HEY! It’s faster than walking!A travel through time about man’s desire for propelled vehicles

1335

Italian physician and inventor, Guido da Vigevano, designs a wind-mill driven war

wagon; instead of the windmill gears driving a grinding stone, he had it turn

gears attached to the wheels.

1478

Leonardo Da Vinci designs a clockwork-driven tricycle. It had a steering tiller and a differential device to allow the two rear wheels to turn at different speeds while

cornering.

1655

Stephan Farffler (1633 – October 24, 1689) was a paraplegic Nuremberg watchmaker of the seventeenth century whose invention of

a manumotive carriage in 1655 is widely considered to have been the first self-

propelled wheelchair. The three-wheeled device is also believed to have been a precursor to the modern-day tricycle

1678

Father Ferdinand Verbiest designs a model toy of a self-propelled steam vehicle for the

Chinese Emperor, Chien Lung. It may not have been built, but replicas from his

designs DID work.

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

1769

Nicholas Cugnot was one of the first to employ successfully a device for converting the reciprocating motion of a steam piston into rotary motion by

means of a ratchet arrangement. He designed a “Fardier” (cart used for heavy hauling, like military cannon), in 1769, which worked at the incredible speed of 2.5 mph. Unfortunately, he forgot to invent brakes, and in 1791 the

vehicle crashed into the French Arsenal wall.Generally considered by historians to be the first self-propelled vehicle,

Cugnot’s vehicle was also: Front-wheel drive, rack-and-pinion style steering, and was history’s first “automobile collision”

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

1801

Richard Trevithick built a full-size steam road locomotive in 1801 at Camborne, England. He

named his carriage 'Puffing Devil' and on Christmas Eve that year, he demonstrated it by successfully carrying several men up Fore Street and then continuing on up Camborne Hill, from

Camborne Cross, to the nearby village of Beacon. His cousin and associate, Andrew Vivian, steered the machine. This is widely recognized as the first

demonstration of transportation powered by steam.

1803 version, the “London Steam Carriage”

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

1803

Generally considered the first steamboat to do something other than move itself, the

”Charlotte Dundas” was first sailed on January 4, 1803, with Lord Dundas and some of his

friends and relatives on board. The crowd was pleased with what they saw, but Symington wanted to make improvements and another more ambitious trial was made on March 28. On this occasion, the steamboat towed two

loaded vessels through the canal, covering 18½ miles in 9½ hours.

William Symington’s “Charlotte Dundas”

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

1804

The 1807 charette of de Rivaz. A = Cylinder, B = Spark ignition, C = Piston, D = Balloon containing hydrogen fuel, E = Ratchet, F =

Opposed piston with air in and exhaust out valves, G = Handle for working opposed piston.

The de Rivaz engine was a pioneering reciprocating

engine designed and developed from 1804 by the Franco-Swiss

inventor Isaac de Rivaz. The engine has a claim to be the world's

first internal combustion engine and contained some features of modern engines including spark ignition and

the use of hydrogen gas as a fuel.

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

1817

1886

The first verifiable claim for a practically used bicycle belongs to German Baron Karl von Drais, for his

“running machine”. On his first reported ride from Mannheim on June 12, 1817, he covered 13 km

(eight miles) in less than an hour. It was steerable, had a rear brake, and a caster angle that induced self-

centering of the front wheel.

The first “safety” bicycle (on the right in the illustration) was produced by J.K.

Starley in 1886, and was chain driven. The smaller size of the front wheel, along with a higher caster angle, allowed for greater speed and balance. This was the bike that started the “Good Roads Movement” in

1891.

1862 (next slide – Lenoir’s first car, the “Hippomobile”)

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

1862

Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir of Belgium built this experimental vehicle in 1862. It reached a speed of 3 kms/hour with the,

or one of the, first successful internal combustion engines that ran on "Town

Gas" also called Coal Gas. It was a 2 stroke engine using electric spark to ignite the gas. The earliest model ran on hydrogen generated by electrolysis from water! It

was called the Hippomobile which meant horse drawn vehicle (without the horse). About 400 to 500 of the Lenoir engines

were built and sold.

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

1867

In the 1860s Pierre Michaux, a blacksmith in Paris, founded 'Michaux et

Cie' ("Michaux and company"), the first company to construct bicycles with

pedals called a velocipede at the time, or "Michauline". The first steam powered

motorcycle, the Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede, can be traced to 1867, when Pierre's son Ernest Michaux fitted a small steam engine to one of the 'velocipedes'.

First Practical Motorcycle – Steam powered

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

1886

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen (or motorcar), built in 1886, is widely

regarded as the first automobile; that is, a vehicle designed to be propelled by a motor. It featured wire wheels (unlike

carriages' wooden ones), with a four-stroke engine of his own design between the rear wheels, a very

advanced coil ignition and evaporative cooling rather than a radiator. Power

was transmitted by means of two roller chains to the rear axle.

Karl Benz

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

This slide show is designed as an interim piece to “The Expansion Of The United States By Highways and Automobiles” (part 1) slide show, which includes the automobiles contribution to our Nation’s

expansion in Part 2, and as such, does not include the history of railroads, airplanes and such.

If you are interested in seeing more of a timeline in the history of transportation, see:

Wikipedia's Timeline of Transportation Technology

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DOT “America’s Highways, 1776-1976” from Internet Archives (BIG PDF file!) can also be read on-line at this location.

YouTube “How Our Country Grew” 10 minute video from Progressive Films, 1950

“The Conquest of Distance” by Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

Wikipedia various articles on military, Indian and colonial roads and trails.

USGenWeb – various articles and maps

US Postal Service Historian

Federal Highway Administration, “Public Roads” magazine series

Wikipedia's Timeline of Transportation Technology

http://www.machine-history.com/node/629

HEY! It’s faster than walking!

Mary Bellis’ articles on the history of the automobile on About.com