It has enabled men to quickly travel from one end of the country to the other. It gave mobility to the military and it has saved countless lives. Today almost everyone owns at least one. It is a modern marvel, which has made the world smaller. What is this marvel that people need and take for granted? It is the automobile.
The car is a tool for getting from one place to another in the shortest possible time. The invention of the internal combustion engine in 1878, which used gasoline, made the car a more practical transportation. The automobile is not a modern invention as many think; the early cars were steam-powered.
The use of steam power has been around for centuries, but the steam devices then were mere toys. It would not be until the 1600's; when an attempt to harness the power of steam began. Ferdinand Verbiest made a model steam carriage in 1678, which moved by using a principle that suggested the modern turbine. In the 17th century the great Dutch physicist, Christiaan Huygens built an engine that worked by air pressure developed by exploding a powder charge. In about 1750, the French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson demonstrated a carriage propelled by a large clockwork engine. By the 1760s, the steam engine had developed to the point where motorized land transport became possible.
To help the French army move its artillery pieces in and around the city of Paris; Nicolas Joseph Cugnot, built the first automobile in history in 1769. Cugnot's invention: a three-wheeled; steam-driven tractor, is the first automobile in history. In 1770, he built an improved version of his tractor. This tractor was involved in the first automobile accident in history. In 1771, lacking brakes, the tractor demolished a wall when it ran into it.
England
In 1786, William Murdock built a three-wheeled steam-driven wagon. He ran a model steam carriage on the roads of Cornwall in 1784.
Robert Fourness showed a working three-cylinder tractor in 1788.
Richard Trevick improved upon Murdock's ideas and produced several steam carriages in the early 1800's. One of Trevick's carriages had a driving wheel 10 feet in diameter. Trevick was the first to use a steam carriage on a railway; in 1803 he built a steam locomotive that in February 1804 made a successful run on a horse car route in Wales. Steam-driven carriages built and operated by Goldsworthy Gurney and by Walter Hancock transported passengers in the London area during the early 1800's.
America
In America, Maryland granted Oliver Evans a patent for an automobile in 1787. In 1805, Evans built the first steam-powered vehicle. His machine was a combination dredge and flatboat that operated on land and water.
In 1867, Richard Dudgeon's road machine, which resembled a tractor, could carry ten passengers.
Resources
1769 Cugnot Steam Tractor
From Supercars.net, you can read about Cugnot's artillery towing machine and other important early vehicles.
Nicolas Joseph Cugnot
This New World Encyclopedia website has some information about Cugnot.