The Automobile

THE AUTOMOBILE

The Invention of the Automobile

Although some steam-driven vehicles were built in England, France, and the United States in the early nineteenth century, the prototypes of the modern motorcar were built by the Germans Gottleib Daimler and Karl Benz. Daimler first used his gasoline engine in a four-wheeled vehicle in 1886. The two men licensed their vehicles for production in France during the 1890s.

Ford

Born on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1863, Henry Ford saw his first horseless carriage (a steam-driven one) at the age of twelve and never forgot the tremendous impression it made on him. His earliest automotive projects were aimed more at developing a practical tractor than a pleasure vehicle. Ford established himself in Detroit in 1891, where he was employed by the Edison Illuminating Company, and soon began to tinker with automobile engines. Ford did not invent the motorcar, nor was he the first American to build one, but he was instrumental in the development of the private automobile. Early American models were behemoths, carriages designed for the wealthy. From the beginning Ford had a different idea: to produce a practical, sturdy vehicle within reach of the common man. He built his first car, the Quadricycle, in 1896.

The First Model A

Ford's work to engineer a more efficient motor led in 1902 to an engine with two cylinders set vertically instead of horizontally; this increased its power and reduced wear. The first engine to be produced by the Ford Motor Company was designed and assembled by Ford and his staff, but its parts were manufactured by the machine shop of John and Horace Dodge. The Model A's wooden body was purchased from a carriage company. By early 1904 the company was making twenty-five cars daily. (This first Model A should not be confused with the second, more famous one of 1927.)

The Model N

In the early days of the automobile, innovations were tried out in car races, with each successive sive race producing faster times. At such a race in 1905, Ford noticed that French cars were lighter and stronger than American entries, including his own Model K, a powered-up six-cylinder racing machine. The French used an alloy of vanadium and steel, unknown in the United States, and difficult to produce because it required very high furnace temperatures. Ford convinced a steel company in Ohio to experiment with and later to manufacture vanadium steel exclusively for his company. The new steel was introduced with Ford's Model N in January 1906. Meanwhile, he had established the Ford Manufacturing Company to make his own engines and chassis. The Model N was envisioned as a mass-production vehicle, but without a movable assembly line (not introduced until 1913), assembly entailed an unavoidable bottleneck. So many workers were required that it was impossible to hold the price to the announced figure of $450.

The Model T

The four cylinders for the Model N's engine were cast separately and then bolted together. For the Model T, Ford wanted all four cast together in a single block and so devised what is still the basic design of the internal combustion engine. A magneto vastly simplified the electrical system, and Ford and his top engineer, Charles Sorensen, developed a new transmission with three pedals, one for forward motion, one for back, one as a brake. The Model T was a huge success, nicknamed the "Tin Lizzie" by loyal consumers. The company sold ten thousand in the first year (ending 30 September 1909). By the end of World War I half the automobiles in the world were Model Ts.

The Competition

Ford's most serious early competitors were the Duryea brothers, who built the first workable American automobile in 1893, and Ransom Eli Olds, whose first "Merry Oldsmobile"—a four-passenger two-seater—went on the market in 1896. In 1899 he established his own plant in Detroit, the Olds Motor Works. There he turned out the first mass-produced motor vehicle in the United States, the "curved dash" Oldsmobile runabout. Not all early automobile manufacturers put their faith in gasoline engines. Starting in 1897, the Stanley brothers of Newton, Massachusetts, manufactured a steam-driven car, the famous Stanley Steamer. All told, between 1900 and 1908, 502 automo-bile companies were started, of which 302 had failed. By 1908 David D. Buick's company was the leading car producer. In that year William C. Durant engineered a merger of three independent companies, Buick, Olds, and Cadillac, to form the General Motors Company. The year also saw the first car manufactured by Walter Chrysler. So by the end of the decade the Big Three automobile companies—Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler—had all been established.

Popular Adoption of the Motorcar

The impact of the automobile was felt immediately in many areas of life. Horse-drawn transportation entered a period of rapid decline. Owners of urban livery stables converted their properties into parking garages and began to rent automobiles. Fewer horses meant less manure to soil the streets, so the automobile was hailed as healthier mode of transportation. The car was also viewed as more reliable than the horse, especially after 1906 when most of the problems that had caused mechanical breakdowns in early autos had been solved. Doctors, who immediately saw the advantage of the motorcar for making house calls, were proportionally the largest group of early owners. Among early specialized motor vehicles were street-cleaning vehicles (1905), post-office mail cars (1909), ambulances, and milk delivery trucks. The military use of autos lagged: not until 1909 were motor vehicles used in military maneuvers. Throughout the decade a series of improvements in car design provided continual stimulus to public interest and rising sales: the wider French-style tonneau body (1901); the steering knuckle, which enabled the front wheels to turn without turning the entire axle (1902); running boards (1903); shock absorbers and the h-slot gearshift (1904); and tire chains (1905) are some examples.

Sources:

Frank Donovan, Wheels for a Nation (New York: Crowell, 1965);

James J. Flink, America Adopts the Automobile, 1895-1910 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970);

Henry Ford, My Life and Work (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1922);

Robert Lacey, Ford: The Men and the Machine (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986).