Car Craze

In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler, invented a gasoline engine and manufactured his first car at Stuttgart in Germany. Karl Benz, another German inventor, produced his first car in Mannheim sometime in 1886. Daimler and Benz became successful automobile manufacturers and eventually merged to form the Daimler-Benz Organization.

The French company, Panhard and Levassor began making cars under Daimler’s patents. The year 1894 saw the introduction of a front-mounted engine under the hood instead of under the car seat, a clutch and gears and separate construction of the chassis and car body. The Duryea Brothers built the first successful gasoline automobile in the US which was a one-cylinder four-horsepower automobile which is currently housed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Gasoline cars made by Elmer and Edgar Apperson, Charles King, Henry Ford and Ransom Eli Olds were introduced thereafter.