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History of Cars
by Antieb Schinell
http://www.fiacar.com
Owning a car is no longer a luxury, but has become more of
a necessity. What with the long distances that one needs to
travel each day, to reach his/her workplace, school, or any
other place. Consequently, a majority of Americans have
more than one car. Now, if you do own an automobile, then
it won't be out of place to learn a bit about its history.
The intent here is just the same.
The credit of inventing the first self-propelled vehicle,
powered by a steam engine, in 1769, goes to the French
engineer Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. It was not a car but a
military tractor used for carrying artillery by the French
Army. In 1770, he built a three-wheeled vehicle with wooden
wheels and ironed tires. It weighed 4.5 tons, and could
carry four passengers. In 1771, Nicolas died in a car
accident and the model of the car was destroyed. A few
years later the English pursued the project and, by 1840,
had built over 40 vehicles, powered by steam engines.
The first internal-combustion engine was designed by the
Belgian, Etienne Lenoir in 1860. And in 1866, the German,
Gottlieb Daimler built the first internal-combustion engine
car. daimler's first model weighted two tons but brought it
down to 90 pounds in the successive models. In 1886, Karl
Benz invented the first three-wheeled automobile with an
internal-combustion engine that people could use. In 1893,
Benz designed a four-wheeled automobile and it was Benz
that became the first automobile industry.
In the 19th century many other industries started building
better brakes and other parts and improved the cars. In
1897, Rudolph Diesel designed the first self-ignition
engine. Since Eilhard had already discovered petrol in
1883, fuel was no problem and liquid hydrocarbon was also
available. The car industry progressed very fast thereon.
The young French, Louis Renault built his first car in his
parents' garage. The American, Henry Ford designed his
self-propelled four-wheeled vehicle in 1892. In 1903, Ford
set up his own company to manufacture cars. He succeeded in
his goal to produce an efficient and affordable car, the
Ford T in 1908. His car became more popular in 1913, when
the car became even less expensive because Henry Ford
established an assembly line in his large factory at
Highland Park. Ford sold more than 150,00,000 Ford Ts in
twenty years from 1908 to 1928!
Then, other companies, apart from Ford and Renault,
appeared with new car models and components, as for
example: Volkswagen, Porsche, Peugeot, Citroen and
Ferrari among others. Many years and many cars have
passed until the time we arrived to the modern automobile
that everyone uses nowadays to go from one place to the
other. Although it was a very brief history of cars, we
hope you have found it interesting.
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