Automobiles Through the Years

Since they originated in the late 1800s, automobiles have changed and developed in response to consumer wishes, economic conditions, and advancing technology. The first gas-powered vehicles looked like horse buggies with engines mounted underneath because this was the style to which people were accustomed. By 1910, however, features like the front-mounted engine were already established, giving the automobile a look that was all its own. As public demand for cars increased, the vehicles became more stylized. The classic cars of the 1920s and 1930s epitomize the sleek, individually designed luxury cars called the “classic cars.” During the 1940s and 1950s, automobiles generally became larger until the advent of the “compact” car, which immediately became a popular alternative. The gasoline crisis is reflected in the fuel-efficient cars made in the 1970s and 1980s. Current designs continue to reflect economy awareness, although many different markets exist.

Internal-Combustion Engine

Development of lighter steam cars during the 19th century coincided with major developments in engines that ran on gasoline or other fuels. Because the newer engines burned fuel in cylinders inside the engine, they were called internal-combustion engines.

In 1860 French inventor Jean-Joseph-Etienne Lenoir patented a one-cylinder engine that used kerosene for fuel. Two years later, a vehicle powered by Lenoir’s engine reached a top speed of about 6.4 km/h (about 4 mph). In 1864 Austrian inventor Siegfried Marcus built and drove a carriage propelled by a two-cylinder gasoline engine. American George Brayton patented an internal-combustion engine that was displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1876 German engineer Nikolaus August Otto built a four-stroke gas engine, the most direct ancestor to today’s automobile engines. In a four-stroke engine the pistons move down to draw fuel vapor into the cylinder during stroke one; in stroke two, the pistons move up to compress the vapor; in stroke three the vapor explodes and the hot gases push the pistons down the cylinders; and in stroke four the pistons move up to push exhaust gases out of the cylinders. Engines with two or more cylinders are designed so combustion occurs in one cylinder after the other instead of in all at once. Two-stroke engines accomplish the same steps, but less efficiently and with more exhaust emissions.

Automobile manufacturing began in earnest in Europe by the late 1880s. German engineer Gottlieb Daimler and German inventor Wilhelm Maybach mounted a gasoline-powered engine onto a bicycle, creating a motorcycle, in 1885. In 1887 they manufactured their first car, which included a steering tiller and a four-speed gearbox. Another German engineer, Karl Benz, produced his first gasoline car in 1886. In 1890 Daimler and Maybach started a successful car manufacturing company, The Daimler Motor Company, which eventually merged with Benz’s manufacturing firm in 1926 to create Daimler-Benz. The joint company makes cars today under the Mercedes-Benz nameplate (see DaimlerChrysler AG).

In France, a company called Panhard-Levassor began making cars in 1894 using Daimler’s patents. Instead of installing the engine under the seats, as other car designers had done, the company introduced the design of a front-mounted engine under the hood. Panhard-Levassor also introduced a clutch and gears, and separate construction of the chassis, or underlying structure of the car, and the car body. The company’s first model was a gasoline-powered buggy steered by a tiller.

French bicycle manufacturer Armand Peugeot saw the Panhard-Levassor car and designed an automobile using a similar Daimler engine. In 1891 this first Peugeot automobile paced a 1,046-km (650-mi) professional bicycle race between Paris and Brest. Other French automobile manufacturers opened shop in the late 1800s, including Renault. In Italy, Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino) began building cars in 1899.

American automobile builders were not far behind. Brothers Charles Edgar Duryea and James Frank Duryea built several gas-powered vehicles between 1893 and 1895. The first Duryea, a one-cylinder, four-horsepower model, looked much like a Panhard-Levassor model. In 1893 American industrialist Henry Ford built an internal-combustion engine from plans he saw in a magazine. In 1896 he used an engine to power a vehicle mounted on bicycle wheels and steered by a tiller.

 THE RISE OF THE MOTOR INDUSTRY 
Britain fixed on the internal-combustion engine rather than on steam or electricity earlier than the United States, partly because of the French example, and partly because patent restrictions were removed earlier. By 1911 over 600,000 cars were on US roads, far more than in European countries, but many were powered by steam or electricity. Although slow off the mark, the British industry closed the gap on French production after 1909. Between 1909 and 1913 French production rose by 30 per cent but in Britain production rose by 200 per cent. By 1913 British car and commercial vehicle output was 34,000 a year, compared with 45,000 in France and 23,000 in Germany. However, the European total was less than a quarter of American output.

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A combination of higher per-capita income, efficient mass-production techniques, and dispersed population saw the growth of the US vehicle market and vehicle industry outpace that in the rest of the world, which in 1914 meant predominantly Europe. By 1914 there was 1 vehicle for every 77 people in the United States, for 165 in Britain, for 318 in France, and for 950 in Germany. This also meant that Britain was the largest market in Europe, to which the French were the largest exporters.

Mass Production  
Mass production was not invented by Henry Ford. In 1798 Eli Whitney had standardized musket production, and Chicago meat factories had introduced moving lines in the 1860s, while in 1902 the Oldsmobile car was made in series production. From 1908, when the Model T was introduced, Ford set out to combine these factors. He brought together the lessons of over 100 years in a remarkable way. The standardized output of precision-made products, which allowed the interchangeability of parts, and manufacture on moving production lines, with operations divided and simplified at work stations, were combined in the Ford Highland Park plant between 1913 and 1915. Such was the efficiency of the factory system that cars were made at ever decreasing prices. They left the line every ten seconds, at an annual rate of 2 million. As a result, mass-motoring emerged in the United States in the 1920s. These lessons were learned by European makers, notably Morris in Britain, Citroën in France, Opel in Germany, Fiat in Italy, and, of course, the Ford plants outside the United States. Even so, in the 1920s the United States and Canada made over 90 per cent of world vehicle production. Most vehicles were sold in North America, but exports accounted for 35 per cent of the world vehicle market outside the United States.

Vehicle production survived outside the United States partly because General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler established operations abroad, but, more importantly, because European governments protected their motor industries from American competition with tariffs and quotas. In 1932 the United Kingdom tariff was 33.3 per cent, in Germany 25 per cent, in France 45 to 70 per cent, and in Italy 18 to 23 per cent. In 1929 North America made 4.8 million vehicles and Western Europe 554,000.

  
This increasing competition has encouraged vehicle firms to seek out new products to try to strengthen their commercial positions. As a result, in the US market annual sales of sports-utility vehicles and mini-vans reach 6.0 million units. These domestic and leisure vehicle sales are in addition to car sales. Increasingly, General Motors’ relative weakness in this area has created the possibility that through the combined car and light truck market in the United States, Ford might regain the market leadership that it lost 60 years ago. These products, made by US, Japanese, and European firms, such as Land Rover, have tapped new customer preferences. Sales in Europe could reach over 1 million by the year 2000.