The birth of the car as we know it today occurred over a period of
years. It was
only
in 1885 that the first real car rolled down on to the streets. The
earlier attempts, though successful, were steam powered road-vehicles.
The first self-propelled car was built by Nicolas Cugnot in 1769 which
could attain speeds of upto 6 kms/hour. In 1771 he again designed
another steam-driven engine which ran so fast that it rammed into a
wall, recording the world’s first accident.
In 1807 Francois Isaac de Rivaz designed the first internal combustion
engine. This was subsequently used by him to develop the world’s
first vehicle to run on such an engine, one that used a mixture of
hydrogen and oxygen to generate energy.
This spawned the birth of a number of designs based on the internal
combustion engine in the early nineteenth century with little or no
degree of commercial success. In 1860 thereafter, Jean Joseph Etienne
Lenoir built the first successful two-stroke gas driven engine. In 1862
he again built an experimental vehicle driven by his gas-engine, which
ran at a speed of 3 kms/hour. These cars became popular and by 1865
could be frequently espied on the roads.
The next major leap forward occurred in 1885 when the four stroke
engine was devised. Gottileb Damlier and Nicolas Otto worked together on
the mission till they fell apart. Daimler created his own engines which
he used both for cars and for the first four wheel horseless carriage.
In the meanwhile, unknown to them, Karl Benz, was in the process of
creating his own advanced tri-cycle which proved to be the first true
car. This car first saw the light of the day in 1886.
The season of experiments continued across the seas in the United
States where Henry Ford began work on a horseless carriage in 1890. He
went several steps forward and in 1896, completed his first car, the
Quadricycle in 1896. This was an automobile powered by a two cylinder
gasoline engine. The Ford Motor Company was launched in 1903 and in 1908
he catapulted his vehicle, Model T Ford to the pinnacle of fame.
Continuing with his innovations, he produced this model on a moving
assembly line, thus introducing the modern mass production techniques of
the automobile industry.
The modern car, therefore comes from a long list of venerated
ancestors, and its lineage will, hopefully grow longer as we progress!
