Eras of invention

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Horseless carriage or veteran era

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The Selden Road-Engine

The Präsident automobile The first automobile in Japan, a

French Panhard-Levassor, in 1898 Fiat 4 HP, the first car model

The American George B. Selden filed for a patent on 8 May 1879. His application included the engine
and its use in a four-wheeled car. Selden filed a series of amendments to his application, which
stretched out the legal process, resulting in a delay of 16 years before the patent was granted on 5
November 1895.[39] Selden licensed his patent to most major American automakers, collecting a fee
on each car they produced and creating the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers. The
Ford Motor Company fought this patent in court,[40] and eventually won on appeal. Henry Ford
testified that the patent did more to hinder than encourage development of autos in the United
States.[41]

The first automobiles were produced by Carl Benz in 1888 in Germany and, under license from Benz,
in France by Emile Roger. There were numerous others, including tricycle builders Rudolf Egg, Edward
Butler, and Léon Bollée.[15]: 20–23 Bollée, using a 650 cc (40 cu in) engine of his own design, enabled his
driver, Jamin, to average 45 km/h (28 mph) in the 1897 Paris-Tourville rally.[15]: 23 By 1900, mass
production of automobiles had begun in France and the United States.

The first company formed exclusively to build automobiles was Panhard et Levassor in France, which
is also credited for introducing the first four-cylinder engine.[15]: 22 Formed in 1889, Panhard was
followed by Peugeot two years later. By the start of the 20th century, the automobile industry began
taking off in Western Europe, especially in France, where 30,204 were produced in 1903,
representing 48.8 percent of world automobile production that year.[42]

Across the northern US, local mechanics experimented with various prototypes. In Iowa, for
example, by 1890, Jesse O. Wells drove a steam-powered Locomobile. There were numerous
experiments in electric vehicles driven by storage batteries. The first users ordered the early
gasoline-powered cars, including Haynes, Mason, and Duesenberg automobiles. Blacksmiths and
mechanics started operating repair and gasoline stations.[43] In Springfield, Massachusetts,
brothers Charles and Frank Duryea founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1893, becoming
the first American automobile manufacturing company. The Autocar Company, founded in 1897,
established many innovations still in use[44] and remains the oldest operating motor vehicle
manufacturer in the US. However, it was Ransom E. Olds and his Olds Motor Vehicle Company (later
known as Oldsmobile) who would dominate this era with the introduction of the Oldsmobile Curved
Dash. Its production line was running in 1901. The Thomas B. Jeffery Company developed the world's
second mass-produced automobile, and 1,500 Ramblers were built and sold in its first year,
representing one-sixth of all existing motorcars in the US at the time.[45] Within a
year, Cadillac (formed from the Henry Ford Company), Winton, and Ford were also producing cars in
the thousands. In South Bend, Indiana, the Studebaker brothers, having become the world's leading
manufacturers of horse-drawn vehicles, made a transition to electric automobiles in 1902, and
gasoline engines in 1904. They continued to build horse-drawn vehicles until 1919. [46]

The first motor car in Central Europe was produced by the Austro-Hungarian company Nesselsdorfer
Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra in today's Czech Republic) in 1897, the Präsident automobile.[47] In
1898, Louis Renault had a De Dion-Bouton modified, with fixed drive shaft and differential, making
"perhaps the first hot rod in history" and bringing Renault and his brothers into the car industry.
[48]
Innovation was rapid and rampant, with no clear standards for basic vehicle architectures, body
styles, construction materials, or controls; for example, many veteran cars use a tiller, rather than a
wheel for steering. During 1903, Rambler standardized on the steering wheel [49] and moved the
driver's position to the left-hand side of the vehicle.[50] Chain drive was dominant over the drive shaft,
and closed bodies were scarce. Drum brakes were introduced by Renault in 1902.[51]: 62 The next year,
Dutch designer Jacobus Spijker built the first four-wheel drive racing car;[52]: 77 it never competed. It
would be 1965 and the Jensen FF before four-wheel drive was used on a production car.[52]: 78

On 22 July 1894 Paris–Rouen motor race, which is sometimes described as the world's first
competitive motor race, took place.

Within a few years, hundreds of producers across the Western world were using
many technologies. Steam, electricity, and gasoline-powered automobiles competed for decades,
with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance by the 1910s. Dual- and even quad-
engine cars were designed, and engine displacement ranged to more than 12 L (730 cu in). Many
modern advances, including gas/electric hybrids, multi-valve engines, overhead camshafts, and four-
wheel drive, were attempted and discarded at this time.
Innovation was not limited to the vehicles themselves. Increasing numbers of cars propelled the
growth of the petroleum industry,[51]: 60–61 as well as the development of technology to produce
gasoline (replacing kerosene and coal oil) and of improvements in heat-tolerant mineral oil lubricants
(replacing vegetable and animal oils).[51]: 60

There were social effects, also. Music would be made about cars, such as "In My Merry Oldsmobile"
(a tradition that continues in several genres). At the same time, in 1896, William Jennings
Bryan would be the first presidential candidate to campaign in a car (a donated Mueller), in Decatur,
Illinois.[53]: 92 Three years later, Jacob German would start a tradition for New York
City cabdrivers when he sped down Lexington Avenue, at the "reckless" speed of 19 km/h (12 mph).
[53]: 92
Also in 1899, Akron, Ohio, adopted the first self-propelled paddy wagon.[53]: 92

By 1900, the early centers of national automotive industry developed in many countries, including
Belgium (home to Vincke, that copied Benz; Germain, a pseudo-Panhard; and Linon and Nagant, both
based on the Gobron-Brillié),[15]: 25 Switzerland (led by Fritz Henriod, Rudolf Egg, Saurer, Johann
Weber, and Lorenz Popp),[15]: 25 Vagnfabrik AB in Sweden, Hammel (by A. F. Hammel and H. U.
Johansen at Copenhagen, in Denmark, which only built one car, ca. 1886[15]: 25 ), Irgens (starting in
Bergen, Norway, in 1883, but without success),[15]: 25–26 Italy (where FIAT started in 1899), and as far
afield as Australia (where Pioneer set up shop in 1898, with an already archaic paraffin-fueled center-
pivot-steered wagon).[15] Meanwhile, the export trade had begun, with Koch exporting cars and
trucks from Paris to Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, and the Dutch East Indies.[15]: 25 Motor cars were also
exported to British colonies. For example, the first was shipped to India in 1897.

Throughout the veteran car era, the automobile was seen more as a novelty than a genuinely useful
device. Breakdowns were frequent, fuel was difficult to obtain, roads suitable for traveling were
scarce, and rapid innovation meant that a year-old car was nearly worthless. Significant
breakthroughs in proving the usefulness of the automobile came with the historic long-distance drive
of Bertha Benz in 1888, when she traveled more than 80 km (50 mi) from Mannheim to Pforzheim,
to make people aware of the potential of the vehicles her husband, Karl Benz, manufactured, and
after Horatio Nelson Jackson's successful transcontinental drive across the US in 1903 on a Winton
car.