DURYEA – America’s first Automobile.

The Duryea brothers – Charles Duryea (1861 – 1939) and Frank Duryea (1870 – 1967) are credited with creating Americas first practical Gasoline powered automobile in the year 1892.

Their automobile went on to win the 1895 Times-Herald, $2000 prize money race of 54 Miles in about 10 hours beating the German imports. The automobile was fitted with a single cylinder , 4 HP engine with electric ignition.

The Dureya motor wagon company started in 1896 and was finally closed down in 1917.

Logo of the Steven – Duryea.

A Stevens-Duryea car. Stevens-Duryea company ceased production in 1924.

While the Duryea brothers is generally credited with producing America’s first practical Gasoline powered automobile , John William Lambert is rumoured to have made first 3 wheeled gasoline powered motocycle in 1891.

DELAMARE-DEBOUTTEVILLE – A French claim.

Edouard Delamare-Deboutteville (1856 – 1901) of France  is claimed to have created the first petrol engine driven automobile in 1884 , even before Benz or Daimler. 

A 1884 patent document(no. 160267) popped up in the early 1980’s which led to the claim that Delamare-Deboutteville along with his assistant Malandin could have built and operated an “automobile” in 1884, even though there is no clear evidence for physical build and operation of the automobile.

The French celebrated 100 years of the Automobile in 1984 based on the above document as well as built reconstructed models out of the drawing.

Whatever be the claim , the Automobile never looked back after their invention in the mid 1880’s

DAIMLER – Pioneer of Internal Combustion Engines

Gottileb Daimler (1834-1900), Germany , was a pioneer in the development of internal combustion engine and automobiles. He , along with Wilhelm Maybach (later luxury car manufacturer), worked in Deutz,  the engine development company of Nicolaus Otto, the inventor of the Otto cycle and Petrol engine. Both Daimler and Maybach left Deutz in 1880 after differences with Otto.

In the year 1885 , Daimler fitted a small engine on to a wooden framed motorcycle called “Riding Car”  and Maybach drove the “automobile” for a few miles at a maximum speed of 7 mph. Later on they fitted bigger engines to stagecoaches and thus began the automotive era.

After the death of Daimler in 1900, businessman Emil Jellinek entered in to discussions with the company to design and develop new engines for racing purposes and called it by his 10-year-old daughter’s name , Mercedes and thus born the Mercedes brand.

The Daimler logo – three-point star – signifies dominance in Land, water & air. The word Mercedes added later on.

 A 1901 , 35 hp Mercedes car.

In the year 1926 , Daimler and Benz & Cie merged to form the company Daimler Benz – the three-point star of Daimler surrounded by the laurels of Benz.

In 1998 , Daimler Benz acquired Chrysler corporation and renamed itself as DaimlerChrysler and in 2007 , it divested Chrysler to become Daimler AG

BENZ – World’s first gasoline powered Automobile

Karl Friedrich Benz (1844 – 1929) is credited with developing the first gasoline powered automobile in the world. He founded the company Benz & Cie in the year 1883 and was awarded a patent for a motorwagen in 1885. In 1886, the first gasoline powered automobile , the Benz Patent Motorwagen was publicly demonstrated , thus becoming the world’s first gasoline powered automobile.

The motorwagen was made famous by Bertha Benz in 1888, who without the knowledge of Karl Benz , drove it to Pforzheim – a distance of 66 miles, recoding the first long distance automobile journey. Fuelling the vehicle by getting “gasoline” from pharmacies – the first filling stations,  she was also credited with inventing the brake lining when she asked a shoe maker to nail leather on to the brake blocks to make the vehicle to stop in shorter distance. She had also suggested to Karl Benz to add an extra gear to make hill climbing better – may be the first customer feedback mechanism.

One of the famous and large selling models of Benz & Cie was-

The logo of the original Benz & cie –

 

 

 

 

The Benz & Cie merged with Daimler group in 1926 as Daimler-Benz, naming its cars as Mercedes-Benz, the Mercedes name coming from the Daimler group.