steam engine until 1712 we can guess that this was possibly a model vehicle powered by a mechanism like Hero's steam engine, a spinning wheel with jets on the periphery. Newcomen's engine had a cylinder and a piston and was the first of this kind, and it used steam as a condensing agent to form a vacuum and with an

overhead walking beam, pull on a rod to lift water. It was an enormous thing and was strictly stationary. The steam was not under pressure, just an open boiler piped to the cylinder. It used the same vacuum principle that Thomas Savery had patented to lift water directly with the vacuum, which would have limited his pump to less than 32 feet of lift. Newcomen's lift would have only been limited by the length of the rod and the strength of the valve at the bottom. Somehow Newcomen was not able to separate his invention from that of Savery and had to pay for Savery's rights. In 1765 James Watt developed the first pressurized steam engine which proved to be much more efficient and compact that the Newcomen engine.

The first vehicle to move under its own power for which there is a record was designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769. A replica of this vehicle is on display at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, in Paris. I believe that the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D. C. also has a large (half size ?) scale model. A second unit was built in 1770 which weighed 8000 pounds and had a top speed on 2 miles per hour and on the cobble stone streets of Paris this was probably as fast as anyone wanted to go it. The picture shows the first model on its first drive around Paris were it hit and knocked down a stone wall. It also had a tendency to tip over frontward unless it was counterweighted with a canon in the rear. the purpose of the vehicle was to haul canons around town.

The early steam powered vehicles were so heavy that they were only practical on a perfectly flat surface as strong as iron. A road thus made out of iron rails became the norm for the next hundred and twenty five years. The vehicles got bigger and heavier and more powerful and as such they were eventually capable of pulling a train of many cars filled with freight and passengers.

As the picture at the right shows, many attempts were being made in England by the 1830's to develop a practical vehicle that didn't need rails. A series of accidents and propaganda from the established railroads caused a flurry of restrictive legislation to be passed and the development of the automobile bypassed England. Several commercial vehicles were built but they were more like trains without tracks.

The development of the internal combustion engine had to wait until a fuel was available to

combust internally. Gunpowder was tried but didn't work out. Gunpowder carburetors are still hard to find. The first gas really did use gas. They used coal gas generated by heating coal in a pressure vessel or boiler. A Frenchman named Etienne Lenoir patented the first practical gas engine in Paris in 1860 and drove a car based on the design from Paris to Joinville in 1862. His one-half horse power engine had a bore of 5 inches and a 24 inch stroke. It was big and heavy and turned 100 rpm. Lenoir died broke in 1900.

Lenoir had a separate mechanism to compress the gas before combustion. In 1862, Alphonse Bear de Rochas figured out how to compress the gas in the same cylinder in which it was to burn, which is the way we still do it. This process of bringing the gas into the cylinder, compressing it, combusting the compressed mixture, then exhausting it is know as the Otto cycle, or four cycle engine. Lenoir claimed to have run the car on benzene and his drawings show an electric spark ignition. If so, then his vehicle was the first to run on petroleum based fuel, or petrol, or what we call gas, short for gasoline.

Siegfried Marcus, of Mecklenburg, built a can in 1868 and showed one at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. His later car was called the Strassenwagen had about 3/4 horse power at 500 rpm. It ran on crude wooden wheels with iron rims and stopped by pressing wooden blocks against the iron rims, but it had a clutch, a differential and a magneto ignition. One of the four cars which Marcus built is in the Vienna Technical Museum and can still be driven under its own power.

In 1876, Nokolaus Otto patented the Otto cycle engine, de Rochas had neglected to do so, and this later became the basis for Daimler and Benz breaking the Otto patent by claiming prior art from de Rochas.

The picture to the left, taken in 1885, is of Gottllieb Daimler's workshop in Bad Cannstatt where he built the wooden motorcycle shown. Daimler's son Paul rode this motorcycle from Cannstatt to Unterturkheim and back on November 10, 1885. Daimler used a hot tube ignition system to get his engine speed up to 1000 rpm

The previous August, Karl Benz had already driven his light, tubular framed tricycle around the Neckar valley, only 60 miles from where Daimler lived and worked. They never met. Frau Berta Benz took Karl's car one night and made the first long car trip to see her mother, traveling 62 miles from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888.

Also in August 1888, William Steinway, owner of Steinway & Sons piano factory, talked to Daimler about US manufacturing right and by September had a deal. By 1891 the Daimler Motor Company, owned by Steinway, was producing petrol engines for tramway cars, carriages, quadricycles, fire engines and boats in a plant in Hartford, CT.

Steam cars had been built in America since before the Civil War but the early one were like

miniature locomotives. In 1871, Dr. J. W. Carhart, professor of physics at Wisconsin State University, and the J. I. Case Company built a working steam car. It was practical enough to inspire the State of Wisconsin to offer a $10,000 prize to the winner of a 200 mile race in 1878.>(see more on J. W. Carhart story from Fredric Dennis Williams)

The 200 mile race had seven entries, or which two showed up for the race. One car was sponsored by the city of Green Bay and the other by the city of Oshkosh. The Green Bay car was the fastest but broke down and the Oshkosh car finished with an average speed of 6 mph.

From this time until the end of the century, nearly every community in America had a mad scientist working on a steam car. Many old news papers tell stories about the trials and failures of these would be inventors.

By 1890 Ransom E. Olds had built his second steam powered car, pictured at left. One was sold to a buyer in India, but the ship it was on was lost at sea.

Running by February, 1893 and ready for road trials by September, 1893 the car built by Charles and Frank Duryea, brothers, was the first gasoline powered car in America. The first run on public roads was made on September 21, 1893 in Springfield, MA. They had purchased a used horse drawn buggy for $70 and installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine. The car (buggy) had a friction

transmission, spray carburetor and low tension ignition. It must not have run very well because Frank didn't drive it again until November 10 when it was reported by the Springfield Morning Union newspaper. This car was put into storage in 1894 and stayed there until 1920 when it was rescued by Inglis M. Uppercu and presented to the United States National Museum.

Henry Ford had an engine running by 1893 but it was 1896 before he built his first car. By the end of the year Ford had sold his first car, which he called a Quadracycle, for $200 and used the money to build another one. With the financial backing of the Mayor of Detroit, William C. Maybury and other wealthy Detroiters, Ford formed the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. A few prototypes were built but no production cars were ever made by this company. It was dissolved in January 1901. Ford would not offer a car for sale until 1903.

The first closed circuit automobile race held at Narragansett Park, Rhode Island, in September 1896. All four cars to the left are Duryeas, on the right is a Morris & Salom Electrobat. Thirteen Duryeas of the same design were produced in 1896, making it the first production car.

At left is pictured the factory with produced the 13 Duryeas. In 1898 the brothers went their separate ways and the Duryea Motor Wagon Company was closed. Charles, who was born in 1861 and was eight years older than Frank had taken advantage of Frank in publicity and patents. Frank went out on his own and eventually joined with Stevens Arms and Tool Company to form the

Stevens-Duryea Company which was sold to Westinghouse in 1915. Charles tried to produce some of his own hare-brained ideas with various companies until 1916. Thereafter he limited himself to writing technical book and articles. He died in 1938. Frank got a half a million dollars for the Westinghouse deal and lived in comfort until his death in 1967, just seven months from his 98th birthday.

In this engraving Ransom Eli Olds is at the tiller of his first petrol powered car. Riding beside him is Frank G. Clark, who built the body and in the back are their wives. This car was running by 1896 but production of the Olds Motor Vehicle Company of Detroit did not begin until 1899. After an early failure with luxury vehicles they established the first really successful production with the classic Curved Dash Oldsmobile.

The Curved Dash Oldsmobile had a single cylinder engine, tiller steering and chain drive. It sold for $650. In 1901 600 were sold and the next years were 1902 - 2,500, 1903 - 4,000, 1904 - 5,000. In August 1904 Ransom Olds left the company to form Reo (for Ransom Eli Olds). Ransom E. Olds was

the first mass producer of gasoline powered automobiles in the United States, even though Duryea was the first auto manufacturer with their 13 cars.

http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/cars/carhist.htm

Eras of invention

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Early automobiles

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Main article: History of steam road vehicles [edit]17th century

Ferdinand Verbiest, a member of a Jesuit mission in China, built the first steam-powered vehicle around 1672 as a toy for the Chinese Emperor. It was of small enough scale that it could not carry a driver but it was, quite possibly, the first working steam-powered vehicle ('auto-mobile').[2][3]

Cugnot's steam wagon, the second (1771) version

A replica of Richard Trevithick's 1801 road locomotive 'Puffing Devil'

Steam-powered self-propelled vehicles large enough to transport people and cargo were first devised in the late 18th century. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnotdemonstrated his fardier à vapeur ("steam dray"), an experimental steam-driven artillery tractor, in 1770 and 1771. As Cugnot's design proved to be impractical, his invention was not developed in his native France. The centre of innovation shifted to Great Britain. By 1784, William Murdoch had built a working model of a steam carriage in Redruth, and in 1801 Richard Trevithick was running a full-sized vehicle on the road in Camborne.[4] Such vehicles were in vogue for a time, and over the next decades such innovations as hand brakes, multi-speed transmissions, and better steering developed. Some were commercially successful in

providing mass transit, until a backlash against these large speedy vehicles resulted in the passage of the Locomotive Act (1865), which required self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom to be preceded by a man on foot waving a red flag and blowing a horn. This effectively killed road auto development in the UK for most of the rest of the 19th century; inventors and engineers shifted their efforts to improvements in railwaylocomotives. (The law was not repealed until 1896, although the need for the red flag was removed in 1878.)

The first automobile patent in the United States was granted to Oliver Evans in 1789.

[edit]19th century

Among other efforts, in 1815, a professor at Prague Polytechnic, Josef Bozek, built an oil-fired steam

car.[5]:p.27Walter Hancock, builder and operator of London steam buses, in 1838 built a four-seat

In 1867, Canadian jeweller Henry Seth Taylor demonstrated his 4-wheeled "steam buggy" at the Stanstead Fair in Stanstead, Quebec, and again the following year.[6] The basis of the buggy, which he began building in 1865, was a high-wheeled carriage with bracing to support a two-cylinder steam engine mounted on the floor.[7]

What some people define as the first "real" automobile was produced by French Amédée Bollée in 1873, who built self-propelled steam road vehicles to transport groups of passengers.

The American George B. Selden filed for a patent on May 8, 1879. His application included not only the engine but its use in a 4-wheeled car. Selden filed a series of amendments to his application which stretched out the legal process, resulting in a delay of 16 years before the US 549160[8] was granted on November 5, 1895.

Karl Benz, the inventor of numerous car-related technologies, received a German patent in 1886.[9]

The four-strokepetrol (gasoline) internal combustion engine that constitutes the most prevalent form of modern automotive propulsion is a creation ofNikolaus Otto. The similar four-stroke diesel

engine was invented by Rudolf Diesel. The hydrogen fuel cell, one of the technologies hailed as a replacement for gasoline as an energy source for cars, was discovered in principle by Christian Friedrich Schönbein in 1838.[citation needed] The batteryelectric car owes its beginnings to Ányos Jedlik, one of the inventors of the electric motor, and Gaston Planté, who invented the lead-acid battery in 1859.[citation needed]

The first carriage-sized automobile suitable for use on existing wagon roads in the United States was a steam powered vehicle invented in 1871, by Dr. J.W. Carhart, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in Racine, Wisconsin. It induced the State of Wisconsin in 1875, to offer a $10,000 award to the first to produce a practical substitute for the use of horses and other animals. They stipulated that the vehicle would have to maintain an average speed of more than five miles per hour over a 200 mile course. The offer led to the first city to city automobile race in the United States, starting on July 16, 1878, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and ending in Madison, via Appleton, Oshkosh, Waupun, Watertown, Fort Atkinson, and Janesville. While seven vehicles were registered, only two started to compete: the entries from Green Bay and Oshkosh. The vehicle from Green Bay was faster, but broke down before completing the race. The Oshkosh finished the 201 mile course in 33 hours and 27 minutes, and posted an average speed of six miles per hour. In 1879, the legislature awarded half the prize.[10] Steam-powered automobiles continued development all the way into the early 20th century, but the dissemination of petrol engines as the motive power of choice in the late 19th century marked the end of steam automobiles except as curiosities. Whether they will ever be reborn in later technological eras remains to be seen. The 1950s saw interest in steam-turbine cars powered by small nuclear reactors (this was also true of aircraft), but the dangers inherent in nuclear fission technology soon killed these ideas. The need for global changes in energy sources and consumption to bring about sustainability and energy independence has led 21st century engineers to think once more about possibilities for steam use, if powered by modern energy sources controlled with computerized controls, such as advanced electric batteries, fuel cells, photovoltaics, biofuels, or others.

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See also: History of the electric vehicle

In 1828, Ányos Jedlik, a Hungarian who invented an early type of electric motor, created a tiny model car powered by his new motor.[11] In 1834, VermontblacksmithThomas Davenport, the inventor of the first American DC electrical motor, installed his motor in a small model car, which he operated on a short circular electrified track.[12] In 1835, Professor Sibrandus Stratingh ofGroningen,

the Netherlands and his assistant Christopher Becker created a small-scale electrical car, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.[13] In 1838, ScotsmanRobert Davidson built an electric locomotive that attained a speed of 4 miles per hour (6 km/h). In England, a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of rail tracks as conductors of electric current, and similar American patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in 1847. Between 1832 and 1839 (the exact year is uncertain), Robert Anderson of Scotland invented the first crude electric carriage, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.

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1885-built Benz Patent Motorwagen, the first car to go into production with an internal combustion engine

The second Marcus car of 1888 (Technical Museum Vienna )

Early attempts at making and using internal combustion engines were hampered by the lack of suitablefuels, particularly liquids, therefore the earliest engines used gas mixtures.

Early experimenters using gases. In 1806, Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz who built an enginepowered by internal combustion of a hydrogen and oxygen mixture. In

1826, EnglishmanSamuel Brown who tested his hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engine by using it to propel a vehicle up Shooter's Hill in south-east London. Belgian-born Etienne

Lenoir's Hippomobile with a hydrogen-gas-fuelled one-cylinderinternal combustion engine made a test drive from Paris to Joinville-le-Pont in 1860, covering some nine kilometres in about three hours.[14] A later version was propelled by coal gas. A Delamare-Debouttevillevehicle was patented and trialled in 1884.

About 1870, in Vienna, Austria (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), inventor Siegfried Marcus put a liquid-fuelled internal combustion engine on a simple handcart which made him the first man to propel a vehicle by means of gasoline. Today, this car is known as "the first Marcus car". In 1883, Marcus secured a German patent for a low-voltage ignition system of themagneto type; this was his only automotive patent. This design was used for all further engines, and the four-seat "second Marcus

car" of 1888/89. This ignition, in conjunction with the "rotating-brush carburetor", made the second car's design very innovative.

It is generally acknowledged that the first really practical automobiles with

petrol/gasoline-powered internal combustion engines were completed almost simultaneously by several German inventors working independently: Karl Benz built his first automobile in 1885 in Mannheim. Benz was granted a patent for his automobile on 29 January 1886, and began the first production of

automobiles in 1888, after Bertha Benz, his wife, had proved - with the first long-distance trip in August 1888, from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back - that the horseless coach was absolutely suitable for daily use. Since 2008 a Bertha Benz Memorial Route commemorates this event.

Soon after, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart in 1889 designed a vehicle from scratch to be an automobile, rather than a horse-drawn carriage fitted with an engine. They also are usually credited with invention of the first motorcycle in 1886, but Italy's Enrico Bernardi of

the University of Padua, in 1882, patented a 0.024 horsepower (17.9 W) 122 cc (7.4 cu in) one-cylinder petrol motor, fitting it into his son's tricycle, making it at least a candidate for the first

automobile, and first motorcycle;.[5]:p.26 Bernardi enlarged the tricycle in 1892 to carry two adults.[5]:p.26 One of the first four-wheeled petrol-driven automobiles in Britain was built in Birmingham in 1895 by Frederick William Lanchester, who also patented the disc brake; and the first electric starterwas installed on an Arnold, an adaptation of the Benz Velo, built between 1895 and 1898.[5]:p.25

George F. Foss of Sherbrooke, Quebec built a single-cylinder gasoline car in 1896 which he drove for 4 years, ignoring city officials' warnings of arrest for his "mad antics."[15]

In all the turmoil, many early pioneers are nearly forgotten. In 1891, John William Lambert built a three-wheeler in Ohio City, Ohio, which was destroyed in a fire the same year, while Henry Nadigconstructed a four-wheeler in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It is likely they were not the only ones.[5]:p.25

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Veteran era

The Selden Road-Engine

The first production of automobiles was by Karl Benz in 1888 in Germany and, under license from Benz, in France by Emile Roger. There were numerous others, including tricycle builders Rudolf Egg, Edward Butler, and Léon Bollée.[5]:p.20-23 Bollée, using a 650 cc (40 cu in) engine of his own design, enabled his driver, Jamin, to average 45 kilometres per hour (28.0 mph) in the 1897 Paris-Tourville rally.[5]:p.23 By 1900, mass production of automobiles had begun in France and the United States. The first motor car in central Europe[16] and one of the first factory-made cars in world, was

produced by Czech company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra) in 1897,

the Präsident automobil. The first company formed exclusively to build automobiles was Panhard et Levassor in France, which also introduced the first four-cylinder engine.[5]:p.22 Formed in 1889, Panhard was quickly followed by Peugeot two years later. By the start of the 20th century, the automobile industry was beginning to take off in Western Europe, especially in France, where 30,204 were produced in 1903, representing 48.8% of world automobile production that year.[17]

The first automobile in Japan, a FrenchPanhard-Levassor, in 1898

1903 World's Work Article

In the United States, brothers Charles and Frank Duryea founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1893, becoming the first American automobile manufacturing company. However, it was Ransom E. Olds and his Olds Motor Vehicle Company (later known as Oldsmobile) who would dominate this era of automobile production. Its production line was running in 1902. The Thomas B. Jeffery Company developed the world's second mass produced automobile and 1,500 Ramblers were built and sold in its first year, representing one-sixth of all existing motorcars in the U.S. at the

time.[18] Within a year, Cadillac (formed from the Henry Ford Company), Winton, and Ford were also producing cars in the thousands.

Within a few years, a dizzying assortment of technologies were being produced by hundreds of producers all over the western world. Steam, electricity, and petrol/gasoline-powered automobiles competed for decades, with petrol/gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the

1910s. Dual- and even quad-engine cars were designed, and engine displacement ranged to more than a dozen litres. Many modern advances, includinggas/electric hybrids,

multi-valve engines, overhead camshafts, and four-wheel drive, were attempted, and discarded at this time. In 1898, Louis Renaulthad a De Dion-Bouton modified, with fixed drive shaft and ring and pinion gear, making "perhaps the first hot rod in history" and bringing Renault and his brothers into the car

industry.[19] Innovation was rapid and rampant, with no clear standards for basic vehicle

architectures, body styles, construction materials, or controls. Many veteran cars use a tiller, rather than a wheel for steering. During 1903, Rambler standardized on the steering wheel[20] and moved the driver's position to the left-hand side of the vehicle.[21] Most cars were operated at a

single speed. Chain drive was dominant over the drive shaft, and closed bodies were extremely rare. Drum brakes were introduced by Renault in 1902.[22] The next year, Dutch designer Jacobus Spijker built the first four-wheel drive racing car;[23] it never competed and it would be 1965 and the Jensen FF before four-wheel drive was used on a production car.[24]

Innovation was not limited to the vehicles themselves, either. Increasing numbers of cars propelled the growth of the petroleum industry,[25] as well as the development of technology to produce gasoline (replacing kerosene and coal oil) and of improvements in heat-tolerant mineral

oillubricants(replacing vegetable and animal oils).[26]

There were social effects, also. Music would be made about cars, such as "In My Merry Oldsmobile" (a tradition that continues) while, in 1896, William Jennings Bryan would be the

first presidential candidate to campaign in a car (a donated Mueller), in Decatur, Illinois.[27] Three years later, Jacob German would start a tradition for New York City cabdrivers when he sped down Lexington Avenue, at the "reckless" speed of 12 mph (19 km/h).[28]Also in 1899, Akron, Ohio, adopted the first self-propelled paddy wagon.[28]

In My Merry Oldsmobile songbook featuring an Oldsmobile Curved Dashautomobile (produced 1901-1907) and period driving clothing

By 1900, it was possible to talk about a national automotive industry in many countries, including Belgium(home to Vincke, which copied Benz; Germain, a pseudo-Panhard;

and Linon and Nagant, both based on theGobron-Brillié),[5]:p,25Switzerland (led by Fritz Henriod, Rudolf Egg, Saurer, Johann Weber, and Lorenz Popp),[5]:p.25Vagnfabrik AB in Sweden, Hammel (by A. F. Hammel and H. U. Johansen at Copenhagen, inDenmark, which only built one car, ca.

1886[5]:p.25), Irgens (starting in Bergen, Norway, in 1883, but without success),

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Italy (where FIAT started in 1899), and as far afield as Australia (where Pioneer set up shop in 1898, with an already archaic paraffin-fuelled centre-pivot-steered wagon).[5] Meanwhile, the export trade had begun to be global, with Koch exporting cars and trucks from Paris to Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, and theDutch East Indies.[5]:p25

On 5 November 1895, George B. Selden was granted a United States patent for a

two-stroke automobile engine (U.S. Patent 549,160 ). This patent did more to hinder than encourage development of autos in the USA. Selden licensed his patent to most major American automakers, collecting a fee on every car they produced. The Studebaker brothers, having become the world's leading manufacturers of horse-drawn vehicles, made a transition to electric automobiles in 1902, and gasoline engines in 1904, but also continued to build horse-drawn vehicles until 1919.[29]:p.90 In 1908, the first South American automobile was built in Peru, the Grieve.[30] Motor cars were also exported very early to British colonies and the first motor car was exported to India in 1897.

Throughout the veteran car era, however, automobiles were seen as more of a novelty than a genuinely useful device. Breakdowns were frequent, fuelwas difficult to obtain, roads suitable for travelling were scarce, and rapid innovation meant that a year-old car was nearly worthless. Major breakthroughs in proving the usefulness of the automobile came with the historic long-distance drive of Bertha Benz in 1888, when she travelled more than 80 kilometres (50 mi)

from Mannheim to Pforzheim, to make people aware of the potential of the vehicles her husband, Karl Benz, manufactured, and after Horatio Nelson Jackson's successful transcontinental drive across the United States in 1903. While other automakers provided motorists withtire repair kits, Rambler was first in 1909 to equip its cars with a spare tire that was mounted on a fifth wheel.[31]

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Model-T Ford car parked outside GeelongLibrary at its launch in Australia in 1915 Main article: Brass Era car

See also: Antique car

Named for the widespread use of brass in the United States, the Brass (or Edwardian) Era lasted from roughly 1905 through to the beginning of World War I in 1914.

Within the 15 years that make up this era, the various experimental designs and alternate power systems would be marginalised. Although the moderntouring car had been invented earlier, it was not until Panhard et Levassor's Système Panhard was widely licensed and adopted that recognisable and standardised automobiles were created. This system specified front-engined, rear-wheel driveinternal combustion engined cars with a sliding geartransmission. Traditional coach-style vehicles were

rapidly abandoned, and buckboard runabouts lost favour with the introduction of tonneaus and other less-expensive touring bodies.

A Stanley Steamer racecar in 1903. In 1906, a similar Stanley Rocket set the world land speed record at 205.5km/h at Daytona Beach Road Course.

By 1906, steam car development had advanced, and they were among the fastest road vehicles in that period.[32][not in citation given]

Throughout this era, development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included the

electric ignition system (by dynamotor on the Arnold in 1898,[33] though Robert Bosch, 1903, tends to get the credit), independent suspension (actually conceived by Bollée in 1873),[33] and

four-wheelbrakes (by the Arrol-Johnston Company of Scotland in 1909).[5]:p27Leaf springs were widely used for suspension, though many other systems were still in use, with angle steel taking over from armored woodas the frame material of choice. Transmissions and throttle controls were widely adopted, allowing a variety of cruising speeds, though vehicles generally still had discrete speed settings, rather than the infinitely variable system familiar in cars of later eras. Safety glass also made its debut, patented by John Wood in England in 1905.[22] (It would not become standard equipment until 1926, on a Rickenbacker.)[22]

Between 1907 and 1912 in the United States, the high-wheel motor buggy (resembling the horse buggy of before 1900) was in its heyday, with over seventy-five makers

including Holsman (Chicago), IHC (Chicago), and Sears (which sold via catalog); the high-wheeler would be killed by the Model T.[5]:p.65 In 1912, Hupp (in the U.S., supplied by Hale & Irwin) and BSA (in the UK) pioneered the use of all-steel bodies,[34] joined in 1914 by Dodge(who produced Model T bodies).[22] While it would be another two decades before all-steel bodies would be standard, the change would mean improved supplies of superior-quality wood for furniture makers.[5]

Some examples of cars of the period included:

 1908–1927 Ford Model T — the most widely produced and available 4-seater car of the era. It used a planetary transmission, and had a pedal-based control system. Ford T was proclaimed as the most influential car of the 20th century in the international Car of the Century awards.

 1909 Morgan Runabout - a very popular cyclecar, cyclecars were sold in far greater quantities than 4-seater cars in this period[35]

 1910 Mercer Raceabout — regarded as one of the first sports cars, the Raceabout expressed the exuberance of the driving public, as did the similarly conceived American

Underslung andHispano-Suiza Alphonso.

 1910–1920 Bugatti Type 13 — a notable racing and touring model with

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Vintage era

1923 Lancia Lambda

1926 Austin 7 Box saloon

1926 Bugatti Type 35 Main article: Vintage car

See also: Antique car

The vintage era lasted from the end of World War I (1919), through the Wall Street Crash at the end of 1929. During this period, the front-engined car came to dominate, with closed bodies and

standardised controls becoming the norm. In 1919, 90% of cars sold were open; by 1929, 90% were closed.[5]:p.7Development of the internal combustion engine continued at a rapid pace, with multi-valve and overhead camshaft engines produced at the high end, andV8, V12, and even V16 engines conceived for the ultra-rich. Also in 1919, hydraulic brakes were invented by Malcolm Loughead (co-founder of Lockheed); they were adopted by Duesenberg for their 1921 Model A.[22] Three years later, Hermann Rieseler of Vulcan Motor invented the first automatic transmission, which had two-speed planetary gearbox, torque converter, and lockup clutch; it never entered production.[22] (Its like would only become an available option in 1940.)[22] Just at the end of the vintage era, tempered glass (now standard equipment in side windows) was invented in France.[22] In this era the revolutionary ponton design of cars without fully articulated fenders, running boards and

other non-compact ledge elements was introduced in small series but a mass production of such cars was started much later (after WWII).

Exemplary vintage vehicles:

 1922–1939 Austin 7 — the Austin Seven was one of the most widely copied vehicles ever, serving as a template for cars around the world, from BMW toNissan.

 1922–1931 Lancia Lambda — very advanced car for the time, first car to feature a load-bearing monocoque-type body and independent front suspension.

 1924–1929 Bugatti Type 35 — the Type 35 was one of the most successful racing cars of all time, with over 1,000 victories in five years.

 1925–1928 Hanomag 2 / 10 PS — early example of ponton styling.

 1927–1931 Ford Model A (1927-1931) — after keeping the brass era Model T in production for too long, Ford broke from the past by restarting its model series with the 1927 Model A. More than 4 million were produced, making it the best-selling model of the era. Ford A was a prototype for the beginning of Soviet mass car production (GAZ A).

 1930 Cadillac V-16 — developed at the height of the vintage era, the V16

-powered Cadillac would join Bugatti's Royale as the most legendary ultra-luxury cars of the era.

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Pre-WWII era

Ford V-8 (Model B)

Citroën Traction Avant

Volkswagen Beetle Main article: Classic car

The pre-war part of the classic era began with the Great Depression in 1930, and ended with the recovery after World War II, commonly placed at 1948. It was in this period that

integrated fenders and fully closed bodies began to dominate sales, with the new saloon/sedan body style even incorporating a trunk or boot at the rear for storage. The old open-top runabouts, phaetons, and touring cars were phased out by the end of the classic era as wings, running boards,

and headlights were gradually integrated with the body of the car.

By the 1930s, most of the mechanical technology used in today's automobiles had been invented, although some things were later "re-invented", and credited to someone else. For example, front-wheel drive was re-introduced by André Citroën with the launch of the Traction Avant in 1934, though it had appeared several years earlier in road cars made by Alvis and Cord, and in racing cars by Miller (and may have appeared as early as 1897). In the same vein, independent suspension was originally conceived by Amédée Bollée in 1873, but not put in production until appearing on the

low-volume Mercedes-Benz 380 in 1933, which prodded American makers to use it more widely.[33] In 1930, the number of auto manufacturers declined sharply as the industry consolidated and matured, thanks in part to the effects of the Great Depression.

Exemplary pre-war automobiles:

 1932–1939 Alvis Speed 20 and Speed 25 — the first cars with all-synchromesh gearbox.[citation needed]

 1932–1948 Ford V-8 (Model B) — introduction of the powerful flathead V8 in mainstream vehicles, setting new performance and efficiency standards.

 1934–1940 Bugatti Type 57 — a singular refined automobile for the wealthy.

 1934–1956 Citroën Traction Avant — the first mass-produced front-wheel drive car, built with monocoque chassis.

 1936–1955 MG T series — sports cars with youth appeal at an affordable price.

 1938–2003 Volkswagen Beetle — a design for efficiency and low price, which was produced for over 60 years with minimal basic change; it has the largest production in history with over 20 million units produced in several counties. The car was awarded the fourth place in the

international Car of the XX Centurycompetition. A new car echoing the styling of the original has been produced in the 21st century.

 1936–1939 Rolls-Royce Phantom III — V12 engined pinnacle of pre-war engineering, with technological advances not seen in most other manufacturers until the 1960s. Superior performance and quality.

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Post-war era

1946 GAZ-M20 Pobeda one of the first mass produced car with ponton design

1953 Morris Minor Series II

1947 Standard Vanguard ponton styled car in 1954 version as station wagon (break)

1974 Citroën DS

Main article: Classic car

Since World War II automobile design experienced the total revolution changes to ponton style (without a non-compact ledge elements), one of the first mass representatives of that were the Soviet GAZ-M20 Pobeda (1946), British Standard Vanguard (1947), USStudebaker

Champion and Kaiser Special (1947), and small serial Czech luxury Tatra T600 Tatraplan (1946) and ItalianCisitalia 220 sportcar (1947).

Automobile design and production finally emerged from the military orientation and other shadow of war in 1949, the year that in the United States saw the introduction of high-compressionV8

engines and modern bodies from General Motors' Oldsmobile and Cadillac brands. The unibody/ strut-suspended 1951 Ford Consul joined the 1948 Morris Minorand 1949 Rover P4 in waking up the automobile market in the United Kingdom. In Italy, Enzo Ferrari was beginning his250 series, just as Lancia introduced the revolutionary V6-powered Aurelia.

Throughout the 1950s, enginepower and vehicle speeds rose, designs became more integrated and artful, and cars spread across the world. Alec Issigonis' Mini and Fiat's 500 diminutive cars swept Europe, while the similar kei carclass put Japan on wheels for the first time. The

legendary Volkswagen Beetle survived Hitler's Germany to shake up the small-car market in the Americas. Ultra luxury, exemplified in America by the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, reappeared after a long absence, and grand tourers (GT), like the Ferrari Americas, swept across Europe.

The market changed somewhat in the 1960s, as Detroit began to worry about foreign competition, the European makers adopted ever-higher technology, and Japan appeared as a serious car-producing nation. General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford tried radical small cars, like the GM A-bodies, but had little success.Captive imports and badge engineering swept through the US and UK

as amalgamated groups like the British Motor Corporation consolidated the market. BMC's

revolutionary space-saving Mini, which first appeared in 1959, captured large sales worldwide. Minis were marketed under the Austin and Morris names, until Mini became a marque in its own right in 1969.[36] The trend for corporate consolidation reached Italy as niche makers like Maserati, Ferrari, and Lanciawere acquired by larger companies. By the end of the decade, the number of automobile marques had been greatly reduced.

In America, performance became a prime focus of marketing, exemplified by pony cars and muscle cars. In 1964 the popular Ford Mustang appeared. In 1967,Chevrolet released the Camaro to compete with the Mustang. But everything changed in the 1970s as the 1973 oil crisis, automobile emissions control rules, Japanese and European imports, and stagnant innovation wreaked havoc on the American industry. Though somewhat ironically, full-size sedans staged a major comeback in the years between the energy crisis, with makes such as Cadillac and Lincoln staging their best sales years ever in the late 70s. Small performance cars from BMW, Toyota, and Nissan took the place of big-engined cars from America and Italy.

Besides of smaller size and grand tourer class cars, amongst a trends of car design at the late of XX century were the wide using of the station wagons (estate, break, kombi, универсал) and non-commercial comfortable all-wheel drivedoff-road vehicles.

On the technology front, the biggest developments of the era were the widespread use

of independent suspensions, wider application of fuel injection, and an increasing focus on safety in the design of automobiles. The hottest technologies of the 1960s were NSU's "Wankel engine", the gas turbine, and theturbocharger. Of these, only the last, pioneered by General Motors but popularised by BMW and Saab, was to see widespread use. Mazda had much success with its "Rotary" engine which, however, acquired a reputation as a polluting gas-guzzler. Other Wankel licensees, including Mercedes-Benz and General Motors, never put their designs into production after the 1973 oil crisis. (Mazda's hydrogen-fuelled successor was later to demonstrate potential as an "ultimate eco-car".[37]) Rover and Chrysler both produced experimental gas turbine cars to no effect.

Cuba is famous for retaining its pre-1959 cars, known as yank tanks or maquinas, which have been kept since the Cuban revolution when the influx of new cars slowed because of a US trade embargo.

To the end of the 20th century and later, the US Big Three (GM, Ford, Chrysler) partially lost their leading position, Japan became for a while the world's leader of car production and cars began to be mass manufactured in new Asian, East European and other countries.

Notable exemplary post-war cars:

 1946–1958 GAZ-M20 Pobeda — Soviet mass car with full ponton design.

 1947–1958 Standard Vanguard — British mass car with full ponton design some and

 1948–1971 Morris Minor – a popular and typical early post-war car exported around the world  1953–1971 Chevrolet Bel Air and 1953–2002 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham – in its first

generations were a bright representatives of golden epoch of American tailfin car design

 1955–1976 Citroën DS — bright and non-often representative of unusual bogie (hydropneumatic) и design (one of the most mind), due to what became a movie star; car was awarded the third place on international Car of the XX Century competition.

 1959–2000 Mini — this quintessential small car lasted for four decades, and is one of the most famous cars of all time; car was awarded the second place on international Car of the XX Century competition; car has a re-styled new variant in XXI century.

 1961–1975 Jaguar E-type — the E-type saved Jaguar on the track and in the showroom.  1963–1989 Porsche 911 – wanted non-cheap but mass sport car, famoused[clarification needed] its

company; car was awarded the fifth place on internationalCar of the XX Century competition; car has a successors with similar design.

 1964–present Ford Mustang — the pony car that became one of the best-selling and most-collected cars of the era.

 1966–end of 20th century Fiat 124 — an Italian car that was licence produced in many other counties including the Soviet Union where as the VAZ-2101 it launched mass automobilisation.  1967 NSU Ro 80 — the basic wedge profile of this design was much emulated in subsequent

decades.,[38] unlike that its other technical innovation - rotor engine.

 1967–2002 Chevrolet Camaro – The pony car that General Motors introduced to compete with Ford's mustang which featured the relatively new Coke bottle styling.

 1969 Datsun 240Z — one of the first Japanese sports cars to be a smash hit with the North American public, it paved the way for future decades of Japanese strength in the automotive industry. It was affordable[citation needed] and well built,[citation needed] and had great success both on the

track and in the showroom.

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Modern era

The modern era is normally defined as the 25 years preceding the current year. However, there are some technical and design aspects that differentiate modern cars from antiques. Without considering the future of the car, the modern era has been one of increasing standardisation, platform sharing, and computer-aided design.

Some particularly notable advances in modern times are the widespread of front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive, the adoption of the diesel engine, and the ubiquity of fuel injection. While all of these advances were first attempted in earlier eras, they so dominate the market today that it is easy to overlook their significance. Nearly all modern passenger cars are front-wheel

drivemonocoque/unibody designs, with transversely mounted engines, but this design was considered radical as late as the 1960s.

Body styles have changed as well in the modern era. Three types, the hatchback, sedan, and sport utility vehicle, dominate today's market,[citation needed] yet are relatively recent concepts. All originally emphasised practicality, but have mutated into today's high-powered luxury crossover SUV, sports wagon, two-volume Large MPV. The rise of pickup trucks in the United States, and SUVs worldwide has changed the face of motoring, with these "trucks" coming to command more than half of the world automobile market[citation needed]. There was also the appearance of new one-volume MPV class (smaller non-commercial passenger minivans), among the first of which were the French Renault Espace and US Pontiac Trans Sport.

The modern era has also seen rapidly rising fuel efficiency and engine output. Once the automobile emissions concerns of the 1970s were conquered with computerised engine management systems, power began to rise rapidly. In the 1980s, a powerful sports car might have produced

200 horsepower (150 kW) – just 20 years later, average passenger cars have engines that powerful, and some performance models offer three times as much power.

Since 2009 China became the new world's absolute car manufacturer leader with production more than US, Japan or all Europe. Besides of large growth of car production in Asian and other countries, the junctions (and breaks) of producents into transnational corporate groups and the transnational "platforms" of a cars becamed as wide practice.

Since the end of the 20th century, several award competitions of cars and trucks have become widely known, such as European Car of the YearCar of the Year Japan, North American Car of the

Year, World Car of the Year, Truck of the Year, and International Car of the Year, so that vehicles of different classes, producers, and countries win alternately. Also, Car of the Century awards were held, in which in the US the Ford Model T was named as most influential car of the 20th century.

Exemplary modern cars:

 1966–present Toyota Corolla — a simple small Japanese saloon/sedan that has come to be the best-selling car of all time.

 1970–present Range Rover — the first take on the combination of luxury and four-wheel

drive utility, the original 'SUV'. Such was the popularity of the original Range Rover Classic that a new model was not brought out until 1994.[39]

 1973–present Mercedes-Benz S-Class — electronic Anti-lock Braking System, supplemental restraint airbags, seat belt pretensioners, and electronic traction control systems all made their debut on the S-Class. These features would later become standard throughout the car industry.

 1975–present BMW 3 Series — the 3 Series has been on Car and Driver magazine's annual Ten Best list 17 times, making it the longest running entry in the list.

 1977–present Honda Accord saloon/sedan — this Japanese sedan became the most popular car in the United States in the 1990s, pushing the Ford Taurus aside, and setting the stage for today's upscale Asian sedans.

 1981–1989 Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant — the "K-cars" that saved Chrysler as a major manufacturer. These models were some of the first successful American front-wheel drive, fuel-efficient compact cars.

 1983–present Chrysler minivans — the two-box minivan design nearly pushed the station wagon out of the market, and presaged today's crossover SUVs.

 1984–present Renault Espace — first mass one-volume car of non-commercial MPV class.  1986–present Ford Taurus — this mid-sized front-wheel drive sedan with modern

computer-assisted design dominated the American market in the late 1980s, and created a design revolution in North America.

 1989–1999 Pontiac Trans Sport — was one the first of the one box cars.

 1997–present Toyota Prius — launched in the Japanese market, in September 2010 reached worldwide cumulative sales of 2.0 million units, becoming the most known hybrid electric vehiclein the world.

 1998–present Ford Focus — one of the most popular hatchbacks across the globe, that is also one of Ford's best selling world cars.

 2008–present Tata Nano — The Tata Nano is an inexpensive( 100,000 ~ $2200), rear-engined, four-passenger city car built by the Indian company Tata Motors and is aimed primarily at the Indian domestic market.

 2008–present Tesla Roadster — The Tesla Roadster was the first highway-capable all-electric vehicle in serial production for sale in the United States in the modern era.

 2010–present, Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt — an all-electric car and a plug-in

hybrid correspondingly, were launched in the U.S. and Japanese markets in December 2010, becoming the first mass production vehicles of their kind.

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Future directions

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References

1. ^ Eckermann, Erik (2001). World History of the Automobile. SAE Press, p.14.

2. ^"1679-1681–R P Verbiest's Steam Chariot". History of the Automobile: origin to 1900. Hergé. Retrieved 2009-05-08.

3. ^ Setright, L. J. K. (2004). Drive On!: A Social History of the Motor Car. Granta Books. ISBN 1-86207-698-7.

4. ^ C.D. Buchanan (1958). "1". Mixed Blessing: The Motor in Britain. Leonard Hill.

5. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrs Georgano, G.N. (1985). Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. London:

6. ^ The Montreal Gazette - Jan 18,

1986 http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19860118&id=G4Y0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=5KUFA

AAAIBAJ&pg=3436,3937822

7. ^ "Canada's First Automobile: Full Steam Ahead" from the book "Whatever Happened To...?" by Mark Kearny & Randy Ray, Dundern Press, 2006

8. ^George B Selden road-engine, Patent 549,160 9. ^Reichspatent 37435[1]

10. ^ A History of Wisconsin Highway Development 1835-1945; A joint project by the State Highway Commission of Wisconsin and the Public Roads Administration, Federal Works Agency; Madison;

1947; pp.19-20. See also Race of First Steam Buggies Wisconsin Historical Society; and Williams, F. Dennis ; Accessed Mar. 13, 2011

11. ^ B David Ferrel, History of the electric car: 1828 - 1912, from Trouve to Morrison , retrieved July 18, 2009

12. ^Today in Technology History: July 6 , The Center for the Study of Technology and Science , retrieved 2009-07-14[dead link]

13. ^ (in English - Dutch available) Sibrandus Stratingh (1785-1841), Professor of Chemistry and Technology , University of Groningen, retrieved 2009-04-24

14. ^Data on the Hippomobile and hydrogen/fuel cells from TÜV SÜD Industrie Service GmbH 15. ^ The Montreal Gazette - Jan 18,

1986 http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19860118&id=G4Y0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=5KUFA

AAAIBAJ&pg=3436,3937822

16. ^[2]

17. ^"American Motorsports Timeline" . crucean.com.

18. ^ Adamson, John F. (1959). Engineering History of the Rambler and the Small Car Picture Today. Society of Automotive Engineers. p. 5. doi:10.4271/590176 .

19. ^ Yates, Brock (January 1988). "10 Best Moguls". Car and Driver: 47.

20. ^ Hyde, Charles K. (2009). Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, and American Motors . Wayne State University Press. p. 12. ISBN978-0-8143-3446-1. Retrieved June 9, 2011.

21. ^ Gottlieb, Robert J. (1997). "Nash 600 coupe" . Motor Trend 29: 109. Retrieved June 9, 2011. 22. ^ abcdefgh Csere, Csaba (January 1988). "10 Best Engineering Breakthroughs". Car and

Driver 33 (7): 62.

23. ^ Lyons, Pete (January 1988). "10 Best Ahead-of-Their-Time Machines". Car and Driver: 77. 24. ^ Lyons, p.78.

25. ^ Csere, pp. 60-61. 26. ^ Csere, p. 60.

27. ^ Lewis, Mary Beth. "Ten Best First Facts", in Car and Driver, 1/88, p.92. 28. ^ ab Lewis, p.92.

29. ^ Longstreet, Stephen. A Century on Wheels: The Story of Studebaker. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 121. 1st edn., 1952.

30. ^"» The first Peruvian car …en Perú – Travel Culture History News" . Enperublog.com. 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2009-10-14.

31. ^Hyde, p. 12

32. ^"Stanley Steamers amongst fastest road vehicles around 1906-1911" . Docstoc.com. 2009-05-28. Retrieved 2010-10-03.

33. ^ abc Csere, p. 61.

34. ^ Csere, p. 63.

35. ^ Britains Greatest Machines documentary stating that 100 cyclecars were sold for every 4-seater car in 1914

36. ^ Michael Sedgwick & Mark Gillies, A-Z of Cars 1945-1970, 1986 37. ^Hydrogen and the Rotary Engine on Mazda Global Website

38. ^ Hevesi D "Claus Luthe, Car Design Innovator, Is Dead at 75" New York Times, 10 April 2008 39. ^ Buckley M Used Car Buying Guide: Range Rover Channel 4 (UK) 24 Jan 2005

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Further reading

 Berger, Michael L., The automobile in American history and culture: a reference guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. ISBN 978-0-313-24558-9

 Halberstam, David, The Reckoning, New York : Morrow, 1986. ISBN 0-688-04838-2

 Kay, Jane Holtz, Asphalt nation : how the automobile took over America, and how we can take it back, New York : Crown Publishers, 1997. ISBN 0-517-58702-5

 Krarup, M. C. (November 1906). "Automobiles for Every Use" . The World's Work: A History of Our

Time XIII: 8163–8178. Retrieved 2009-07-10. Includes photos of many c.1906 special purpose automobiles.  Norman, Henry (April 1902). "The Coming of the Automobile" . The World's Work: A History of Our Time V:

3304–3308. Retrieved 2009-07-10.

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External links

 Automuseum Dr. Carl Benz, Ladenburg/Germany  Bertha Benz Memorial Route

 University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections – Transportation photographs Digital collection depicting various modes of transportation (including automobiles) in the Pacific Northwest region and western USA during the first half of the 20th century.

 History of the automobile on About.com:Inventors site  History of Automobile Air Conditioning on NYC.net

 Automotive History - An ongoing photographic history of the automobile.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_automobile

AUTOMOBILE FIRSTS

Inventor Date Type/Description Country

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (1725-1804)

1769 STEAM / Built the first self propelled road vehicle (military tractor) for the French army: three wheeled, 2.5 mph.

France

Robert Anderson 1832-1839 ELECTRIC / Electric carriage. Scotland

Karl Friedrich Benz (1844-1929)

1885/86 GASOLINE / First true automobile. Gasoline automobile powered by an internal combustion engine: three wheeled, Four cycle, engine and chassis

Germany Patent DRP No. 37435

form a single unit.

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler (1834-1900) and Wilhelm Maybach (1846-1929)

1886 GASOLINE / First four wheeled, four-stroke engine- known as the

"Cannstatt-Daimler."

Germany

George Baldwin Selden (1846-1922)

1876/95 GASOLINE / Combined internal combustion engine with a carriage: patent no: 549,160 (1895). Never manufactured -- Selden collected royalties.

United States

Charles Edgar Duryea (1862-1938) and his brother Frank (1870-1967)

1893 GASOLINE / First successful gas powered car: 4hp, two-stroke motor. The Duryea brothers set up first American car manufacturing company.

United States

http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/auto.html

History of cars

by Chris Woodford. Last updated: October 7, 2012.

Cars are amazing! And one of the most amazing things about them is that no-one invented them— no single person, that is. There was no scribbling on the back of an envelope, no lightning flash of inspiration, and no-one ran down the street crying "Eureka". All the different parts—the engine, the wheels, the gears, and all the fiddly bits like the windscreen wipers—somehow came together, very gradually, over a period of about five and a half thousand years. How did it happen? Let's take a closer look!

Photo: Henry Ford's cars changed the world. This one's a restored Ford Model Y from 1935. Although modern cars world essentially the same way as old ones, they are much more efficient (go further on each liter or gallon of fuel) and aerodynamic (waste less energy pushing through the air).

Beasts of burden

Photo: Beasts of burden: animals were the original engines! Photo by John and Karen Hollingsworth courtesy of US Fish & Wildlife Service .

It all began with the horse. Or the camel. Or perhaps even the dog. No-one really knows which animal prehistoric humans picked on first. People tended to stay put, living more locally than they do now. If they needed to move things about, they had to float them down rivers or drag them by sledge. All that started to change when humans realized the animals around them had raw power they could tap and tame. These "beasts of burden" were the first engines.

By about 5000BCE, there were sledges and there were animal "engines"—so the obvious thing to do was hitch them together. The Native Americans were masters at this. They invented the travois: a strong, A-shaped wooden frame, sometimes covered with animal skin, that a horse could drag behind it like a cart without wheels. First used thousands of years ago, the travois was still scraping along well into the 19th century.

The next big step was to add wheels and turn sledges into carts. The wheel, which first appeared around 3500 BCE, was one of the last great inventions of prehistoric times. No-one knows exactly how wheels were invented. A group of prehistoric people may have been rolling a heavy load along on tree trunks one day when they suddenly realized they could chop the logs like salami and make the slices into wheels. However it was invented, the wheel was a massive advance: it meant people and animals could pull heavier loads further and faster.

Huge and heavy, the first solid wheels were difficult to carve and more square than round. When someone had the bright idea of building lighter, rounder wheels from separate wooden spokes, lumbering carts became swift, sleek chariots. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all used chariots to expand their empires. They were a bit like horse-drawn tanks.

Photo: The first wheels were made of solid wood. By the early 20th century, car wheels had thin metal spokes similar to bicycle wheels, which make them lighter and easier to turn.

Earlier civilizations made small steps by trial and error. The ancient Greeks (the first real scientists) took giant leaps. Greek philosophers (thinkers) realized that a wheel mounted on an axle can magnify a pushing or pulling force. So people now understood the science of wheels for the first time. The Greeks also gave us gears: pairs of wheels with teeth around the edge that lock and turn together to increase power or speed.

Carts and chariots were a big advance on legs—but they were useless for going cross country. That's why ancient Middle Eastern people and Mediterraneans, who lived in open grassy areas and deserts, developed chariots faster than Europeans and Asians stuck among the forests and scrub. The

Romans were the first to realize that a car is only as good as the road it travels on. So they linked up their empire with a huge highway network. Roman roads were cutting-edge technology. They had a soft base underneath to drain away water and a harder top made from a patchwork of tight-fitting rocks.

The Greeks gave us gears, the Romans gave us roads—but when it came to engines, the world was still stuck with horsepower. And things stayed that way for hundreds of years through a time known as the Dark Ages, the early part of the Middle Ages, when science and knowledge advanced little in the western world.

Things finally started getting interesting again toward the end of the Middle Ages. In 1335, Dutchman Guido von Vigevano drew sketches of a "Windwagen". It had the three key parts of a modern car: an engine (spinning windmill sails), a set of wheels, and gears to transfer power between them. During the Renaissance (the explosion of culture and science that began in the 15th century), Italian inventor Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) scribbled some designs for a clockwork car. Like a giant watch, it was supposed to be powered by springs that would drive the wheels through a system of interlocking gears. Even though there was little mileage in either of these ideas, the self-powered car was slowly coming together and the days of the horse seemed numbered.

Chariots of fire

The next major development came in 1712 when "the very ingenious Mr Thomas Newcomen" (as his friends called him) built a massive machine for pumping rainwater out of coal mines. It was based around a huge 2-m (7-ft) high metal cylinder with a piston inside that could move up and down like the plunger in a bicycle pump.

Every so often, steam from a boiler (a sort of gigantic coal-fired kettle) squirted into the space in the cylinder underneath the piston. Then cold water was squirted in to make the steam condense, creating a partial vacuum directly under the piston. Since the air pressure in the space above the piston was now greater than that in the space beneath it, the piston moved down. When the vacuum was released, the piston rose back up again. The rising and falling piston operated a pump that slowly sucked the water from the mine.

Machines like this were originally called fire engines—they were, after all, powered by burning coal—though they soon became known as steam engines when people realized that controlling steam was the key to making them work more efficiently. One of those people was a Scotsman named James Watt (1736–1819). In 1764, Watt redesigned Newcomen's engine so it was both a fraction the size and more powerful. Where Newcomen's piston had simply tipped a beam up and down, Watt's turned wheels and gears. Large Watt engines soon found their way into factories, where they became the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution and people did away with horses for operating pumps and other machines. Coal seemed to be the fuel of the future.

Steam engines were still too big and heavy to use in vehicles, but that didn't stop people trying. In 1769, Frenchman Nicholas Joseph Cugnot (1725–1804) used steam-engine technology to make a lumbering, three-wheeled tractor for pulling heavy army cannons. Many people consider this the world's first car, but it was incredibly primitive by today's standards. With a top speed of just 5 km/h (3mph), you would have thought it posed little danger. But the "fardier à vapeur" (steam wagon) was heavy and hard to steer and, just two years later, the first ever car had the first ever car crash when Cugnot rammed it through a brick wall. He was given a speeding ticket and thrown in jail.

Steam engines were soon finding their way into other heavy vehicles. In the early 1800s, Cornishman Richard Trevithick (1771–1833) started building steam carriages with wobbly 3-m (10-ft) diameter wheels. Around this time, Trevithick's American counterpart Oliver Evans (1755–1819) built an ambitious steam-powered river digger called the Oruktor Amphibolos that could drive on either land or water. Belching fire and smoke like a dragon, it caused a sensation as it chugged down the

Philadelphia streets in 1804.

Photo: Steam engines were too large and cumbersome to power cars to begin with. This one is a newly rebuilt steam locomotive working on the Swanage Railway , England, in 2007.

Both Trevithick and Evans ultimately switched their attention to making steam trains, but another Cornish inventor, Goldsworthy Gurney (1793–1875), was convinced the idea of steam road vehicles still had legs. Quite literally. He designed an early steam carriage that would gallop along on rickety pins, just like a horse. When Gurney realized wheels could do the job much better, he built

impressive steam buses and ran a service between London and Bath. Ultimately he was driven out of business by horse-powered stage coaches, which were faster and cheaper. John Scott Russell (1808– 1882) also had to close a promising steam-coach business when one of his buses exploded on 29 July 1834, killing four passengers. It was the world's first fatal car accident. Horses everywhere breathed a huge sigh of relief: they'd be around for many years yet. Or so they thought, until a clever bunch of scientists showed up.

Ingenious Engineers

A car is like a cart with a built-in horse—a horse-less carriage that doesn't eat grass, wear shoes, or leave a steaming pile of muck wherever it goes. The engineers who set out to make the first cars had a big problem on their hands: how to squeeze the power of a galloping horse into a small,

reliable engine.

This tricky problem taxed the best minds of the day. The experiments with steam had been the first attempt to solve it, but though coal-powered steam engines were excellent for pulling trains, they weren't so good in cars. Apart from the clunking great engine itself, you had to carry a mini-mountain of coal and a tank full of water. Some ingenious Europeans starting searching for better fuels and more compact engines. They were a mixture of "thinkers" and "doers".

Christiaan Huygens

The engineers were inspired by brilliant Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695), who had the laser-like mind of Isaac Newton and the inventing ability of Leonardo da Vinci. He made many astronomical discoveries, invented the mathematics of probability, made the first pendulum clock, invented a musical keyboard, and discovered that light travels like a wave. In the late 17th century, Huygens had an idea for an engine that made power by exploding gunpowder in a tube.

Unfortunately, he was way ahead of his time: engineering wasn't yet good enough for him actually to build this machine. If it had been, the world might have had cars almost 200 years earlier! Sadi Carnot

Next up was a French army engineer called Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot (1796–1832), who wrote the original book of car science, Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire, in 1824. It was the first proper explanation of how engines worked, why they made power, and how you could make them even more effective. Carnot's ideas are now considered brilliant, but they were published over 100 years after the first steam engines had already been built. What was use was science when it came a century after the inventions it tried to explain?

Joseph Étienne Lenoir

Huygens' idea to capture the power of a small explosion was what the "doers" seized on. A French-Belgian engineer called Joseph Étienne Lenoir (1822–1900) was tinkering with electricity in the 1850s when he took the next step. In those days, street lamps were naked flames fed by gas pipes. Lenoir

wondered what would happen if he could ignite some of this street-lamp gas in a metal tin using an electric spark. His "spark plug" (as we now call it) would make the gas explode with a thump of power that could push a piston. If he could repeat this process again and again, he could drive a machine. The "gas engines" Lenoir built made as much power as 1.5 horses and were soon being built by the dozen. In 1863, Lenoir fixed one of them to a three-wheeled cart and built a very crude car. It made an 18-km (9-mile) journey in 11 hours—four times longer than it would have taken to walk.

Nikolaus August Otto

Lenoir died a miserable pauper because his engines, though revolutionary, were soon obsolete. Gas was a cleaner fuel than coal, but it wasn't practical—there was even a risk it would explode and kill people. Gasoline (a liquid fuel) proved to be a better bet, as German Nikolaus Otto (1832–1891) discovered. Otto was no scientific thinker—far from it: he was a traveling grocery salesman who taught himself engineering. During the 1860s, he tinkered with various engine designs and, in 1876, finally came up with a really efficient gasoline engine, which worked by methodically repeating the same four steps (or "strokes") over and over again. Virtually every car engine has worked the same way ever since.

Karl and Bertha Benz

German engineer Karl Benz (1844–1929) studied Otto's work and determined to do better. After building a simpler gasoline engine of his own, he fixed it to a three-wheeled carriage and made the world's first practical gas-powered car in 1885. No-one took much notice—until Benz's feisty wife Bertha and their two young sons "borrowed" the car one day without asking and set off for a 100-km (65-mile) journey to see grandma. They bought fuel at drug stores (chemist's shops), because gas stations had yet to be invented, and the boys had to get out every so often to push the car up hills. Bertha even had to stop a couple of times to make repairs with her hair pin and garter belt. News of this intrepid early test-drive caught the public's imagination; Benz couldn't have dreamed up a better publicity stunt if he'd tried. He took his wife's advice and added gears for uphill driving. Soon he was developing successful four-wheel cars and, by the start of the 20th century, was the world's leading car maker.

Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach

Benz soon found himself up against Gottlieb Daimler (1834–1900) and Wilhelm Maybach (1846– 1929), who worked for Nikolaus Otto, until Otto and Daimler fell out. Setting up their own firm, Daimler and Maybach experimented with a giant gasoline engine nicknamed the Grandfather Clock (because it was tall and upright). After shrinking it down to size, they bolted it to a wooden bicycle and made the world's first motorbike. By 1889, they were building cars. Ten years later, the Daimler company named a car "Mercedes" in honor of Mercedes Jellinek, the daughter of one of their customers and dealers, Emil Jellinek (1853–1918). The Daimler and Benz companies were rivals until the 1920s, when they merged to make Daimler-Benz and began selling cars under the name