Who built the first car

History of the Automobile

The automobile as we know it was not invented in a single day by a single inventor. The history of the automobile reflects an evolution that took place worldwide involving many different innovators.

Automobile Defined

An automobile or car is a wheeled vehicle that carries its own motor and transports passengers. It is estimated that over 100,000 patents led to the evolution of the modern automobile.

Which Was the First Car?

There are disagreements as to which automobile was the first actual car. Some claim it was invented in 1769 with the first self-propelled steam-powered military tractor invented by French engineer Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. Others claim it was Gottlieb Daimler’s vehicle in 1885 or Karl Benz’s in 1886 when he patented the first gas-powered vehicles. And, depending on your viewpoint, there are others who believe Henry Ford invented the first true car due to his perfection of the mass production assembly line and the car transmission mechanism that cars today are modeled from.

Abbreviated Timeline of the Automobile

Dating back to the Renaissance of the 15th century, Leonardo DaVinci had drafted theoretical plans for the first automobile, as had Sir Isaac Newton a couple of centuries later.

Fast forward 40 years after Newton’s death to the moment when French engineer Cugnot unveiled the first steam-powered vehicle. And, almost a century after that, the first gas-powered car and electric vehicles made their appearance.

The introduction of the mass production assembly line was a major innovation that revolutionized the automobile industry. Although Ford was credited with the assembly line process, there were others who came before him.

Following the introduction of cars came the need for the complex system of roads to drive upon. In the U.S., the first agency tasked with managing road development was the Office of Road Inquiry within the Department of Agriculture, established in 1893.

Components of the Car

There were many inventions that needed to come together to make the modern day cars we know today. From airbags to windshield wipers, here is a review of some of the components and the dates of discovery to give you a comprehensive look at how exhaustive end-to-end development can be.

Airbags are a safety feature in cars for the protection of vehicle occupants in the event of a collision. The first recorded patent in the U.S. was in 1951.

The first car with a cooling system for vehicle occupants was the 1940 model year Packard.

Who invented the car?

By Lauren Cox Contributions from Jonathan Gordon published 25 March 22

Tracking who invented the car is challenging as the automobile had a long journey to become the form of transport we know today.

Working out who invented the car is a long and winding road, and pinpointing a single person responsible is not a simple matter. If you rewind the development of cars past GPS, past antilock brakes and automatic transmissions and even past the Model T, eventually you’ll get to the Benz Motor Car No. 1, the missing link between cars and horse-drawn buggies.

Karl Benz patented the three-wheeled Motor Car, known as the «Motorwagen,» in 1886. It was the first true, modern automobile, meaning Benz is most often identified as the man who invented the car. Benz also patented his own throttle system, spark plugs, gear shifters, a water radiator, a carburetor and other fundamentals to the automobile. Benz eventually built a car company that still exists today as the Daimler Group.

Early history of the car

Benz patented the first gasoline-powered car, but he wasn’t the original visionary of self-propelled vehicles. Some highlights in the history of the car:

«The word ‘car’ has meant different things at different times. At the end of the 19th Century, a car was a “streetcar” i.e. a tram. Streetcars before that were ‘horse cars’ which were omnibuses pulled by horses on rails. The word ‘car’ became available to what was previously called a ‘horseless carriage’ or possibly a motor car. The ‘automobile’, as they call it in America, was itself an import from the French,» Tom Standage, author of «A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next (opens in new tab) » (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021) told All About History (opens in new tab) magazine.

The first car

Internal combustion engines

Vital to the modern automobile is the internal combustion engine. This type of engine uses an explosive combustion of fuel to push a piston within a cylinder. The piston’s movement turns a crankshaft that is connected to the car’s wheels of a drive shaft. Like the car itself, the internal combustion engine has a long history. An incomplete list of developments includes:

«We generally think of the 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen as the first proper car. Carl Benz built an entirely new vehicle around an internal combustion engine and used bicycle parts to do it. It was really a motorized bicycle so this is what makes the car interesting. Its innovation required lots of people to try different things and, although this seems obvious in retrospect, it wasn’t at the time,» said Standage.

History of electric cars

«At the beginning of the 20th Century, electric cars were very briefly more popular than internal combustion engine cars in America. However, they had very bad batteries. Electric cars are only good today because of batteries that were initially developed for laptops and camcorders,» said Standage.

In 1976, Congress passed the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act (opens in new tab) due to rising oil prices, gasoline shortages and dependencies on foreign oil. Many car companies began to research and design new fuel-efficient and electric options, although not much happened until the 1990s.

The Toyota Prius, developed and released in Japan in 1997, was the world’s first mass-produced hybrid car and was available around the world by 2000. The Honda Insight hybrid car was released in the United States in 1999.

Today, nearly every major and many smaller automobile companies are developing their own electric and hybrid models.

Karl Benz : Car pioneer

Karl Benz gets the credit for inventing the automobile because his car was practical, used a gasoline-powered internal-combustion engine and worked like modern cars do today.

Benz was born in 1844 in Karlsruhe, a city in southwest Germany. His father was a railway worker who died in an accident when Benz was 2 years old. Although poor, Benz’s mother supported him and his education. He was admitted to the University of Karlsruhe at age 15 and graduated in 1864 with a mechanical engineering degree.

Benz’s first venture of an iron foundry and sheet-metal workshop flopped. However his new bride, Bertha Ringer, used her dowry to fund a new factory to build gas engines. With the profits Benz was free to start building a horseless, gas-powered carriage.

Benz had built three prototypes of his Motor Car in private by 1888, when Bertha decided it was time for some press. Bertha took the latest model in the early morning and drove her two teenage sons 66 miles to her mother’s home. She had to improvise repairs along the way with shoe leather, a hair pin and her garter.

The successful trip showed Benz how to improve the car, and showed a dubious public that automobiles were useful. Benz demonstrated the Model 3 Motorwagen at the World’s Fair in Paris the following year.

«This trip has been mythologized but there is a kernel of truth to it. During this trip, Bertha figured out various things such as that the brakes needed to be better and a better lower gear was required to get up hills. She actually stopped at a cobbler’s and had him put leather on the brake pads to improve them. Carl then adopted that approach,» said Standage.

«The fact that Bertha showed you could use this car for a road trip (she traveled 40 miles) gave Carl the confidence that he actually had a sellable product. He put it on sale at a trade fair and people were amazed. He started selling them, along with the rights, to other people around Europe so they could manufacture them.»

Benz died in 1929, just two years after he merged with fellow car-maker Gottlieb Daimler’s company to form what is today the Daimler Group, manufacturer of the Mercedes-Benz.

Additional resources

The technology of cars has developed at incredible speeds, as our breakdown of Formula 1 race cars exemplifies.

If all of this car technology information has got you interested in learning more, then our examination of the gearbox and how it works will be for you.

A History of the Automobile

The Evolution of the Car Dates All the Way Back to the 1600s

The very first self-powered road vehicles were powered by steam engines, and by that definition, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot of France built the first automobile in 1769 — recognized by the British Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Club de France as being the first. So why do so many history books say that the automobile was invented by either Gottlieb Daimler or Karl Benz? It is because both Daimler and Benz invented highly successful and practical gasoline-powered vehicles that ushered in the age of modern automobiles. Daimler and Benz invented cars that looked and worked like the cars we use today. However, it is unfair to say that either man invented «the» automobile.

Internal Combustion Engine: The Heart of the Automobile

An internal combustion engine is an engine that uses the explosive combustion of fuel to push a piston within a cylinder — the piston’s movement turns a crankshaft that then turns the car wheels via a chain or a drive shaft. The different types of fuel commonly used for car combustion engines are gasoline (or petrol), diesel, and kerosene.

A brief outline of the history of the internal combustion engine includes the following highlights:

Engine design and car design were integral activities, almost all of the engine designers mentioned above also designed cars, and a few went on to become major manufacturers of automobiles. All of these inventors and more made notable improvements in the evolution of the internal combustion vehicles.

The Importance of Nicolaus Otto

One of the most important landmarks in engine design comes from Nicolaus August Otto who in 1876 invented an effective gas motor engine. Otto built the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine called the «Otto Cycle Engine,» and as soon as he had completed his engine, he built it into a motorcycle. Otto’s contributions were very historically significant, it was his four-stroke engine that was universally adopted for all liquid-fueled automobiles going forward.

Karl Benz

Gottlieb Daimler

In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler (together with his design partner Wilhelm Maybach) took Otto’s internal combustion engine a step further and patented what is generally recognized as the prototype of the modern gas engine. Daimler’s connection to Otto was a direct one; Daimler worked as technical director of Deutz Gasmotorenfabrik, which Nikolaus Otto co-owned in 1872. There is some controversy as to who built the first motorcycle, Otto or Daimler.

The 1885 Daimler-Maybach engine was small, lightweight, fast, used a gasoline-injected carburetor, and had a vertical cylinder. The size, speed, and efficiency of the engine allowed for a revolution in car design. On March 8, 1886, Daimler took a stagecoach and adapted it to hold his engine, thereby designing the world’s first four-wheeled automobile. Daimler is considered the first inventor to have invented a practical internal-combustion engine.

In 1889, Daimler invented a V-slanted two cylinder, four-stroke engine with mushroom-shaped valves. Just like Otto’s 1876 engine, Daimler’s new engine set the basis for all car engines going forward. Also in 1889, Daimler and Maybach built their first automobile from the ground up, they did not adapt another purpose vehicle as they had always been done previously. The new Daimler automobile had a four-speed transmission and obtained speeds of 10 mph.

Daimler founded the Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft in 1890 to manufacture his designs. Eleven years later, Wilhelm Maybach designed the Mercedes automobile.

If Siegfried Marcus built his second car in 1875 and it was as claimed, it would have been the first vehicle powered by a four-cycle engine and the first to use gasoline as a fuel, the first having a carburetor for a gasoline engine and the first having a magneto ignition. However, the only existing evidence indicates that the vehicle was built circa 1888/89 — too late to be first.

By the early 1900s, gasoline cars started to outsell all other types of motor vehicles. The market was growing for economical automobiles and the need for industrial production was pressing.

The first car manufacturers in the world were French: Panhard & Levassor (1889) and Peugeot (1891). By car manufacturer we mean builders of entire motor vehicles for sale and not just engine inventors who experimented with car design to test their engines — Daimler and Benz began as the latter before becoming full car manufacturers and made their early money by licensing their patents and selling their engines to car manufacturers.

Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor

Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor were partners in a woodworking machinery business when they decided to become car manufacturers. They built their first car in 1890 using a Daimler engine. Edouard Sarazin, who held the license rights to the Daimler patent for France, commissioned the team. (Licensing a patent means that you pay a fee and then you have the right to build and use someone’s invention for profit — in this case, Sarazin had the right to build and sell Daimler engines in France.) The partners not only manufactured cars, but they also made improvements to the automotive body design.

Panhard-Levassor made vehicles with a pedal-operated clutch, a chain transmission leading to a change-speed gearbox, and a front radiator. Levassor was the first designer to move the engine to the front of the car and use a rear-wheel-drive layout. This design was known as the Systeme Panhard and quickly became the standard for all cars because it gave a better balance and improved steering. Panhard and Levassor are also credited with the invention of the modern transmission — installed in their 1895 Panhard.

Panhard and Levassor also shared the licensing rights to Daimler motors with Armand Peugeot. A Peugeot car went on to win the first car race held in France, which gained Peugeot publicity and boosted car sales. Ironically, the «Paris to Marseille» race of 1897 resulted in a fatal auto accident, killing Emile Levassor.

Early on, French manufacturers did not standardize car models — each car was different from the other. The first standardized car was the 1894 Benz Velo. One hundred and thirty-four identical Velos were manufactured in 1895.

Charles and Frank Duryea

America’s first gasoline-powered commercial car manufacturers were Charles and Frank Duryea. The brothers were bicycle makers who became interested in gasoline engines and automobiles and built their first motor vehicle in 1893, in Springfield, Massachusetts. By 1896, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company had sold thirteen models of the Duryea, an expensive limousine, which remained in production into the 1920s.

Ransome Eli Olds

The first automobile to be mass produced in the United States was the 1901 Curved Dash Oldsmobile, built by the American car manufacturer Ransome Eli Olds (1864-1950). Olds invented the basic concept of the assembly line and started the Detroit area automobile industry. He first began making steam and gasoline engines with his father, Pliny Fisk Olds, in Lansing, Michigan in 1885. Olds designed his first steam-powered car in 1887. In 1899, with a growing experience of gasoline engines, Olds moved to Detroit to start the Olds Motor Works, and produce low-priced cars. He produced 425 «Curved Dash Olds» in 1901, and was America’s leading auto manufacturer from 1901 to 1904.

Henry Ford

American car manufacturer, Henry Ford (1863-1947) invented an improved assembly line and installed the first conveyor belt-based assembly line in his car factory in Ford’s Highland Park, Michigan plant, around 1913-14. The assembly line reduced production costs for cars by reducing assembly time. Ford’s famous Model T was assembled in ninety-three minutes. Ford made his first car, called the «Quadricycle,» in June 1896. However, success came after he formed the Ford Motor Company in 1903. This was the third car manufacturing company formed to produce the cars he designed. He introduced the Model T in 1908 and it was a success. After installing the moving assembly lines in his factory in 1913, Ford became the world’s biggest car manufacturer. By 1927, 15 million Model Ts had been manufactured.

Another victory won by Henry Ford was a patent battle with George B. Selden. Selden, who had never built an automobile, held a patent on a «road engine», on that basis Selden was paid royalties by all American car manufacturers. Ford overturned Selden’s patent and opened the American car market for the building of inexpensive cars.

Who Invented the First Car (History Timeline)

Find out a true story of the invention of the automobile. Learn why neither Gottlieb Daimler nor Karl Benz was entirely the first to invent the car.

The invention of cars is a long and tangled road, and saying 100% sure who invented the car is not an easy task. Initially, the prototypes used steam engines, and applying this scheme, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, a Frenchman, created the first steam car in 1769 — widely accepted as the first. So why do various historians argue whether either Gottlieb Daimler or Karl Benz invented the automobile? Undoubtedly, the reason is that both made excellent and functional vehicles that gave a tremendous push to the evolution of the whole car industry. The engineers designed cars that were very similar to those we have today. Nonetheless, their contribution to the invention of the first automobile varies.

Internal Combustion Engine: A Turning Point on the Road to Car Invention

A pivotal point to the modern automobile is the internal combustion engine. Internal combustion engines (ICE) provide extreme effectiveness and durability. However, their work is based on a simple chemical process of generating energy from fuel (gasoline, diesel, or kerosene) and air mixture. The engine’s two main parts are a fixed cylinder and a moving piston. The expanding combustion gases from the burning fuel push the piston, which in turn moves the crankshaft. Finally, this motion makes the vehicle’s wheels drive. Many scientists from various scientific fields contributed to the improvement of the ICE. And here are the main points of its development:

Engine design and car design always went hand in hand. Almost all the engineers described previously also built cars, and some even became major manufacturers in the car industry. All of these inventors contributed a lot to the development of internal combustion vehicles.

The Contribution of Nicolaus Otto

One of the most prominent landmarks in engine design comes from Nicolaus Otto, who in 1876 invented an effective gas motor engine. Otto designed the first functional four-stroke internal combustion engine called the “Otto Cycle Engine.” Otto’s inventions were very historically important. His four-stroke model was widely used for all liquid-fueled automobiles constructed later.

The World’s First Automobile

In 1885, German mechanical engineer Karl Benz presented the world’s first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. In 1886 Benz patented a three-wheeled gas-fueled car. In 1891 Benz constructed his first four-wheeled car. The company, founded by the inventor, became the world’s largest automobile manufacturer by 1900.

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The Daimler-Maybach Invention

In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach improved Otto’s internal combustion engine and invented the prototype of the modern gas engine. The Daimler-Maybach engine was functional, lightweight, and rapid. All the characteristics of the engine became revolutionary in the car industry. In 1886, Daimler modified a stagecoach by attaching his engine to it, thus getting the world’s first four-wheeled auto. Daimler’s engine is considered to be the first practical and functional internal combustion engine in the world.

In 1889 Daimler invented a revolutionary two-cylinder, four-stroke engine with mushroom-shaped valves. His invention became a role model for all car engines designed later. In 1889 Daimler and Maybach built their own car from scratch. They did not use any other vehicles as a base as they had always done before. The new automobile had a four-speed transmission and could run up to 10 mph.

In 1890 Daimler founded the Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft, his own engine business, where eleven years later, Wilhelm Maybach designed the first Mercedes automobile.

By the beginning of the 20th century, gasoline cars became more popular than all other types of motor vehicles. As a result, the market was expanding, and the need for industrial production was tremendous.

Initially, the automotive industry center was in France, and the first car manufacturers were Panhard & Levassor (1889) and Peugeot (1891). They were engaged in producing the entire vehicle, not just engines. The inventors like Daimler and Benz, who designed cars to test their inventions, began their car production a bit later. Their initial income was based on licensing their patents and selling their engines to automobile manufacturers.

Further Improvements

Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor worked in the woodworking industry when they decided to become car producers. In 1890 they constructed their first car using a Daimler engine. The team not only manufactured cars but also improved the automotive exterior design.

Panhard-Levassor made vehicles with unique features that included a clutch pedal for operating a chain-driven box and a front radiator. In addition, Levassor was the first engineer to use the front-mounted engine with a rear-wheel drive. This design was called the Systeme Panhard and quickly became the standard for other manufacturers. Panhard and Levassor are also renowned for the invention of transmission. They used it in their car in 1895.

Armand Peugeot believed in the viability of car production. The first Peugeot car, created in 1889, was powered by the steam engine. The release numbered only four automobiles. Steam-powered concepts were heavy and required much time to warm up. So after meeting Daimler and Levassor, Armand Peugeot abandoned steam engines favoring petrol-fuelled models designed under Daimler’s license. Besides, Peugeot became the first manufacturer who used rubber tires instead of pneumatic to a petrol-powered car.

A Peugeot stood at the origins of car racing. The company is famous for its victory in the first car race held in France. This fact helped Peugeot gain popularity and increase car sales.

Initially, French manufacturers did not have standards for their car models — each car had individual features. The first standardized car was the Benz Velo. The line numbered 134 copies released in 1895.

First Commercial Release

America’s first commercial car production belonged to bicycle-makers Charles and Frank Duryea. The brothers became interested in gasoline engines and automobiles and designed their first motor vehicle in 1893. In 1896, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company had sold thirteen cars produced by hand.

Mass Production

The first mass car production started in the United States in 1901 by the American car manufacturer Ransom Eli Olds. Olds designed the basic model of the assembly line and started the Detroit area automobile industry. He first began producing steam and gasoline engines with his father, Pliny Fisk Olds, in 1885. Olds built his first steam-powered car in 1887, which contributed to his moving to Detroit to start his own company, Olds Motor Works, and produce low-priced vehicles. His business was America’s leading car manufacturer at the beginning of the 20th century.

What Made Cars Affordable

Henry Ford is definitely one of the most influential car manufacturers of the 20th century. In 1903 he founded the Ford Motor Company that brought success. 10 years later, Henry Ford introduced the assembly line concept and mounted the first conveyor system in his car works. The assembly line allowed to reduce production costs by decreasing assembly time. For example, Ford’s most fabulous Model T was assembled in an hour and a half. As a result, the automobile presented to the public became very popular. In addition, the car was easy to drive and cheap to repair. Using the moving assembly lines in his factory-made Ford the world’s biggest car manufacturer of his time.

Another significant fact in Ford’s biography concerns a patent fight with George B. Selden. Selden had a patent on a road engine and was paid by all automobile manufacturers. Ford won a trial and opened the car market for the production of affordable cars.

Who Invented the First Car?

Cars have become an integral part of human life today. They are used everyday by millions of people around the globe. There were estimated 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) cars in 2010, whereas there were only 500 million in 1986. The numbers are continuously on the rise. The maximum number of cars today are found in India and China.

With the advent of technology, people have made different type of cars for various uses. Few of the types of cars available today are sedan, saloon, hatchback, station wagon, minivan, and multi-purpose vehicle. Almost all the cars today run on three major fuels – electricity, petrol and diesel.

Let’s go back in time and see how these cars came into being. How they evolved right from the steam-engine cars in 1769 to driver-less cars that are being experimented on today.

The Timeline

Year: 1672

This was the year when the first steam-powered car was created, however it wasn’t able to carry people and transport. It was designed by Ferdinand Verbiest for the then Chinese emperor.

Year: 1769

The history of cars begin right from 1769 when the first steam-engine car was introduced. This was the first invention which was able to carry people from one place to another.

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot showcased the first steam-powered artillery tractor. This was however on an experimental basis. But this was the first auto-mobile that could actually carry people and move. His design lacked practicality and hence was not pursued ahead.

Year: 1784

William Murdoch built a functional and practical model of a steam-powered carriage. This was in Redruth – town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.

Year: 1801

Richard Trevithick started driving a full-sized steam-powered vehicle on the streets of Camborne – town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. This was the first time an automated-vehicle was being driven on the roads of England.

Year: 1815

Josef Bozek, a professor at Prague Polytechnic, designed and built the first steam car powered by oil.

Year: 1838

Walter Hancock was the founder and operator of London steam buses. He first built a four-seated steam phaeton – a sporty open carriage.

Year: 1873

Many people believe that Amedee Bollee built the first true car in France. His car was a self-propelled steam road car which could carry many people from one place to another.

The first 4-stroke internal combustion engine run by petrol, which is used till date, was first introduced by Nikolaus Otto – a German inventor. Although this technology was patented in 1861 by Alphonse Beau de Rochas, but Otto was the first person to make it functional and working in real life.

The discovery of electric engine was first made by Anyos Jedlik who was an inventor of an electric motor.

Year: Early 1990’s

This was the period when vintage cars, with fully covered hoods, came into existence. Most notable cars of this era are Austin 7, Lancia Lambda, Bugatti Type 35, Hanomag 2/10 PS, Ford Model A, and Cadillac V-16.

The cars in today’s era are much more advanced and improvised from the old days. This has been mainly possible due to the modernization of technology and hardware.

First Car in the World

Who invented the First Car?

The world’s first automobile vehicle was invented by Karl Benz in 1885. It was the first vehicle to have an internal combustion engine fueled by gas.

History of the Automobile

The evolution of cars did not start with this invention. Many people tried to make their own cars, running them on steam. This idea first came to an astronomer named Verbiest, who invented a small vehicle which could run on steam with the help of a ball-shaped boiler. This happened in 1658, almost 200 years before the invention by Karl Benz. The car, only 2 feet long, was supposed to be a toy for the emperor of China.

The 1700s was the time for steam engines. Many steam powered automobiles were built, but they were very heavy and difficult to manage. Till the 1800s there were many inventions with steam powered vehicles, but none of them could become the first self-propelled automatic vehicle.

World’s First Car

The automobile designed by Karl Benz was just like a horse carriage but without the horses. It generated its own power and stood on three wheels, made from solid rubber. The rear wheels were bigger and heavier than the single front wheel.

Engine :

The engine, weighing only 100 kgs, was installed at the rear of the vehicle. It was a very light engine for those times. The engine output was only 0.75 horsepower compared to today’s vehicles, which have an engine output of more than 400 horsepower. The engine had a basin of fibers soaked in fuel that provided fuel to the engine using the evaporation technique. It also had a valve used as an exhaust.

Other Features :

The vehicle was made of steel and used woodwork for the panels. The steering was like a pivot that controlled the front wheel and its rotational movement into a straight one. The vehicle was awarded the German Patent number 37435- this was the birth certificate of the automobile.

This automobile was difficult to controland it led to a wall collision during its public demonstration. This was called Model number 1 and Benz started working on modifications to improve it.

Benz then invented the Motorwagen Model 3. This vehicle was taken by Benz’s wife Bertha and his two sons on a long distance journey covering 106 kilometers. It was designed to cover 16km/hr with a horsepower of 2HP. With this success, Benz started selling the Benz Patent Motorwagen.

Note : Get to know all about the Top 10 Fastest Cars in the World.

History of the automobile

The history of the automobile begins as early as 1769, with the creation of steam-powered automobiles capable of human transport [1] In 1806, the first cars powered by internal combustion engines running on fuel gas appeared, which led to the introduction in 1885 of the ubiquitous modern gasoline- or petrol-fueled internal combustion engine. Cars powered by electricity briefly appeared at the turn of the 20th century but largely disappeared from commonality until the turn of the 21st century, when interest in low- and zero-emissions transportation was reignited. As such, the early history of the automobile can be divided into a number of eras based on the prevalent method of automotive propulsion during that time. Later periods were defined by trends in exterior styling and size and utility preferences.

Contents

Eras of invention

Pioneer inventors

Early automobiles

Steam automobiles

Steam-powered self-propelled vehicles are thought to have been devised in the late 18th century. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrated his fardier à vapeur, an experimental steam-driven artillery tractor, in 1770 and 1771. Cugnot’s design proved to be impractical and his invention was not developed in his native France, the centre of innovation passing 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 passing a law, the Locomotive Act, in 1865 requiring self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom 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, as inventors and engineers shifted their efforts to improvements in railway locomotives. 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. In 1805, Evans demonstrated his first successful self-propelled vehicle, which not only was the first automobile in the USA, but was also the first amphibious vehicle, as his steam-powered vehicle was able to travel on roadwheels on land, and via a paddle wheel in the water.

Electric automobiles

In 1838, Scotsman Robert 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.

Internal combustion engines

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

Early experimenters using gasses included, in 1806, Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz who built an internal combustion engine powered by a hydrogen and oxygen mixture, and in 1826, Englishman Samuel 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-cylinder internal combustion engine made a test drive from Paris to Joinville-le-Pont in 1860, covering some nine kilometres in about three hours. [8] A later version was propelled by coal gas. A Delamare-Deboutteville vehicle was patented and trialled in 1884.

About 1870, in Vienna, Austria (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), inventor Siegfried Marcus put a liquid-fueled 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 the magneto 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.

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 Nadig constructed a four-wheeler in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It is likely they were not the only ones. [7] Template:Rp

Veteran era

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 large scale production line was running in 1902. Within a year, Cadillac (formed from the Henry Ford Company ), Winton, and Ford were 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, including gas/electric hybrids, multi-valve engines, overhead camshafts, and four-wheel drive, were attempted, and discarded at this time.

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, for example, and most operated at a single speed. Chain drive was dominant over the modern drive shaft, and closed bodies were extremely rare.

Throughout the veteran car era, however, automobiles were seen as more of a novelty than a genuinely useful device. Breakdowns were frequent, fuel was 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 traveled 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 trans-continental drive across the United States in 1903.

Brass or Edwardian era

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. 1905 was a signal year in the development of the automobile, marking the point when the majority of sales shifted from the hobbyist and enthusiast to the average user.

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. [7]

Some examples of cars of the period included the following:

Vintage era

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. [7] Development of the internal combustion engine continued at a rapid pace, with multi-valve and overhead camshaft engines produced at the high end, and V8, V12, and even V16 engines conceived for the ultra-rich.

Exemplary vintage vehicles:

Pre-WWII era

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). After 1930, the number of auto manufacturers declined sharply as the industry consolidated and matured.

Exemplary pre-war automobiles:

Post-war era

Automobile design finally emerged from the shadow of World War II in 1949, the year that in the United States saw the introduction of high-compression V8 engines and modern bodies from General Motors’ Oldsmobile and Cadillac brands. The unibody /strut-suspended 1951 Ford Consul joined the 1948 Morris Minor and 1949 Rover P4 in waking up the automobile market in the United Kingdom. In Italy, Enzo Ferrari was beginning his 250 series, just as Lancia introduced the revolutionary V6-powered Aurelia.

Throughout the 1950s, engine power 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 sweptEurope]] while the similar kei car class 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.

In America, performance became a prime focus of marketing, exemplified by pony cars and muscle cars. In 1964 the Ford popular 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. Throughout the decade, small imported cars outsold large American ones. Small performance cars from BMW, Toyota, and Nissan took the place of big-engined cars from America and Italy.

A so-called yank tank in Havana, Cuba

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.

Exemplary post-war cars:

Modern era

Some particularly notable advances in modern times are the widespread of front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive, the adoption of the V6 engine configuration, 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 drive monocoque/ 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, minivan, and sport utility vehicle, dominate today’s market, yet are relatively recent concepts. All originally emphasised practicality, but have mutated into today’s high-powered luxury crossover SUV and sports wagon. 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.

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.

Exemplary modern cars:

Future directions

See also

Further reading

What is the world’s first car?

Nowadays, cars are everywhere, and getting one is as easy as going to a dealership and picking one out. However, in the 19th century, building a car was the lifelong obsession of a handful of eccentric inventors.

There were several attempts to build motored road vehicles, few of which worked out. Notable failures included:

In the few years after the Dudgeon Car, a few brands of steam cars appeared in the U.S. and U.K. However, they largely only succeeded at making people hate cars. In the U.K. in 1865, people were so peeved that Parliament passed a nationwide motorcar speed limit of 6 km/h, slightly faster than a vigorous walk. It appeared that motorcars would be forgotten, relegated to the bin of other failed inventions and foolish dreams.

Which company made the first car?

That all changed when a still-familiar company made a startling breakthrough. That company was Benz, of Mercedes-Benz fame, which then consisted of the personal foundry of a single engineer: Karl Benz.

Karl Benz believed the problem with steam cars lay in the engine. Steam engines were based on external combustion, that is, the water that drove the pistons was separate from the combustion compartment. Not only was this criminally inefficient, but also it required a huge reservoir of water, which weighed cars down.

Benz instead look to an engine used on French barges, the internal combustion engine. This engine used explosive pellets of coal and resin. They were loaded into a cylinder, where they exploded, driving a piston that turned a paddlewheel. Then, the residue was removed, new pellets were added, made to explode again, etc. It was a lot of work, but it was light, it was cheap, and it was efficient.

Benz made the process automatic by substituting coal for refined oil, which had recently been invented, also by a German. Refined oil burned entirely into gas, and could be pumped in automatically. The only remaining challenge was resetting the piston. Benz developed a system where the piston makes four movements, one to pull air and fuel in, one to compress air and fuel together, a “power stroke” when the fuel ignites, and a final one to release exhaust.

Benz had invented the four stroke engine, a design that is still used, mostly unchanged, by cars today.

Source: Haynes

When was the first car built in the world?

After decades of work, Benz presented his invention in 1885. The Benz Patent-Motorwagen, though still in prototype, was designed using standard and replaceable parts, making it the first car design ready for mass-production.

Source: Classic Driver

The Patent-Motorwagen had one of the world’s most efficient engines. Weighing “only” 200 pounds, it produced about two thirds of a horsepower, achieving a maximum speed of 16 km/h

This still was not much of an improvement on the horse, which, after all, produced a full one horsepower. But the world saw the possibilities. Benz instantly became the largest motorcar company in the world, producing over 500 units by the end of the 19th century.

How much is the oldest car in the world?

At the time, the Patent-Motorwagen was fairly reasonable, costing 600 imperial marks (about four or five months’ pay for a typical working man)

What is the oldest car brand still in production?

assembly-line production, in which cars were moved from workstation to workstation, with each worker or team of workers performing only one task. This greatly saved on training and personnel costs. Where each Benz could take 12-20 hours to produce, hand-built from scratch in a single location by a highly-trained team of craftsmen, each Ford was cranked through the factory in under three hours.

Source: Ford

Benz soon realized that he could not beat Ford. He could only imitate him. After WWI, Benz opened new assembly-line-based plants, rapidly turning out cars that transformed Germany. Like Ford, Benz produced cars for the middle class: affordable, dependable, fixable, replaceable.

However, some people wanted something else. They wanted speed. They wanted luxury. They wanted what could only be provided by a different company: Daimler. For a long time, Daimler struggled in obscurity, producing custom racecars for Germany’s nobility. Then they produced a model that would change European cars forever: the Mercedes.

Source: Mercedes-Benz

The Mercedes: a low-riding, electric-ignition, wide-track, leather-upholstered tour de force. At a race in France in 1901, it blew the competition away by achieving a stunning top speed of 75 km/h. It became the car for the young and rich of Europe.

However, the good times in Europe couldn’t last forever. After WWI, Germany was made to pay reparations, causing the economy to bottom out by 1924. The young and rich were now middle-aged and poor, and weren’t buying luxury cars. Daimler was brought to its knees.

Benz saw an opportunity and proposed a merger. Daimler got enough capital to stay afloat and the expertise to switch to assembly line production, while Benz got the Mercedes name. In 1926, the Mercedes-Benz company was born.

What country had cars first?

Although cars started in Germany, they did not impact the culture as much as they did in the United States. In the United States, cars were everything.

In 1885, the U.S. was spread out and still developing its rail and river networks. When news of Benz’ accomplishment reached American entrepreneurs, it brought with it the possibility of rapid transit, anywhere in the country, without building new infrastructure. The possibility was irresistible.

By 1900, over 100 companies were producing automobiles in the U.S. In 1902, Americans bought over 3000 cars from Oldsmobile alone, surpassing the entire production of the German car industry by that point.

Source: History.com

Who invented driving?

The Patent-Motorcar was steered with a lever connected directly to the front axle. This was designed to be used by one hand, making sudden and tight turns difficult. The only “power steering” in this period was reaching over to frantically push the tiller with both hands.

This had to change. The steering wheel was developed in secret, in France, by the Panhard company (now part of Arquus). They unveiled it dramatically. At an annual race in 1894, a friend of the company, Alfred Vacheron, turned up with a Panhard modified to use a steering wheel. He lost, but the steering wheel won. They became standard for Panchard, then Rolls, then the world.

The technology for driving was established. However, the culture and laws were not.

At first, motorcar drivers followed the rules of horse-drawn vehicles. In spread-out, wide-open countries like France, Germany, and the United States, coaches drove on the right, so that all four horses would always be in range of the driver’s whip hand (the right). In Britain, where coaches rarely had more than two horses, drivers stayed on the traditional left. Motorcar drivers followed the same rule, creating conventions that have lasted to this day.

In 1908, a U.S. lawyer invented the concept of “speeding.” However, it was not until 1930 or so that laws were passed to enforce this. Traffic fatalities were high, especially in Detroit, the center of U.S. car culture. In a typical year, Detroit police recorded hundreds of traffic fatalities, most of whom were pedestrians. This called for drastic measures. In 1915, the city of Detroit rolled out the first of a new type of safety measure: the stop sign.

Pedestrians mostly had to hustle to get out of the way or be run over. Eventually, laws were created to protect them. However, by then, the balance had shifted. Cars had conquered the road.

History of the automobile

Unlike many other major inventions, the original idea of the automobile cannot be attributed to a single individual. The idea certainly occurred long before it was first recorded in the Iliad, in which Homer (in Alexander Pope’s translation) states that Vulcan in a single day made 20 tricycles, which

Wondrous to tell instinct with spirit roll’ed
From place to place, around the blest abodes,
Self-moved, obedient to the beck of gods.

Leonardo da Vinci considered the idea of a self-propelled vehicle in the 15th century. In 1760 a Swiss clergyman, J.H. Genevois, suggested mounting small windmills on a cartlike vehicle, their power to be used to wind springs that would move the road wheel. Genevois’s idea probably derived from a windmill cart of about 1714. Two-masted wind carriages were running in the Netherlands in 1600, and a speed of 20 miles (30 km) per hour with a load of 28 passengers was claimed for at least one of them. The first recorded suggestion of wind use was probably Robert Valturio’s unrealized plan (1472) for a cart powered by windmills geared to the wheels.

Other inventors considered the possibilities of clockwork. Probably in 1748 a carriage propelled by a large clockwork engine was demonstrated in Paris by the versatile inventor Jacques de Vaucanson.

The air engine is thought to have originated with a 17th-century German physicist, Otto von Guericke. Guericke invented an air pump and was probably the first to make metal pistons, cylinders, and connecting rods, the basic components of the reciprocating engine. In the 17th century a Dutch inventor, Christiaan Huygens, produced an engine that worked by air pressure developed by explosion of a powder charge. Denis Papin of France built a model engine on the vacuum principle, using the condensation of steam to produce the vacuum. An air engine was patented in England in 1799, and a grid of compressor stations was proposed to service vehicles. An air-powered vehicle is said to have been produced in 1832.

Steam propulsion was proposed as early as the 16th century, and in 1678 Ferdinand Verbiest, a Belgian Jesuit missionary to China, made a model steam carriage based on a principle suggestive of the modern turbine.

In the 18th century a French scientist, Philippe Lebon, patented a coal-gas engine and made the first suggestion of electrical ignition. In Paris, Isaac de Rivas made a gas-powered vehicle in 1807; his engine used hydrogen gas as fuel, the valves and ignition were operated by hand, and the timing problem appears to have been difficult.

The age of steam

Most historians agree that Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot of France was the constructor of the first true automobile. Cugnot’s vehicle was a huge, heavy, steam-powered tricycle, and his model of 1769 was said to have run for 20 minutes at 2.25 miles (3.6 km) per hour while carrying four people and to have recuperated sufficient steam power to move again after standing for 20 minutes. Cugnot was an artillery officer, and the more or less steam-tight pistons of his engine were made possible by the invention of a drill that accurately machined cannon bores. A replica of Cugnot’s second vehicle, partially original, is preserved in the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris.

Cugnot’s successors were soon at work, notably in England, although the first post-Cugnot steam carriage appears to have been built in Amiens, France, in 1790. Steam buses were running in Paris about 1800. Oliver Evans of Philadelphia ran an amphibious steam dredge through the streets of that city in 1805. Less well known were Nathan Read of Salem, Massachusetts, and Apollos Kinsley of Hartford, Connecticut, both of whom ran steam vehicles during the period 1790–1800. In March 1863 the magazine Scientific American described tests of a vehicle that weighed only 650 pounds (about 300 kg) and achieved a speed of 20 miles (30 km) per hour. Another American, Frank Curtis of Newburyport, Massachusetts, is remembered for building a personal steam carriage to the order of a Boston man who failed to meet the payment schedule, whereupon Curtis made the first recorded repossession of a motor vehicle.

English inventors were active, and by the 1830s the manufacture and use of steam road carriages was flourishing. James Watt’s foreman, William Murdock, ran a model steam carriage on the roads of Cornwall in 1784, and Robert Fourness showed a working three-cylinder tractor in 1788. Watt was opposed to the use of steam engines for such purposes; his low-pressure steam engine would have been too bulky for road use in any case, and all the British efforts in steam derived from the earlier researches of Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen.

Richard Trevithick developed Murdock’s ideas, and at least one of his carriages, with driving wheels 10 feet (3 metres) in diameter, ran in London. Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, the first commercially successful steam carriage builder, based his design upon an unusually efficient boiler. He was not, however, convinced that smooth wheels could grip a roadway, and so he arranged propulsion on his first vehicle by iron legs digging into the road surface. His second vehicle weighed only 3,000 pounds (1,360 kg) and was said to be capable of carrying six persons. He made trips as long as 84 miles (135 km) in a running time of 9 hours and 30 minutes and once recorded a speed of 17 miles (27 km) per hour.

Gurney equipment was used on the Gloucester-Cheltenham service of four daily round trips; under favourable conditions the equipment could complete the 9 miles (15 km) in 45 minutes. Between February 27 and June 22, 1831, steam coaches ran 4,000 miles (6,400 km) on this route, carrying some 3,000 passengers. The equipment was noisy, smoky, destructive of roadways, and admittedly dangerous; hostility arose, and it was common for drivers to find the way blocked with heaps of stones or felled trees. Nevertheless, numerous passengers had been carried by steam carriage before the railways had accepted their first paying passenger.

The most successful era of the steam coaches in Britain was the 1830s. Ambitious routes were run, including one from London to Cambridge. But by 1840 it was clear that the steam carriages had little future. They had much to contend with, including the anti-machinery attitude of the public and the enmity of the horse-coach interests, which resulted in such penalties as a charge of £5 for passing a tollgate that cost a horse coach only three pence. The crushing blow was the Locomotives on Highways Act of 1865, which reduced permissible speeds on public roads to 2 miles (3 km) per hour within cities and 4 miles (6 km) per hour in rural areas. This legislation was known as the Red Flag Act because of its requirement that every steam carriage mount a crew of three, one to precede it carrying a red flag of warning. The act was amended in 1878, but it was not repealed until 1896, by which time its provisions had effectively stifled the development of road transport in the British Isles.

The decline of the steam carriage did not prevent continued effort in the field, and much attention was given to the steam tractor for use as a prime mover. Beginning about 1868, Britain was the scene of a vogue for light steam-powered personal carriages; if the popularity of these vehicles had not been legally hindered, it would certainly have resulted in widespread enthusiasm for motoring in the 1860s rather than in the 1890s. Some of the steamers could carry as few as two people and were capable of speeds of 20 miles (32 km) per hour. The public climate remained unfriendly, however.

Light steam cars were being built in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark during the same period, and it is possible to argue that the line from Cugnot’s lumbering vehicle runs unbroken to the 20th-century steam automobiles made as late as 1926. The grip of the steam automobile on the American imagination has been strong ever since the era of the Stanley brothers—one of whose “ steamers” took the world speed record at 127.66 miles (205.45 km) per hour in 1906. The car designed by them and sold as the Locomobile became the first commercially successful American-made automobile (about 1,000 were built in 1900). It is estimated that in the early 21st century there were still some 600 steam cars in the United States, most of them in running order.

Who invented the world’s very first car?

Who invented the first car? If we’re talking about the first modern automobile, then it’s Karl Benz in 1886. But long before him, there were strange forerunners to the today’s cars, including toys for emperors, steam-powered artillery carriers, and clanking, creaking British buses.

The Emperor’s Toy

The very first car might well have been the invention of a Flemish missionary named Ferdinand Verbiest. Born in Flanders in 1623, Verbiest was an accomplished astronomer who left Europe for China in 1658. He helped to modernize the now outmoded Chinese astronomy using recent European innovations, and he was asked by the emperor to become the director of the newly refurbished Beijing Ancient Observatory. What’s more, he spoke at least five languages fluently, wrote thirty books, was a skilled diplomat and mapmaker, and tutored the long-lived Kangxi Emperor in everything from mathematics to poetry. He was, even by the standards of the time, ridiculously accomplished.

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Considering this is over 200 years before the construction of what’s generally considered the first modern automobile, this is a remarkable achievement, but there are some pretty big caveats here. I said the car was small, and it was: about two feet long, far too tiny for any human to ride in it. It’s also not at all clear whether the toy was ever built, or if it purely existed as a design in Verbiest’s imagination.

The First Engine

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Part of the reason why it took until 1672 for anyone to even build a toy version of a car was that there was just no need for them, and it wasn’t really the sort of thing one could invent in one fell swoop. In World History of the Automobile, Erik Eckermann explains the basic problem:

The wagon existed in its animal-drawn form for thousands of years before it was possible to make it self-propelled, literally «auto-mobile.» In the process, motorized vehicles were far removed from the center of scientific and mechanical inquiry. From the end of the seventeenth century, existing vehicular technology was more than adequate to meet societal demands. In the age of absolute monarchs and mercantilism, it was more important to solve other engineering challenges that were difficult or impossible to achieve with conventional energy sources such as muscle, wind, or water power.

And what were these more important engineering challenges? As Eckermann explains, «the fountains and water displays of baroque gardens» were a higher priority for inventors and scholars than was the creation of a self-propelling vehicle. While no one was really tackling this subject directly, the legendary Dutch scientist Christian Huygens did take a crucial step towards the car in 1673, one year after Verbiest reputedly began work on his toy for the emperor of China.

Huygens built upon previous experiments by other scientists to create a simple engine powered by, awesomely enough, gunpowder. By exploding the material inside a cylinder, Huygens was able to create a vacuum, which in turn forced a piston to move down the cylinder. This created work, making it effectively the earliest recognizable forerunner of the internal combustion engine. And, for his part, Huygens immediately recognized the engine’s potential as a power source for land and water vehicles alike, but his engine was far too primitive to be of much use in that direction.

Cugnot’s Car

One story says that the second of Cugnot’s two vehicles crashed into a wall in 1771, which might make it the first ever automobile accident. It’s a good story, but unfortunately no one wrote about it until 1801, some thirty years later, which makes it rather more likely that this was just a bit of folklore. Either way, here’s a rather awesome reconstruction of the crash, completely with ludicrously over-the-top reaction shots.

The Steam Buses

As France fell into the grips of revolution, Cugnot’s work was largely forgotten, and the next big innovations in automobile technology came in Britain. Over the next several decades, various inventors worked on steam carriages, which resembled a cross between buses and rail locomotives. William Murdoch created a working model of one of these in 1784, but it wouldn’t be until the beginning of the 19th century that Richard Trevithick was able to get a full-sized vehicle on the road.

Steam-powered mass transit had some limited success in the opening years of the 1800s, but it wasn’t until the 1820s and 1830s that steam buses began gaining some measure of popularity with the British public. Further technological innovations in this early form of road-based mass transit including better brakes, a more advanced transmission, and improved steering.

But, as Erik Eckermann explains, the drawbacks still far outweighed the advantages of this new technology:

It was apparent that the technology was not yet fully developed, and this new means of transportation did not yet enjoy favorable public opinion. Crankshafts snapped, lines leaked, chains broke, and boilers exploded. Engine vibrations (which, unlike stationary installations, could not be overcome by mounting on a solid foundation, the pungent odor of burnt oil, and flying soot and coal dust soon drove the traveling public back to the old standby, the horse-drawn stage, or another new invention, the railway and its rapidly growing network of track.

The steam buses proved to be something of a dead end, and engineers turned their attention to traction engines, which were slower, more stable machines that were basically just steam locomotives adapted for use on land. This was a move away from the line of innovation that would eventually lead to the car, but even these proved too raucous for the public at large. The Locomotive Act of 1865 said no land vehicle could travel faster than 4 miles per hour, and that all such vehicles had to be preceded by a man waving a red flag and blowing a horn. This was not, as you might imagine, the automotive industry’s finest hour.

Other Curiosities

There were several other attempts to build self-propelled vehicles, but none of them ever quite made that big leap to become the first practical automobile. An American inventor named Oliver Evans built the «Oruktor Amphibolis», a steam-powered dredging device that became more powerful and elaborate with each subsequent retelling, in part because Evans felt he never got proper credit for his engineering prowess. At this point, it’s difficult to say with certainty exactly what the Oruktor Amphibolis was actually capable of.

Russian inventor Ivan Kulibin came other with a steam-powered vehicle in the 1780s, and it featured plenty of modern automotive hallmarks, including brakes, gearbox, flywheel, and bearing. The problem is that, though it did have a steam engine component, it still required human peddling to operate, so it can’t really be considered an automobile.

While steam remained the main focus of inventors in search of a practical automobile, the results remained difficult to control and incapable of reaching speeds much over about five miles per hour. (In fairness, subsequent innovations in the late 1800s and early 1900s did result in actually practical steam cars.) The internal combustion engine provided the pathway to the first modern automobiles, with Karl Benz generally getting the credit for the first successful invention in 1886.

But now we’re starting to cross over into the modern history of automobiles, so this is where I will stop. Here’s to all the crazy forerunners of our modern marvel, be they Flemish polymath toymakers, Frenchmen crashing into walls, Dutchmen building engines out of gunpowder, or Brits crowding themselves onto noisy, supremely dangerous steam buses. All these innovators offer a very clear lesson: if you’re going to fail to invent the automobile, at least fail with style.