Who built the first car?

Answer 1

The Benz brothers, who's brand later became Mercedes-benz. The made the world's FIRST car in 1887. Many people believe Ford made the first car; he simply made the first AFFORDABLE car, by utilizing assembly lines. But it was the Benz brothers who are responsible for the world's FIRST, ORIGINAL automobile.

Answer 2

Its a controversial question and it has many answers...


Some sources suggest Ferdinand Verbiest, whilst a member of a Jesuit mission in China, may have built the first steam powered car around 1672. François Isaac de Rivaz, a Swiss inventor, designed the first internal combustion engine which was fuelled by a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to run on such an engine. The design was not very successful, as was the case with Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir who each produced vehicles powered by clumsy internal combustion engines.

An automobile powered by an Otto gasoline engine was built in Germany by Karl Benz in 1885 and granted a patent in the following year. Although several other engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach and Siegfried Marcus) were working on the problem at about the same time, Benz is generally credited with the invention of the modern automobile.

Answer 3

Several Italians recorded designs for wind driven vehicles. The first was Guido da Vigevano in 1335. It was a windmill type drive to gears and thus to wheels. Vaturio designed a similar vehicle which was also never built. Later Leonardo da Vinci designed a clockwork driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels.

A Catholic priest named Father Ferdinand Verbiest has been said to have built a steam powered vehicle for the Chinese Emperor Chien Lung in about 1678. There is no information about the vehicle, only the event. Since Thomas Newcomen didn't build his first steam engine until 1712 we can guess that this was possibly a model vehicle powered by a mechanism like Hero's steam engine, a spinning wheel with jets on the periphery. Newcomen's engine had a cylinder and a piston and was the first of this kind, and it used steam as a condensing agent to form a vacuum and with an overhead walking beam, pull on a rod to lift water. It was an enormous thing and was strictly stationary. The steam was not under pressure, just an open boiler piped to the cylinder. It used the same vacuum principle that Thomas Savery had patented to lift water directly with the vacuum, which would have limited his pump to less than 32 feet of lift. Newcomen's lift would have only been limited by the length of the rod and the strength of the valve at the bottom. Somehow Newcomen was not able to separate his invention from that of Savery and had to pay for Savery's rights. In 1765 James Watt developed the first pressurized steam engine which proved to be much more efficient and compact that the Newcomen engine.

The first vehicle to move under its own power for which there is a record was designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769. A replica of this vehicle is on display at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, in Paris. I believe that the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D. C. also has a large (half size ?) scale model. A second unit was built in 1770 which weighed 8000 pounds and had a top speed on 2 miles per hour and on the cobble stone streets of Paris this was probably as fast as anyone wanted to go it. The picture shows the first model on its first drive around Paris were it hit and knocked down a stone wall. It also had a tendency to tip over frontward unless it was counterweighted with a canon in the rear. the purpose of the vehicle was to haul canons around town.

Answer 4

The first successful car powered by petrol/gasoline was built by Karl Benz in Germany in 1885. After a few improvements, Frau Bertha Benz drove the vehicle 100km (60 miles) carrying her two sons as passengers. Not only was it the first successful car, it was also used in the first long distance drive. This vehicle had three road wheels.

Entirely independently but also in Germany Gottlieb Daimler developed a working gasoline/petrol car a few months later. This was based on a horse coach and had four wheels and close to the same performance as the Benz car. Daimler and Benz never met. About 20 years later Daimler's cars were sold as "Mercedes" in some European markets, as "Daimler" in Britain and as "Simplex" in the USA. About 1926 the Daimler and Benz companies merged and called their product "Mercedes-Benz."

By the middle of the 1890s the largest manufacture of cars had passed to France, which is why we use French words like "chassis" and "chauffeur" and a common type of rear suspension still in use is called a Panhard rod. The French originated the engine in front driving the rear wheels layout which many large cars and nearly all trucks still use.

Earlier in the 19th century many steam powered cars or what amounted to stagecoaches were in commercial use in Britain and in some other European countries.

More information at

http://www.museum-mercedes-benz.com/?lang=en

This site is like some other German sites - it's a bit too artily laid out and is a pain to use.

Answer 5

I always thought is was a Duryea Motor Wagon Built in Springfield, Ma By Charles Duryea. Just slightly Before the Grandfather clock motorized cycle of Mercedes and Mabach in 1885 and there patent motor wagon of 1886. However the Insustrial revolution and the victorian age going strong metal foundrys and good black smiths forging steel Electricity to turn lathes and drill presses everything fell into place and the automobile was born. I imagine the pop pop pop and spindley wheels scared the horses and was very strange sight to see. In america before 1920 there were hundreds of car companys some no bigger than a couple cars a year. It wasn't until Ford started using "interchangeable parts" and "assembly lines" that the price came down to where regular people could think they could afford one.

Answer 6

Leonardo DaVinci; granted it was not a car as you or I think of one. It was powered by a handcrank located above the rear wheels that was connected to a drive shaft that meshed with the rear axle. As you turned the crank the drive shaft spun, turning the gear and moving the rear wheels, thus movement. It did not have a steering mechanism for the front wheel, which would have been a major downfall.

Answer 7

Ford developed the assembly line that made cars affordable for the masses, but he didn't actually invent the very first car.

Answer 8

Ford

Answer 9

Ford

Answer 10

In production form Mr. Ford.