Insanly Breif History of the Car

To begin talking about our forefathers search for a mode of transport to replace the horse would necessitate traveling back in time over 300 years. Inventions (or what perhaps could be better described as contraptions) utilizing wind power and even elaborate clockwork gearing were all tried, up to the advent of steam power.Then, between 1820 and 1840, came a golden age of steam, with skilled engineers devising and operating steam carriages of advanced and ingenious design; men like Gurney, Hancock and Macerone all produced designs which were practicable, capable of achieving quite lengthy journeys and operating with a relatively high degree of reliability.While the internal combustion engine appeared early on in the history of the motor vehicle, it would take over three-quarters of a century for it to be perfected to the level where it could be used in a vehicle capable of running on the roads. The 1805 powered cart of the Swiss Isaac de Rivaz was little more than an elaborate toy, capable of crawling from one side of a room to another, while the 1863 car built in Paris by JJ. Etienne Lenoir took three hours to cover six miles. It was not until the mid-1880s that the first successful petrol cars appeared, developed independently by two German engineers, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz.Instead the Steam Carriage made a final comeback, particularly with some of the advanced designs of the Boll family of Le Mans. These carriages, built between 1873 and the mid-1880’s, were to pioneer such advancements as independent front suspension. Meanwhile one Léon Serpollet , a blacksmith's son, conceived a 'flash boiler' capable of the instantaneous generation of steam.The biggest turning point for the automobile, and the internal combustion engine, was arguably the 1889 Paris World Exhibition. It was at this exhibition that French engineers Panhard and Levassor saw the Daimler 'Steelwheeler' car powered by the Daimler vee-twin engine. Levassor's lady friend, an astute widow named Louise Sarazin, held the French rights to the Daimler engine in succession to her late husband, and Panhard and Levassor began manufacturing these power units in 1890.