Biography of the Automobile

But where do you go if you don't have a car?

29 January 1886 dating back to the dawn of the means of transport invented by man to relocate or travel faster, we find that, perfecting his Starley experiments already tested velocipede (driving a vehicle with rear wheel higher than the front, with cranks driven by the man seated on the wheel itself), turns it to fit with two standard wheels and pedals in the Middle so spin the rear wheel with a chain in a toothed hub. Born this way, in fact, the "prehistoric" bi-cycle. After just nine months, however, Daimler, half genius always in the mood to produce inventions and always aim to study new solutions, "upgrade" further the bicycle (which had already perfeziononato in turn, building much stronger than previous models) and, instead of pedals, gets in the way to fork a small internal combustion engine. It is the first bike-cycle. Daimler, however, is a member of another inventor of genius, that Karl Benz. Both realize that you have to "dare" even more and that the motorcycle is not yet the complete development of what can be achieved in terms of engine power and convenience. We must not forget that at the time the reference point for transportation (Luckily, one might say), were still cabs, large, comfortable "living rooms" where you could also travel long distances carrying entire cabinets or bags full of belongings. Daimler Benz is therefore not insist a lot about the type of two-wheeled vehicle, but are definitely geared to a vehicle that includes at least three: think, essentially, to a mobile car (later called, thanks to the fact that it was "all by myself", auto-mobile). Karl Benz, thus, driven by uncontrollable passion, works day and night up to patent a tricycle with a motor with a horizontal cylinder he designed and built. While not the car, as we have seen, the brainchild of one man, but the result of research, experiments and tests carried out by a large number of enthusiasts and scientists, we can say with a certain amount of precision and historical verisimiglianza that his official act of birth is on 29 January 1886, since at that time Benz gets the patent 37435 of his motor coach. In 1901, it performs a very important event in the life of Benz: at the Paris Motor Show is presented what for many is considered the first modern car, the "Mercedes 1901" (named in honor of the wife of wealthy businessman who had commissioned, after seeing the first tricycle vehicle). Features of the car were a four-cylinder engine with a power of 35 horses and a frame formed by big iron spars made much greater strength and solidity than hitherto in use. Characteristics and dimensions of the engine, of course, evolve, too. That outbreak was built in 1854 at the hands of the Italians Barsanti and Matteucci, but Lenoir to use this invention to move a car (1863). Before this engine proved its superiority had to go though still some years. For the birth of the first automobile assembly line it was not until 1908, when h. Ford started to mass produce its so-called model "T". In the early ' 900 appears the "utilitarian": the French are the first to build machines of this type, but also Italy is not far behind. The Peugeot brothers, in fact, start the production of cars in Europe and, soon, the car is a means of individual transport. The first Italian manufacturer of cars, however, is the Prinetti & Stucchi in 1889; following the year after FIAT and in 1904 the Isotta Fraschini. In the following years made their appearance design luxury cars such as the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost of 1909, one of the first machines capable of darting at high speeds. Equipped with a 6 cylinder engine, leather-trimmed Interior, aluminum body had, folding windshield and cowling. The rest is recent history. Today the machines have become indispensable means of locomotion and indeed it has come to the paradox that they circulate too many. The latest estimates, for developed countries, a car every two inhabitants. A result that could not be foreseen even in rosy dreams of Daimler and Benz.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.