Ferox International Blog

We, as a society, really couldn’t make it without cars, trucks and SUVs.  Let’s take a look at the history of the automobile.  The first automobile was built in France in 1769.  This was a self-powered vehicle ever created.  Much of the credit for creating the first automobile goes to Gottlieb Daimler or Karl Benz because the automobiles they created were much more successful and powerful.  Benz and Daimler created cars that were similar to the cars that we use today.

What is the heart of the automobile?  The internal combustion engine, of course.  The internal combustion engine is the engine we use today.  This engine is defined as any engine that uses ‘explosive combustion of fuel to push a piston within a cylinder.’  Gasoline, petroleum, diesel and kerosene can all be used in internal combustion engines.  Here is the timeline for the internal combustion engine.

1680-Christian Huygens, the Dutch physicist, designed an internal combustion engine.  He never actually built the engine.  This engine was to be fueled with gunpowder.

1807-Francois Isaac de Rivaz, the Swiss inventor, created an internal combustion engine that used hydrogen and oxygen.  He also designed a car to be used with his engine.  Although, his design was very unsuccessful.

1824-Samuel Brown of England redesigned the old Newcomen steam engine to use gasoline.  He used this design briefly to power a vehicle in London.

1858-Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir, the Belgian born engineer, invented a double acting electric spark ignition internal combustion engine.  He also patented this engine in 1860.  This engine was fueled by coal gas.

1862-The French civil engineer, Alphonse Beau de Rochas, patented a four stroke engine.  Although he held the patent for this, he never built the engine.

1863-Lenoir improved his engine to use petroleum and the earliest carburetor.  He attached the engine to a three wheeled wagon.  This wagon was able to complete a fifty-mile trip.

1864-Siegried Marcus build a one-cylinder engine.  A crude carburetor was also used with this engine.  He attached the engine to a cart and took it on a 500-foot drive.  Years later, Marcus built a vehicle that got up to 10 miles per hour for a brief time.  Historians consider this to be the forerunner of the modern-day vehicle.

1866-Eugen Langen and Nikolaus August Otto improved the engine that Lenoir and de Rochas built.

1873-The American engineer, George Brayton build a two-stroke engine, although this engine was unsuccessful.  Historians consider this to be the first practical and safe oil engine.

1876-Nikolaus August Otto invented the first successful four-stroke engine.  This patented engine was known as the “Otto cycle.”

1883-Edouard Delamare-Debouteville invented a single-cylinder four-stroke engine that was run by stove gas.  His designs were very advanced for the time, but it is unknown if he designed a car to be used with his engine.

1885-Gottlieb Daimler created what is considered to be the prototype of the modern gas engine.  This engine had a vertical cylinder and gasoline was injected through a carburetor.  This engine was patented by him in 1887.  He also built a two-wheeled vehicle known as the “Reitwagen” and the world’s first four-wheeled motor vehicle.

1886-Karl Benz got the first patent for a car fueled by gas

1889-Daimler improved the four-stroke engine.  This engine had two V-slant cylinders and mushroom shaped valves

1890-Wilhelm Maybach built the first four-stroke, four-cylinder engine.

As you can see, there has been a lot of work done on the internal combustion engine.  Take a look at all of the work that was done from 1680-1890.  Just imagine how much the internal combustion engine has evolved since then.