So you think you know who invented the
automobile?! Karl Benz is the typical answer and well, the more you
research it, the more you will realize that there are too many answers
to this question and Benz is only a small part. Here's food for thought on one take regarding the
"invention" of the automobile.
And here's a timeline of the internal combustion engine, that may surprise you >
1680
- Dutch physicist, Christian 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 JosephÉtienne
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 an
historic fifty-mile road trip. (See image at top)
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 that 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 Nikolaus August Otto improved on
Lenoir's and de Rochas' designs and invented a more efficient gas
engine.
1876 - Nikolaus 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 Dougald
Clerk.
1883 - French engineer, Edouard Delamare-Debouteville,
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-Debouteville'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.
ALSO OF NOTE IS THE FACT STEAM POWERED VEHICLES GO BACK TO BC, YES, BC - OVER WELL OVER 2000 YEARS AGO!
