A SHORT HISTORY OF THE MODEL A FORD

By:  Andy Wiedeman

Member of the Rocky Mountain Model A Club

of Colorado

 

Chapter 1

The Early History of the Automobile – Part 1

 

Before the dawn of the “Horseless Carriage”  the primary mode of transportation was the horse or railroad.  In the 17th century various means, including a clockwork mechanism, were tried without success.  In the 18th century some early inventors tried to scale down a steam engine and couple it to a wagon carriage.  However, this too met with many obstacles including how to carry enough coal and water on the carriage to make it practical.  In fact, in 1769, the Frenchman Cugnot built a steam powered carriage in 1769.  However, the steam powered experiments yielded the principle of a reciprocating piston which created an energy which could be turned into a rotary motion, thus driving the wheels.  The horseless carriage would have to wait for nearly 100 years for the development of an engine which harnessed exploding gasses inside a chamber that drove a piston to create power.

 

In 1859 a Belgian named Etienne LENIOR, invented the gas engine.  By 1863 a small version capable of being fitted to a carriage was produced.  Meanwhile, Carless, Capel, and Leonard had found out how to refine “petrol” from crude oil that had recently been found under the earth’s surface.  Lenoir quickly adapted his engine to run on the new “petrol”.  In 1863 Lenoir managed to create a “horseless carriage” which he drove six (6) miles in the amazing time of three (3) hours (including many breakdowns).  Lenoir abandoned the project calling it impractical.

 

The new Lenoir “gas” engine project languished for 13 years, while Nikolas August OTTO in Germany invented the familiar four (4) stroke engine.  Otto’s engine used the new “petrol” as fuel. Otto patented this engine in 1876.

 

At the beginning of the 1880’s the “Otto Cycle” engine was well known, especially in Germany.  Otto and another engineer, Eugen Langen, organized a company called Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz and hired a young engineer named Gottlieb DAIMLER (of Daimler-Benz fame) as their factory manager.

 

Meanwhile, Karl BENZ who prior to 1880 had founded Benz und Ritter had been building two (2) stroke engines.  Daimler left Otto to work on his own designs and had set up shop with Wilhelm Maybach to also develop gas engines.  Benz and Daimler independently continued to work in isolation, not knowing that the other was developing high speed gas powered engines.  Each produced a practical engine by 1886.  The Daimler engine was a one cylinder engine first tested in 1885 having been fitted to a two wheeled cycle.  Benz took the idea one step further and also in 1885 adapted his engine to a “tricyle”.   Therefore, we see that it seems that Daimler or Benz can claim that theirs was the first “car”.  The horsepower of these early gas engines was about ½  to 1 ½  HP.   The first 4 wheeled version or “car” was created in 1886 by Daimler using a 1.1 HP engine and had a crude differential for power transmission.  This was the “truly first four wheel horseless carriage.

 

In 1887 Daimler negotiated a contract to a French company, Panhard et Levassor to make engines for him.  By 1888 Daimler supplied a machine for taxi cab use at the Stuttgart train station, and a fire engine soon followed.  The craze of “automobiling” gathered steam when the Daimler and Benz machines were exhibited at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris.  The Daimler engines manufactured by Panhard excited another inventor, Armonde Peugeot in France, and he began to manufacture 4 wheel “horseless carriages”.  In 1897 C.S Rolls in England had made a tricycle which could carry a passenger.  Meanwhile, Benz concentrated on motorcycles and tricycles with motors, until his first 4 wheeler in 1893.  By 1899 Benz had sold 572 of these machines commercially, and Benz became dominant in the new automobile industry.