wait wait, did the car originate in the USA?
Well no actually fell is was not you yanks that built the first motor car.
In the beginning there was Nicholas Cugnot (1725-1804) experimenting in 1769 with a steam driven vehicle. Cugnot’s vehicle, travelling at walking pace, was used for towing cannon as well as carrying four people and from there we have seen a slow progression to what we have today. The speed of evolution was controlled by the pace at which technology progressed. Even today we do not appear to have what we should, partly due to technology not being there, but mostly due to the manufacturers not taking the lead prompted by their experimental cars.
It was not until the Belgian born Frenchman Jean-Joseph Etienne Lenoir (1822-1900) patented the internal combustion engine in 1860 that a practical power unit was available for road vehicles. This engine ran on town coal gas which was ignited inside a tube called a cylinder by a spark from a Ruhmkorff induction coil. To try the engine Lenoir mounted it on an old cart, attached wheels to the cart then drove it down a dirt track in a wood. The gas was not compressed as with later engines, but drawn into the cylinder by the piston and ignited half way through the stroke, thereby supplying the impulsion to finish the stroke. A crank returned the piston to its starting position and expelled the burnt gas. Thus we have a two stroke engine. It was not long before a firm called Gautier was making the engine in various sizes at a factory.
The next initiative was provided by the German engineer Nikolaus-August Otto (1832-1891) who patented a four-stroke engine, on which today’s car engines are based. This patent was subsequently proved to be invalid because a Frenchman Alphonse Beau de Rochas had patented a four stroke engine some years before. The Four Stroke engine was so called because it had four movements, one to suck a mixture of air and gas into the cylinder, one to push the piston back up to compress the mixture, one to ignite the mixture and push the piston down and one to push the piston back up to force the burnt gases out of the cylinder through a valve. Otto ran a business making engines with his partner, a lawyer called Eugen Langen (1833-1895), but their interest was making stationary engines at their factory at Deutz in Germany. However, the dynamic technical director at the time was a time-served Swabian apprentice gunsmith called Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) who midway through the 1870's became interested in replacing the coal gas with petrol as the fuel. This interest provoked his employers to banish him to their factory in St. Petersburg in Russia and instigated Daimler’s resignation in 1882, taking with him the chief draughtsman Wilhelm Maybach (1846-1929).
At the same time other people were working on vehicles, one being Karl Benz (1844-1929) an engineer born in Mühlberg, in Germany and the son of a locomotive driver. Benz was forced to make two stroke engines for well over ten years because it was thought that Otto and Langen held the four stroke patent. As soon as Benz was allowed to make four stroke engines he set up a new company with two friends, Max Rose and Friedrich Esslinger called Rheinische Gasmotorenfabrik Benz and Co., and turned his attention away from stationary engines to produce a small engine to power a motor car.
Now the car began to develop, with Benz producing a lightweight, purpose built, U shaped steel frame on which the body and the new wire spoked wheels were mounted The first car was made in 1885 and had three wheels, with one at the front with which to steer. When it was first ran is unknown, but its engine was not as advanced as that of Daimler. On the 29th of January, 1886 Benz took out a series of patents to cover the development of his car and started to publicise it; press reports started to appear in 1886 with one about the car on the 4th of June and another about a ride in the car on the 3rd of July, 1886. Meanwhile, his partners were losing patience with his experiments with a self propelled vehicle that was not producing any income to the company. Undaunted Benz exhibited his car at the Paris Exposition of 1887 and promptly sold a licence to assemble the car in France to Emile Roger, a cycle maker.
So as you can see the motor car is probably older than your country, So you can take that as a NO you lot didn't build the first car :rofl: ,As hard as that is to believe :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: .
Rob