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Nicolas Cugnot, a French military engineer developed a steam powered road-vehicle for the French army to haul heavy cannons. Using a steam engine fixed to a three-wheeled cart, Cugnot successfully converted the back-and-forth action of a steam piston into rotary motion. The truck reputedly reached walking speed and carried four tonnes. The army later abandoned his invention.
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Richard Trevithick improved the design of steam engines, by making smaller and lighter with stronger boilers generating more power. In 1801, he put one of his new compact steam engines on wheels. His ‘road locomotive’ - known as the Puffing Devil – was the first horseless carriage to transport passengers. Innovations like hand brakes, gears, and steering improvements were developed in subsequent decades.
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English engineer, Samuel Brown adapted an old Newcomen steam engine to burn a mixture of oxygen hydrogen gas. He used it to briefly power a vehicle up Shooter's Hill - the highest point in south London.
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Belgian-born engineer, Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir invented and patented (1860) a two-stroke, internal combustion engine. It was fuelled by coal gas and triggered by an electric spark-ignition. Lenoir later attached an improved engine to a three-wheeled wagon and completed a fifty-mile road trip.
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The Locomotive Act restricted the speed of horse-less vehicles to 4mph in open country and 2 mph in towns. The act effectively required three drivers for each vehicle; two to travel in the vehicle and one to walk ahead waving a red flag. For the next 30 years cars couldn’t legally travel above walking speed.
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Nikolaus August Otto invented and later patented a successful four-stroke engine, known as the “Otto cycle.” The same year, the first successful two-stroke engine was invented by the Scottish engineer, Sir Dugald Clerk.
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The first vehicles driven using internal combustion engines were developed roughly at the same time by two engineers working in separate parts of Germany – Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz. They simultaneously formulated highly successful and practically powered vehicles that, by and large, worked like the cars we use today. The age of modern motor cars had begun.
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Two former French wood machinists, Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor, set up the world’s first car manufacturers. Their first car was built in 1890 using a Daimler engine. Another French company, Peugeot was formed the following year, and still going strong today.
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Wilhelm Maybach built the first four-cylinder, four-stroke engine. Three years later, he develops the spray-nozzle carburettor, which becomes the basis for modern carburettor technology. A decade later, Maybach developed a race car using lightweight metals fitted with a 35-hp four-cylinder engine and two carburettors. Named the Mercedes, the car reaches 64.4 km/h to shatter the world speed record.
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Motor racing began as cars were built. Races quickly evolved from a simple chases from town to town, to organised events like time trials endurance tests for car and driver. Innovations in engineering soon saw competition speeds exceeding 100 mph. Since races were often held on open roads, fatalities were frequent among drivers and spectators.
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Bridget Driscoll, a 44-year old mother of two from Croydon, stepped off a kerb and into the history books. She was hit by a passing motor car near Crystal Palace in London. She died from head injuries. The driver, Arthur Edsell, was doing just 4mph at the time. The coroner, returning a verdict of accidental death, said “I trust that this sort of nonsense will never happen again.”
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After fitting moving assembly lines to the factory in 1913, Ford became the world's biggest car manufacturer. By 1927, 15 million Model Ts had been manufactured. Workers on the production line assembled the car just in ninety-three minutes.
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First Popular Car Ever Made
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It's powered by a four-cylinder engine and rolls on solid rubber tires mounted on wood spoke wheels. While it has mounts for a windshield and a top, these were options in 1918 and most trucks were sold without such luxuries. Notice the unpadded wood seat. Maxwell trucks were built in the east and the parts were shipped to the west coast for assembly and the parts for those sold on the west coast were shipped here for assembly.
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The first antilock braking systems (ABS) were developed for automobiles by German manufacurers, Bosch. They first appeared in trucks and cars made by Mercedes-Benz. ABS brakes to allow the driver to maintain steering control and to shorten braking distances.
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Manufacturers have acknowledged that oil reserves will dry up in the future. They’re now developing engines that use more than one fuel source – hybrid engines. Honda and Toyota initially introduced their petrol/electric hybrids to the Japanese market, before releasing them in America and Europe in 2002.
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First Car ever made with no hubx within the wheel
