DEVELOPMEJiTT OF HIGHWAY TRAVEL — MITMAN 343 



including magneto-electric ignition and vapor or liquid cooling, but 

 none of its refinements. This car is now in the Technical Museum in 

 Vienna. 



Although the Marcus machine of 1864 is claimed to be the first 

 known gasoline automobile, nothing further came of it. In 1883, 

 however, Gottlieb Daimler, of Germany, invented the light, high- 

 speed four-cycle gasoline engine, and 2 years later Carl Benz, of 

 Germany, successfully applied such an engine to a light and practical 

 three-wheeled vehicle. He patented it in 1886, and " its direct succes- 

 sors, many of which were made and sold between that date and 1900, 

 did more, perhaps, than any others to demonstrate the possibilities 

 of the motor car." ^ At first Benz had difficulty finding a market 

 for his new vehicles, but all this was changed after 1888, when he 

 began exporting and selling them in England and France. Daimler 

 followed Benz in the production of automobiles when he harnessed 

 one of his engines to wheels in 1887 and later became the maker of 

 the world-renowned Mercedes car. Others soon followed the lead 

 of Benz and Daimler, including Napier, Lancaster, Royce, and Aus- 

 tin in England, and Peugeot, DeDion, Renault, Bollee, and Panhard 

 and Levassor in France. Before yielding to others, Panhard and Le- 

 vassor developed in 1895 the general arrangement of the automobile 

 as it is today — the chassis separate from the body and secured to the 

 axles by springs; the engine placed upright and in front under a 

 hood ; and the clutch and transmission back of the engine. 



America was by no means asleep during this time. George B. 

 Selden had filed his application in 1879 for a patent on a gasoline- 

 engined automobile, but Charles E. Duryea and Ellwood Haynes 

 actually built the first successful gasoline automobiles in this country 

 in 1893 and 1894, respectively. The practical performance of these 

 machines coupled with the importation and demonstration first of 

 Benz and later of other foreign cars after 1893 made the automobile 

 a definite reality to the people of the United States. They vigorously 

 accepted the new vehicle for highway travel, and before the close 

 of the century a number of automobile manufactories had been estab- 

 lished, including the Olds, Winton, Packard, Riker, Duryea, and 

 Haynes-Apperson, and over 3,000 cars had been put into use. Pas- 

 senger vehicles were the principal product then, but in the first year 

 of the twentieth century, the automobile in unusual looking clothes 

 began to appear. New York City had its first automobile ambulance ; 

 a railroad motor bus Avas used for the first time, and gasoline-engined 

 wajjons were tried out for the distribution and collection of the mails. 



" Catalogue of the Collections in the Science Museum, ?outh Kensington, London. 

 England. Land Transport. I. Road Transport. 1926. 



