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Vehicles that can be considered automobiles were demonstrated as early as 1769, although that date is disputed, and 1885 marked the introduction of gasoline powered internal combustion engines. Automotive history is generally divided into a number of eras based on the major design and technology shifts. Although the exact boundaries of each era can be hazy, scholarship has defined them as follows:
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Cugnot\'s steam wagon, the second (1771) version
1885-built Benz Patent Motorwagen, the first car to go into production with an internal combustion engine
Steam-powered self-propelled vehicles were devised in the late 17th century. A Flemish priest, Ferdinand Verbiest, was thought to have demonstrated in 1678 a small steam car to the Chinese emperor,SA MOTORING HISTORY - TIMELINE. Government of South Australia.Setright, L. J. K. (2004). Drive On!: A Social History of the Motor Car. Granta Books. ISBN 1-86207-698-7. yet there is no evidence for it. 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.C.D. Buchanan (1958). "1", Mixed Blessing: The Motor in Britain. Leonard Hill. Such vehicles were in vogue for a time, and over the next decades such innovations as hand brakes, multi-speed transmissions, improved speed, and steering were 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 that self-propelled vehicles on public roads in the United Kingdom must 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 The law was not finally repealed until 1896 although the need for the red flag was removed in 1878.
A replica of Richard Trevithick\'s 1801 road locomotive \'Puffing Devil\'
Second Marcus Car of 1888 (Technical Museum Vienna)
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 wheels on land and via a paddle wheel in the water.
There were also European efforts. In 1815, a professor at Prague Polytechnich, Josef Bozek, built an oil-fired steam car. Georgano, G.N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985). Walter Hancock, builder and operator of London steam buses, in 1838 built a four-seat steam phaeton.Georgano, G.N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985). Also in 1838, Scotsman Robert Davidson built an electric locomotive that attained a speed of four miles (6 km) an hour. In England a patent was granted in 1840 for the use of rails 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.
Belgian born Etienne Lenoir made a car with an internal combustion engine around 1860, though it was driven by coal-gas. His experiment lasted for 7 miles (11 km), but it took him 3 hours. Lenoir never tried experimenting with cars again. The French claim a Deboutteville-Delamare was successful, and celebrated the 100th birthday of the car in 1984.
About 1870, in Vienna, capital of Austria (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), inventor Siegfried Marcus put a liquid-fuelled internal combustion engine on a simple handcart which made him the first man propelling a vehicle by means of gasoline. Today, this car is known as “The first Marcus Car”.
In 1883, Marcus got a German patent for a low voltage ignition 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 carburretor” made the “Second Car”\'s design very innovative.
It is generally acknowledged the first automobiles with gasoline powered internal combustion engines were completed almost simultaneously by several German inventors working independently: Karl Benz built his first automobile in 1885 in Mannheim. Benz was granted a patent for his automobile on January 29, 1886 and began the first production of automobiles in 1888. Soon after, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart in 1889 designed a vehicle from scratch to be an automobile rather than a horse carriage fitted with an engine. They also were inventors of the first motor bike in 1886. One of the first four wheel petrol-driven automobiles built in Britain came in Birmingham in 1895 by Frederick William Lanchester who also patented the disc brake.
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In My Merry Oldsmobile songbook featuring an Oldsmobile Curved Dash automobile and period driving clothing
The first production of automobiles was by Karl Benz in 1888 in Germany and under licence to Benz, in France by Emile Roger. By 1900 mass production of automobiles had begun in France and the United States. The first company to form exclusively to build automobiles was Panhard et Levassor in France. Formed in 1889, they were quickly followed by Peugeot two years later. 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 gasoline-powered autos competed for decades, with 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 liters. 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 driveshaft, and closed bodies were extremely rare.
On November 5, 1895, George B. Selden was granted a United States patent for a two-stroke automobile engine (U.S. Patent 549,160). This patent did more to hinder than encourage development of autos in the USA. Selden licensed his patent to most major American auto makers, collecting a fee on every car they produced.
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, 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 fifty miles (80 km) 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.
T-model Ford car parked outside Geelong Library at its launch in Australia in 1915
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.
Within the 15 years that make up the Brass or Edwardian era, the various experimental designs and alternate power systems would be marginalized. Although the modern touring car had been invented earlier, it was not until Panhard et Levassor\'s Système Panhard was widely licensed and adopted that recognizable and standardized automobiles were created. This system specified front-engined, rear-wheel drive internal combustion cars with a sliding gear transmission. Traditional coach-style vehicles were rapidly abandoned, and buckboard runabouts lost favor with the introduction of tonneaus and other less-expensive touring bodies.
Throughout this era, development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to a huge number (hundreds) of small manufacturers all competing to gain the world\'s attention. Key developments included electric ignition (by Robert Bosch, 1903) and the electric self-starter (by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910-1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes (by the Arrol-Johnson Company in 1909).Georgano, G. N. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985) Leaf springs were widely used for suspension, though many other systems were still in use, with angle steel taking over from armored wood as the frame material of choice. Transmissions and throttle controls were widely adopted, allowing a variety of cruising speeds, though vehicles generally still had discrete speed settings rather than the infinitely variable system familiar in cars of later eras.
Between 1907 and 1912, 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.Georgano.
Some examples of cars of the period included the following:
1926 Austin 7 Box saloon
Lineup of Ford Model As
The vintage era lasted from the end of World War I (1919) through the stock market crash at the end of 1929. During this period, the front-engined car came to dominate, with closed bodies and standardized controls becoming the norm. Development of the internal combustion engine continued at a rapid pace, with multi-valve and overhead cam engines produced at the high end, and V8, V12, and even V16 engines conceived for the ultra-rich.
Exemplary vintage vehicles:
Citroën Traction Avant
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 sedan body style even incorporating a trunk 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 Andre Citroën with the launch of the Traction Avant in 1934, though it 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:
1953 Morris Minor Series II
A 1950s Oldsmobile 88, with its high-compression Rocket V8
Jaguar E-type coupe
1985 Mini
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 their 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 mini cars swept Europe, while the similar keicar class put Japan on wheels for the first time. The legendary VW 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 GT cars, like the Ferrari Americas, swept across Europe.
The market changed somewhat in the 1960s, as Detroit began to worry about foreign competition, the European makers adopted ever-higher technology, and Japan appeared as a serious car-producing nation. General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford tried radical small cars, like the GM A-bodies, but had little success. Captive imports and badge engineering swept through the U.S. and UK as conglomerates like the British Motor Corporation consolidated the market. Eventually, this trend reached Italy as niche makers like Maserati, Ferrari, and Lancia were acquired by larger companies. By the end of the decade, the automobile manufacturing world was much smaller.
In America, performance was the hot sell of the 1960s, with pony cars and muscle cars propping up the domestic industry. In 1964 the Ford mustang hit the markets. The Mustang was the hot ticket and was one of the most popular car of the early 1960s. In 1967 Chevrolet released the Camaro to compete with the Ford Mustang. In 1967 Chevy came out with the Camaro Z28, so in 1969 Fords competitiveness went into gear and they came out with the Mustang Boss 302 and the Mustang Boss 429. 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 outperformed large American ones, and the domestic auto industry began to fail. Small performance cars from BMW, Toyota, and Nissan took the place of big-engined cars from America and Italy.
On the technology front, the biggest developments of the era were the widespread use of independent suspensions, wider application of fuel injection, and an increasing focus on safety in the design of automobiles. The hottest technologies of the 1960s were NSU\'s Wankel engine, the gas turbine, and the turbocharger. Of these, only the last, pioneered by General Motors but popularized by BMW and Saab, was to see widespread use. Little Mazda had much success with their "Rotary" engines, but was critically affected by its reputation as a polluting gas-guzzler. Other Wankel licensees, including Mercedes-Benz and General Motors, never put their designs into production. Rover and Chrysler both produced experimental turbine cars to no effect.
A so-called yank tank in Havana, Cuba.
Cuba is famous for its pre-1959 cars, known as yank tanks or maquinas, because before the Cuban revolution many rich US citizens lived there, but after the revolution the influx of cars stopped due to the US boycot, so people made sure to keep the cars they had in good condition.
1968 (left) and 1969 (right) Oldsmobile 442s. Post-war American muscle cars with V8 engines.
Exemplary post-war cars:
1986 VW Golf Mk.2
1993 Ford Escort Wagon
1994 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight Royale
The modern era is normally defined as the 25 years preceding the current year. However, there are some technical and design aspects that differentiate modern cars from antiques. Without considering the future of the car, the modern era has been one of increasing standardization, platform sharing, and computer-aided design.
Some particularly notable advances in modern times are the wide spread 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 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 emphasized 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 1970s were conquered with computerized engine management systems, power began to rise rapidly. In the 1980s, a powerful sports car might have produced 200 hp (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:
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