Automobile History

1770: Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built a three wheeled steam powered wagon. An example is preserved at the Musee des Arts et Metiers, Paris.

1801: Richard Trevithick built a steam powered coach. (His later 1803 carriage had a road accident.)

1861, UK: Speed limits of 10mph (16km/h) in the country and 5mph (8km/h) in town were imposed on powered vehicles.

1865, UK: Speed limits were lowered to 4mph (country) and 2mph (town) and a man on foot and carrying a red flag had to precede each vehicle by 60 yards, esp. to warn those with horses. (After 1878 the man on foot no longer needed to carry a flag.)

1884: Starley and Sutton invent the Rover Safety Cycle (bicycle); the company later developed into Rover cars.

1885: Karl Benz (1844-1929) built a motorised tricycle driven by an oil-spirit internal combustion engine in 1885. This is widely held to be the first successful motor vehicle.

1885: Gottlieb Daimler (1834-1900) built a motorised bicycle in 1885 and a 4-wheel motor carriage in 1886.

1896, UK: Speed limits on light [road-] locomotives were raised from 4mph to 14mph and they no longer needed to be preceded by a man on foot. The first London to Brighton run was held in celebration.

1898: The World Land Speed Record was set at 63.15km/h (39.24mph) by Gaston the Comte de Chasseloup-Laubat driving a Jeantaud electric car [Geo00].

1898: The Renault Voiturette type A.

1898: Latil (France) made front wheel drive units and then 4x4.

1898: Tatra started manufacturing.

1899: Camille Jenatzy and de Chasseloup-Laubat traded the Land Speed Records until Jenatzy raised it to 105.88km/h (65.75mph) driving the electric La Jamais Contente [Geo00]. The car survives at the Compiegne Musee de la Voiture (Automobile Museum).

1899: Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Fiat) was formed.

1899: August Horch began a car company carrying his own surname in 1899; it evolved into Auto-Union and eventually Audi.

1900: Ferdinand Porsche's La Toujours Contente had battery-power with four electric motors, one at each wheel. (He later patented the Mixte transmission in which a petrol engine drove a dynamo and electric motors drove the wheels. It was too expensive for the day.)

1900: Puch's first car.

1901: Volume imports of cars began into Australia starting with De Dion Boutons.

1902: Leon Serpollet raised the Land Speed Record to 120.8km/h (75.06mph) in the Easter Egg Gardner-Serpollet steam car [Geo00].

1902: Mercedes registered as a trademark. March 1, 1902, the first 40hp Mercedes Simplex ever built was supplied to Emil Jellinek in Nice. It was named after Jellinek's daughter.

1902: Charles Stewart Rolls starts up C.S. Rolls and Co., later Rolls Royce.

1902: Spyker featured a 6-cylinder engine and four wheel drive!

1902: Minerva started making cars.

1903: Ford, Model A. 1904: The Federation International de l'Automobile (FIA) was founded.

1904: Rover 8hp.

1906: Societa Italinana Automobili Darracq (SIAD) founded; it later became Alfa Romeo (about 1921).

1906: Fred Marriott, driving a Stanley steam car, at Daytona, raised the World Land Speed record to 121.57mph [NT98] over 1km (his speed of 127.66mph over one mile was not recognised internationally).

1907: Felix and Norman Caldwell of South Australia applied for a patent for four wheel drive with four wheel steering; they went on to build Caldwell Vale 4x4 trucks with Henry Vale.

1907: The Peking to Paris car race was won by an Itala [Bar72].

A 1908 Itala.

1908: "General Motors (GM) was formed in the USA in 1908 when William C. (Billy) Durant brought Oldsmobile and Buick together to form General Motors Company. A year later, Cadillac and Oakland (which became Pontiac in 1932) marques joined General Motors." --GM.

1908: Ford Model-T production began.

1908: Harry Dutton and Murray Aunger drove from Adelaide to Darwin in a 25hp Talbot.

1909: Bugatti built his first car.

1911: FWD sold its first 4x4.

1913: Jeffrey Quad 4x4 truck went into production.

1913: Bamford and Martin Ltd founded; later became Aston Martin.

1914: The Society Anonima Officine Alfieri Maserati, Bologna, was created by the Maserati brothers.

1915: Big Lizzie road train (.au).

1917: First Oshkosh four wheel drive truck.

1919: Bentley founded.

1921: DKW - scooters first.

1922: Citroen half-tracks crossed the Sahara, leaving from Touggourt in Algeria.

1922: Baby Austin 7.

1922: Swallow Sidecar Company founded; later became Jaguar cars in 1945.

1924: Ernest Eldridge (GB), driving the Fiat special Mephistopheles (below) fitted with a 21.7-litre Fiat airship engine, set a land speed record of 234.98km/h (146.01mph).

1924: The first MG car was built - on a modified Morris Oxford chassis.

1924, December 28: Citroen half-tracks left to traverse Africa.

1925: Chrysler founded.

1927: Model-T production ended; 15 million Model Ts had been built from 1908 to 1927.

1927-1928: Francis Birtles drives a Bean car from England to Melbourne taking 10 months.

1929: AEC started to build AWD trucks in conjunction with FWD (UK).

1929: Henry Segrave driving the Golden Arrow raised the World Land Speed Record to 231.36mph (327.34km/h) -- FIA.

1931: Bentley taken over by Rolls Royce.

1931-1932: Citroen-Haardt expedition, using Citroen half-tracks, followed part of Marco-Polo's route from Beirut to Beijing.

1932: Audi became part of Auto-Union, with DKW, Horch and Wanderer.

1932: Miller 4x4 racing cars at Indianapolis.

1934: AEC road train (one of three built) was brought to Australia. It consisted of an 8×8 prime-mover and two 8-wheel self-tracking trailers.

1934: Dodge started building 4WD trucks (-George Miles).

1934: Prototype PX-33 four wheel drive car built for the Japanese government; the car did not go into production (Mitsubishi). Thanks to Balazs Toth.

1935: Malcolm Campbell in Bluebird raised to raised the World Land Speed Record to 301.129mph (484.620km/h) -- FIA.

1937: Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, aircraft factory founded, later became Saab.

1937: ‘Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des deutschen Volkswagens mbH’, Company for the Development of the German People's Car (VW), was registered [Hop71].

1938: GAZ 61 - Russian 4x4.

1940: The Jeep specifications were issued. 1940-1941: Bantam built 2700 light 4x4s, early "Jeeps".

1941-1945: Ford and Willys-Overland built 700,000 General Purpose vehicles for WWII. GP became Jeep.

1946, October 10: Unimog introduced (- H. J. Feil).

1948: Series-1 Land-Rover released.

1948: Porsche's first car had a 1086cc 30kW VW engine.

1948: Jaguar XK120 launched.

1948: Holden 48-215.

1948: Ford released the 1st of the F-Series vehicles.

1950: The Ford GPA, or amphibious Jeep, Half Safe was "driven" across the Atlantic ocean by Ben and Elinore Carlin. This is true!

1950: VW Transporter lays down the foundations of the hippy era.

1951: First Toyota Landcruiser was built under the BJ Jeep name. The LandCruiser name came in 1954.

1952: Suzuki's first motorcycle.

1952 March 12: Launch of the racing sports car version of the Mercedes Benz 300SL (of the gullwing doors).

1953: The first Redex Reliability Trial was held. Competitors had two weeks to cover 11,000km taking them around Australia. Ken Tubman and John Marshall won in a Peugeot 203.

1954-1956: The amphibious Jeep La Tortuga "drove" from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

1955-1956: London to Singapore Overland (except for the Channel!) in 2×Land-Rovers.

1955: Suzuki's first car.

1955: The wonderful Goggomobil.

1955 December 5: The 8 mile Preston by Pass (part of the M6) opened -- the UK's first stretch of motorway. The M1 opened in November 1959 -- AA.

1958: First Toyota LandCruisers imported into Australia.

1959: BMC Mini went on sale.

1959: Haflinger by Steyr-Daimler-Puch.

1960: A Jeep and a Land-Rover traversed the Darien Gap.

1960: Ford Falcon XK.

1961: Jaguar E-type unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show.

1961: Stirling Moss drove a Ferguson Project 99 (P99) with the Ferguson 4WD system to victory in the Oulton Park Gold-Cup race.

1964, 17 July: Donald Campbell in Bluebird (4WD) raised the World Land Speed Record to 403mph at Lake Eyre, Australia.

1964: Porsche 911; it went on to become a classic.

1964: Mini Moke went on sale.

1965: VW bought Audi.

1965: Craig Breedlove in the jet car Spirit of America set a World Land Speed Record of 600.601mph (966.574km/h) -- FIA.

1966: The Jensen FF road car had Formula Ferguson 4WD and Dunlop Maxaret anti-lock brakes (ABS).

1969: Ferrari joined the Fiat group.

1970: Range Rover released - luxury full-time 4WD.

1971: Lunar rover "cars" on the moon.

1971: Ford Falcon XY ute 4WD (.au).

1971-1972: British Trans-Americas Range Rover expedition. The Darien Gap was the most difficult section.

1974: Subaru Leone 4x4 car.

petrol au$0.21/l

1978 August: The .au Gvmt introduced import parity pricing for local oil and petrol reached au$0.21/litre [the Age p.5 1/1/2009] -- $0.95 per (imperial) gallon.

1979: AMC produced the Eagle 4x4 car.

1981: The specifications for the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) was issued; later known as the Humvee or Hummer.

1981: Audi revolutionized rallying with the Quattro 4WD rally car.

1981: Porsche showed the Porsche 911 AWD concept car at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

1983: Land-Rover 110, coil-sprung, full-time 4WD.

1983: Richard Noble, driving the jet car Thrust2, raised the World Land Speed Record to 1019.47km/h (633.468mph), Black Rock Desert, 4/10/83 [NT98].

1984: A Porsche 911 AWD won the Paris Dakar rally.

1986: Porsche 959 AWDs finished 1, 2 and 6 in the Paris Dakar rally.

1992: McLaren F1 rewrote the super-car rule book.

1993: Maserati was bought by Fiat from de Tomaso.

1996: Lotus was taken over by Proton.

1996: The new Jeep Wrangler got coil springs.

1997: Thrust SSC, driven by Andy Green, broke the sound barrier and raised the World Land Speed Record to 1227.985kph (763.035mph), Mach 1.0175 under the prevailing conditions [NT98].

1998: Bentley bought by VW. Is nothing sacred? BMW pulled a swifty and bought the Rolls Royce name.

1998: Bugatti name bought by VW.

1998: Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz merged to form DaimlerChrysler (splitting up again in 2007).

1999: Volvo cars sold to Ford.

2000: Ford bought LandRover, and Phoenix took over MG-Rover from BMW.

2001: BMW put the retro. new Mini on sale in Europe (.au in 2002).

2001 July: Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motor Cars announced details of the last Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph model to commemorate 97 years of Rolls-Royce cars; production ends with 2001. VW continued to build Bentleys but future Rolls Royces were to be built at BMW's new factory.

2002: Rolls-Royce became pure BMW, and Bentley pure Volkswagen.

ULP au$1.00 to $1.70/l

2008: Crude oil rose as high as us$147/barrel in July before falling to the us$30s at year's end as the global financial crisis bit. Needing cash, Ford sold Jaguar and LandRover to Tata of India. General Motors (GM) and Chrysler came close to bankruptcy.

2009, January 29: The Skycar, a "buggy" fitted with a parafoil wing, flew the Straits of Gibraltar en route from Paris to Tombouctou (Timbuktu).

References

[Bar72] L. Barzini, Peking to Paris, Alcove Press, 1972, edited and reprinted from the 1907 original.

[Geo00] N. Georgano (ed), The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile (2 vols.), The Stationary Office, London, 2000.

[Hop71] K. B. Hopfinger, The Volkswagen Story, G.T.Foulis & co., 1971.

[NT98] R. Noble & D. Tremayne, THRUST Through the Sound Barrier, Partridge 1998.

See motoring books.