With the invention of the wheel in 4000 BC, man’s journey on the
road of mechanized transport had begun. Since then he continually sought
to devise an automated, labor saving machine to replace the horse.
Innumerable
attempts reached conclusion in the early 1760s with the building of the
first steam driven tractor by a French Captain, Nicolas Jacob Cugnot.
It was however left to Karl Benz and Gottlieb Damlier to produce the
first vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine in 1885. It was
then that the petrol engine was introduced, which made the car a
practical and safe proposition. The cars in this period were more like
the cars on our roads today. With cars came the era of speed.
The first ever land-speed record was established about a 100
years back, in 1898. Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat of France drove
an electric car (in Acheres near Paris) at a speed of 39.24 miles per
hour. This flagged off the era of ‘wheels racing’, which
lasted till 1964, after which jet and rocket -propelled vehicles were
allowed.
Then onwards, it has been one big journey...on the roads.
