History of Automobile

1.2 History of 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. It was over millions of patent created the modern automobile. However, we can point to the many firsts that occurred along the way.

For most of the history of automobiles, a car was expected to do little more than travel from place to place with some degree of reliability and economy.

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 (animals).

The first wind driven vehicles was designs by Italians Guido da Vigevano & Vaturio in 1335, which was never built.

Later Leonardo da Vinci designed clockwork driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels.

A Catholic priest named Father Ferdin and Verbiest has been said to have built a steam powered vehicle for the Chinese Emporer Chien Lung in about 1678. Since James Watt didn't invent the steam engine until 1705 it is guessed that this was possibly a model vehicle powered by a mechanism like Hero's steam engine, a spinning wheel with jets on the periphery.

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. Innumerable attempts reached conclusion in the early 1760s he build the first steam driven tractor.

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. They used coal gas generated by heating coal in a pressure vessel or boiler. His one-half horsepower engine had a bore of 5 inches and a 24-inch stroke. It was big and heavy and turned 100 rpm.

In 1871, Dr. J. W. Carhart, professor of physics at Wisconsin State University, and the J. I. Case Company built a working steam car. Steam cars had been built in America since before the Civil War but the early one was like miniature locomotives.

In 1876, Nokolaus Otto patented the Otto cycle engine.

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.

In 1885, Gottllieb Daimler's in Bad Cannstatt built the wooden motorcycle. 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.

On 29th January 1886, Karl Benz was granted a patent on it and on 3rd July 1886, he introduced the first automobile in the world to an astonished public.

By 1890, Ransom E. Olds had built his second steam-powered car. 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.

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.

Fig 1.1: Henry Ford’s first car the Quadricycle 1896

Eli Olds built first petrol-powered car. 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. Ford would not offer a car for sale until 1903.

In August 1904, Ransom Olds left the company to form Reo (for Ransom Eli Olds). 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.

The Rolls Royce Silver Ghost of 1906 was a six cylinder car that stayed in production until 1925. It represented the best engineering and technology available at the time and these cars still run smoothly and silently today. This period marked the end of the beginning of the automobile.

Lenoir claimed to have run the car on benzine 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. Later electric car was developed by Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat.