The Dream of a Horseless Carriage — The Birth of the Automobile

The reins of the horse let go, and the wheels begin to turn under their own power—at the close of the 19th century, people dreamed of such a strange vehicle. In those days, the roads were filled with carriages drawn by horses. To carry goods or to carry people, the strength of a living creature came first. Horses grew tired, ate their feed, and needed care. If only a ‘machine’ could be set in place of that horse—. This simple wish was the starting point of the automobile, an invention that would later transform the way the whole world lived. The story begins with two cars born in a single country, at almost the very same time.

Steam and Electricity — Another Beginning

The dream of a self-propelled vehicle was far older than the arrival of gasoline. At the end of the 18th century, the French engineer Cugnot is said to have built a large, steam-powered three-wheeled gun tractor. With a heavy boiler, like a great kettle, mounted over the front wheel, its form was quite unlike today’s automobile, yet in the sense of a vehicle that moved without borrowing human hands or horses, it was certainly one of the pioneers. Even so, it was hard to steer and could only crawl along, said to be far from practical use.

As the 19th century arrived, the steam engine advanced remarkably. In Britain there was a time when steam-powered omnibuses are said to have appeared on the roads, but their weight, their dangers, and friction with railway and carriage operators meant they did not last long, so it is told. Around the same period, attempts at electrically driven cars also arose in many places. The electric car was quiet and easy to handle, and for a time it is said to have stood shoulder to shoulder with the gasoline car.

In other words, the automobile’s starting point held three paths: ‘steam,’ ‘electricity,’ and ‘gasoline.’ Which would take the leading role, no one yet knew. In time, the one that won this contest was the internal combustion engine, driven by burning gasoline. Holding the key to it were the engineers in Germany who were working to improve the internal combustion engine.

Benz’s Three-Wheeler — The Car Said to Be the World’s First

The German engineer Karl Benz dreamed of mounting a light, small gasoline engine onto a vehicle that carried people. And at the beginning of 1886, he is said to have obtained a patent for a gasoline-powered automobile. This is known as one of the earliest patents granted for an automobile fueled by gasoline, and it is often spoken of as the event that marks the birth of the automobile.

That car was a three-wheeler, with one wheel in front and two behind. Rather than the wooden wheels of a carriage, it used thin wire wheels resembling those of a bicycle, with a water-cooled single-cylinder engine set between the rear wheels. Its output was very slight—by today’s standards as feeble as a toy—but in running under its own power, without using a single horse, it was indeed a new kind of vehicle.

The one who is said to have made this invention widely known was Benz’s own wife. Without consulting her husband, she is said to have taken her children and driven this car to a distant town, an episode passed down as proof that the automobile really could travel long distances. An invention does not grow within the workshop alone. Only when someone actually carried it outside and showed it running along the roads did people’s dreams begin to take on a sense of reality.

Daimler and Maybach — Another Source

At almost the very same time that Benz was running his three-wheeler in southwest Germany, in another place too, work that would move the history of the automobile was advancing. This was the engineer Gottlieb Daimler and his partner Wilhelm Maybach. Their wish was to build a gasoline engine small enough to load onto any vehicle, and yet able to turn at high speed.

In 1885, the two are said to have completed a small, high-speed internal combustion engine, and first to have tested it mounted on a two-wheeled vehicle. The following year, 1886, they are said to have fitted that engine to a carriage and run it as a four-wheeled automobile. What is interesting is that while Benz designed his car as an ‘automobile’ from the start, Daimler and his partner began by setting an engine onto an existing vehicle—the carriage. They drew near to the same dream by two different paths.

The high-speed, nimble engines the two created later spread to all kinds of vehicles. Benz’s company and Daimler’s line, over long years, merged into one and grew into the great automobile maker that continues to this day. Yet at the very beginning, it is said the two sources scarcely knew of each other’s work. In the same country, in the same year, different people gave shape to the ‘horseless carriage’—the birth of the automobile may have been less the story of a single genius than an event the age prepared by borrowing many hands.

And so, at the close of the 19th century, from a German workshop, a car that ran on gasoline gave its quiet first cry. It was still no more than a single vehicle, edging timidly between the carriages that came and went on the roads. Its price was high, and the number that could be made was very small. For the automobile to truly change the world, another great revolution was needed—one that would turn it from the toy of a few into the tool of ordinary people. That stage was being prepared across the sea, in America.