The Funny Side of Human Transportation

Is there a funny side?  Well yes, there is always a funny side to every aspect of life if you just look for it - life is a comedy not to be taken too seriously, at least if you want to survive in one piece.

From historic portrayal of early life on earth we can picture pre-historic man taking a trip into Rocksville town in a newly acquired state of the ark family car, of wooden construction propelled by the wife's knicker elastic and tumbling along on three square wheels - isn't progress a wonder?  Was this early form of family transportation really functional or was possession only considered a status symbol, an acquisition to turn the neighbouring Rockerfella's green with envy?  Although green perhaps wasn't their priority.

The latter one might strongly suspect.

Whilst awaiting the long overdue industrial revolutions of latter day, the evolution of the automobile - personal transportation, must have been a slow and steady process spanning centuries of innovation and progressive inspiration.  Like how can we make this lump of scrap faster stronger flyer !?!  The imagination is better equipped to figure how the early scientists and engineers overcame probably the most complex puzzle of all time, hence we are left with visions of the absurd around every corner.

But progress it did, slowly and surely using every available fact of life to aid development leading to today's super-sonic world of fast and furious - and environmentally unfriendly.  Since when did the industrialists of the past and modern day care much for the environment, not until it was too late!  A contentious subject but slipped in for thought!

Does his or her royal highness's (or lowness) give a thought for the past or the damaging effects for the future as they swan around traveling from A to B and in between in one of their collection of automobiles - that super-duper Maserati or Bentley coupé or private jet?  Nah - doubt it!  Then again, it's doubtful early man gave much thought to the environment when inventions were dawning.

Could we live without automation?

The Evolution of the Automobile Goes All the Way Back to the 1600s

The history of cars is more complicated than you would think, and the timeline stretches back to the late 1600s when a Dutch physicist designed the very first internal combustion engine. It wasn't until almost 100 years later that the very first self-powered road vehicles debuted powered by steam engines. Nicolas Joseph Cugnot of France built what is said to be the first automobile in 1769. While his invention is recognized by the British Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Club de France as being the first, many history books say that the automobile was invented by either Gottlieb Daimler or Karl Benz. This is because both Daimler and Benz invented highly successful and practical gasoline-powered vehicles that ushered in the age of modern automobiles. They invented cars that looked and worked like the cars we use today.

From a Dutchman's dream to Henry Ford's assembly lines, this is the history of cars.
Internal Combustion Engine: The Heart of the Automobile

An internal combustion engine is an engine that uses the explosive combustion of fuel to push a piston within a cylinder; the piston's movement turns a crankshaft that then turns the car wheels via a chain or a drive shaft. The different types of fuel commonly used for car combustion engines are gasoline (or petrol), diesel, and kerosene.

A brief outline of the history of the internal combustion engine includes the following highlights:

1680 - Dutch physicist, Christiaan Huygens designed (but never built) an internal combustion engine that was to be fueled with gunpowder.
1807 - Francois Isaac de Rivaz of Switzerland invented an internal combustion engine that used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen for fuel. Rivaz designed a car for his engine—the first internal combustion powered automobile. However, his was a very unsuccessful design.
1824 - English engineer Samuel Brown adapted an old Newcomen steam engine to burn gas, and he used it to briefly power a vehicle up Shooter's Hill in London.
1858 - Belgian-born engineer Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir invented and patented (1860) a double-acting, electric spark-ignition internal combustion engine fueled by coal gas. In 1863, Lenoir attached an improved engine (using petroleum and a primitive carburetor) to a three-wheeled wagon that managed to complete a historic fifty-mile road trip.
1862 - Alphonse Beau de Rochas, a French civil engineer, patented but did not build a four-stroke engine (French patent #52,593, January 16, 1862).
1864 - Austrian engineer Siegfried Marcus built a one-cylinder engine with a crude carburetor and attached his engine to a cart for a rocky 500-foot drive. Several years later, Marcus designed a vehicle that briefly ran at 10 mph, which a few historians have considered as the forerunner of the modern automobile by being the world's first gasoline-powered vehicle (however, read conflicting notes below).
1873 - George Brayton, an American engineer, developed an unsuccessful two-stroke kerosene engine (it used two external pumping cylinders). However, it was considered the first safe and practical oil engine.
1866 - German engineers, Eugen Langen, and Nicolaus August Otto improved on Lenoir's and de Rochas' designs and invented a more efficient gas engine.
1876 - Nicolaus August Otto invented and later patented a successful four-stroke engine, known as the "Otto cycle".
1876 - The first successful two-stroke engine was invented by Sir Dugald Clerk.
1883 - French engineer Edouard Delamare-Deboutteville built a single-cylinder four-stroke engine that ran on stove gas. It is not certain if he did indeed build a car, however, Delamare-Deboutteville's designs were very advanced for the time — ahead of both Daimler and Benz in some ways, at least on paper.
1885 - Gottlieb Daimler invented what is often recognized as the prototype of the modern gas engine — with a vertical cylinder, and with gasoline injected through a carburetor (patented in 1887). Daimler first built a two-wheeled vehicle the "Reitwagen" (Riding Carriage) with this engine and a year later built the world's first four-wheeled motor vehicle.

1886 - On January 29, Karl Benz received the first patent (DRP No. 37435) for a gas-fueled car.
1889 - Daimler built an improved four-stroke engine with mushroom-shaped valves and two V-slant cylinders.
1890 - Wilhelm Maybach built the first four-cylinder, four-stroke engine.

Engine design and car design were integral activities, almost all of the engine designers mentioned above also designed cars, and a few went on to become major manufacturers of automobiles. All of these inventors and more made notable improvements in the evolution of the internal combustion vehicles.

The Importance of Nicolaus Otto

One of the most important landmarks in engine design and in the history of cars comes from Nicolaus August Otto who in 1876 invented an effective gas motor engine. Otto built the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine called the "Otto Cycle Engine," and as soon as he had completed his engine, he built it into a motorcycle. Otto's contributions were very historically significant, it was his four-stroke engine that was universally adopted for all liquid-fueled automobiles going forward.

Karl Benz

In 1885, German mechanical engineer Karl Benz designed and built the world's first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine. On January 29, 1886, Benz received the first patent (DRP No. 37435) for a gas-fueled car. It was a three-wheeler; Benz built his first four-wheeled car in 1891. Benz & Cie., the company started by the inventor, became the world's largest manufacturer of automobiles by 1900. Benz was the first inventor to integrate an internal combustion engine with a chassis - designing both together.

Gottlieb Daimler

In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler (together with his design partner Wilhelm Maybach) took Otto's internal combustion engine a step further and patented what is generally recognized as the prototype of the modern gas engine. Daimler's connection to Otto was a direct one; Daimler worked as technical director of Deutz Gasmotorenfabrik, which Nikolaus Otto co-owned in 1872. There is some controversy as to who built the first motorcycle, Otto or Daimler.

The 1885 Daimler-Maybach engine was small, lightweight, fast, used a gasoline-injected carburetor, and had a vertical cylinder. The size, speed, and efficiency of the engine allowed for a revolution in car design. On March 8, 1886, Daimler took a stagecoach and adapted it to hold his engine, thereby designing the world's first four-wheeled automobile. Daimler is considered the first inventor to have invented a practical internal-combustion engine.

In 1889, Daimler invented a V-slanted two cylinder, four-stroke engine with mushroom-shaped valves. Just like Otto's 1876 engine, Daimler's new engine set the basis for all car engines going forward. Also in 1889, Daimler and Maybach built their first automobile from the ground up, they did not adapt another purpose vehicle as they had always been done previously. The new Daimler automobile had a four-speed transmission and obtained speeds of 10 mph.

Daimler founded the Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft in 1890 to manufacture his designs. Eleven years later, Wilhelm Maybach designed the Mercedes automobile.

If Siegfried Marcus built his second car in 1875 and it was as claimed, it would have been the first vehicle powered by a four-cycle engine and the first to use gasoline as a fuel, the first having a carburetor for a gasoline engine and the first having a magneto ignition. However, the only existing evidence indicates that the vehicle was built circa 1888/89—too late to be first.

By the early 1900s, gasoline cars started to outsell all other types of motor vehicles. The market was growing for economical automobiles and the need for industrial production was pressing.

The first car manufacturers in the world were French: Panhard & Levassor (1889) and Peugeot (1891). By car manufacturer we mean builders of entire motor vehicles for sale and not just engine inventors who experimented with car design to test their engines; Daimler and Benz began as the latter before becoming full car manufacturers and made their early money by licensing their patents and selling their engines to car manufacturers.

Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor

Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor were partners in a woodworking machinery business when they decided to become car manufacturers. They built their first car in 1890 using a Daimler engine. Edouard Sarazin, who held the license rights to the Daimler patent for France, commissioned the team. (Licensing a patent means that you pay a fee and then you have the right to build and use someone's invention for profit; in this case, Sarazin had the right to build and sell Daimler engines in France.) The partners not only manufactured cars, but they also made improvements to the automotive body design.

Panhard-Levassor made vehicles with a pedal-operated clutch, a chain transmission leading to a change-speed gearbox, and a front radiator. Levassor was the first designer to move the engine to the front of the car and use a rear-wheel-drive layout. This design was known as the Systeme Panhard and quickly became the standard for all cars because it gave a better balance and improved steering. Panhard and Levassor are also credited with the invention of the modern transmission — installed in their 1895 Panhard.

Panhard and Levassor also shared the licensing rights to Daimler motors with Armand Peugeot. A Peugeot car went on to win the first car race held in France, which gained Peugeot publicity and boosted car sales. Ironically, the "Paris to Marseille" race of 1897 resulted in a fatal auto accident, killing Emile Levassor.

Early on, French manufacturers did not standardize car models; each car was different from the other. The first standardized car was the 1894 Benz Velo. One hundred and thirty-four identical Velos were manufactured in 1895.

Charles and Frank Duryea

America's first gasoline-powered commercial car manufacturers were Charles and Frank Duryea. The brothers were bicycle makers who became interested in gasoline engines and automobiles and built their first motor vehicle in 1893, in Springfield, Massachusetts. By 1896, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company had sold thirteen models of the Duryea, an expensive limousine, which remained in production into the 1920s.

Ransom Eli Olds

The first automobile to be mass produced in the United States was the 1901 Curved Dash Oldsmobile, built by the American car manufacturer Ransom Eli Olds (1864-1950). Olds invented the basic concept of the assembly line and started the Detroit area automobile industry. He first began making steam and gasoline engines with his father, Pliny Fiske Olds, in Lansing, Michigan in 1885. Olds designed his first steam-powered car in 1887. In 1899, with a growing experience of gasoline engines, Olds moved to Detroit to start the Olds Motor Works, and produce low-priced cars. He produced 425 "Curved Dash Olds" in 1901, and was America's leading auto manufacturer from 1901 to 1904.

Henry Ford

American car manufacturer, Henry Ford (1863-1947) invented an improved assembly line and installed the first conveyor belt-based assembly line in his car factory in Ford's Highland Park, Michigan plant, around 1913-14. The assembly line reduced production costs for cars by reducing assembly time. Ford's famous Model T was assembled in ninety-three minutes. Ford made his first car, called the "Quadricycle," in June 1896. However, success came after he formed the Ford Motor Company in 1903. This was the third car manufacturing company formed to produce the cars he designed. He introduced the Model T in 1908 and it was a success. After installing the moving assembly lines in his factory in 1913, Ford became the world's biggest car manufacturer. By 1927, 15 million Model Ts had been manufactured.

Another victory won by Henry Ford was a patent battle with George B. Selden. Selden, who had never built an automobile, held a patent on a "road engine", on that basis Selden was paid royalties by all American car manufacturers. Ford overturned Selden's patent and opened the American car market for the building of inexpensive cars.

https://www.thoughtco.com/who-invented-the-car-4059932

Debatable..

Mmmmm..



Must be easier ways of earning a living.

nope, niks, nada, this will not something the dutch would make excuses for!

i like horses, but a good car is great too.

and think about it, when all was done on horses, behind horses and at times under the horse, you cannot say it was very environment friendly, i think there must be picture and many writings about the problem of horse manure in london.
of course amsterdam must had them too, the problems, but i think they never made it on a picture.

see that happening if all who now have at least one car, had one or two horses?

Earlier today I heard an advert on the radio for some sort of 'family' car - a seven seater, presumably (I wasn't listening intently) one for the driver and six for passengers, the talk implied passing the parcel in a Boeing 747!

Room for the entire family to go off on a jolly, oh what larks!

It brought to mind my childhood, what I remember of it.  The family car (you were lucky to have one) was a clapped out old Morris Minor which conked-out every few miles or so.  Father, Mother, us three kids and the dog fitted in quite snugly with plenty room for fisticuffs, sandwiches, crisps, fizzy drinks and noise.


Mint condition for the showroom

We stopped off at a cafe once for a break down break, tied the dog to the leg of the cafe table, she was alerted by a nearby rather attractive male canine friend which she chased into the distance with the table still attached.

Do you really need a flashy seven seater to get down and dirty - or is it only a status symbol?

Happy days!