So How did it all start?
1908 Ford Model T
Hi everyone,
In this informational page I will explain how the car has evolved and how its changed into the modern beast of a machine that it is today. On the left you can see one of the first cars that were made. This one is the Ford Model T that was produced in 1908. Since then a lot of modifications and changes have been made to the engines and materials used to make a car. However the basic structure remains same or fairly similar.
Here it is easy to see how modern cars today still modelled on the same structure as old cars such as the Ford Model T(left). Features such as the steering wheel, wheels, doors, mirrors, headlights etc are still very much the same in cars that are produced today.
So who actually came up with the first modern car?
This answer to this is debatable. If we are talking about the first modern automobile then we can say it was Karl Benz who made it in 1886. But there have been other variations of cars long before 1886 with transport on wheels dating many years back, nearly 200 years ago.
So that brings us to the question.
Who was the real genius that had the idea of a moving automobile?
The man who is said to have built the first car known to man is a Flemish Missionary named Ferdinand Verbiest.
Verbiest was friends with the Kangxi Emperor who requested for his teachings in philosophy,geometry and Music.
As a result Verbiest then designed what might have been the first ever car. It was a toy car not a full sized car to carry humans as passangers, it was only a scale model. His toy car ran on a steam propelled engine. However it can be debated as Verbiest's model car was only 65 cm long and was not designed to carry any passengers so strictly speaking it cannot be called a car.
There is very little documented evidence to prove that his model was ever put into production or that he was in fact the first make of the steam engine so he may not have made the first car but he sure did come up with idea of one.
In 1769, the very first self-propelled road vehicle was a military tractor invented by French engineer and mechanic, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot (1725 - 1804). Cugnot used a steam engine to power his vehicle so it could be argued that it was Cugnot that invented the first ever automobile. In 1771 Cugnot drove his steam car into a wall and had what was the first ever accident in an automobile which resulted in one death. Historians, accept the fact that the early steam powered vehicles were in fact automobiles so they feel as though it was Nicolas Cugnot who was the inventor of the first automobile.
There are many conflicting theories and stories of who invented the first car. The topic is debatable and therefore it is not conclusive.