AUTOMOBILE 



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AUTOMOBILE 



THE STORY OF THE AUTOMOBILE 



UTOMOBILE, aw to mo' bed, which 

 means literally sclj-movabic, is the name pop- 

 ularly given to all forms of self-propelled 

 vehicles, except traction engines and railway 

 locomotives, which are built for carrying pas- 

 sengers and goods and fitted to run on streets 

 and roads without a track. Though Sir Isaac 

 Newton in 1680 invented a toy horseless car- 

 riage, it was more than two centuries later 

 before the automobile became of practical use. 

 It was not until after 1890 that the experiments 

 of many inventors began to bear fruit, and a 

 few pioneers began to buy the new style 1 

 of vehicle. But the automobile was still re- 

 garded as an expensive plaything, interesting 

 enough but of no practical use. England, for 

 example, thought so little of the value of the 

 new machine and considered it such a danger- 

 ous agent that a law, enforced until 1896, for- 

 bade automobiles to speed at more than four 

 miles an hour and required that a man waving 

 a red flag should precede every power-driven 

 vehicle! Other countries placed no such bur- 

 dens on automobiles, but gave them little 

 encouragement. 



The first automobile race was held in 1894 

 from Paris to Rouen, a distance of about 

 eighty miles. The first race in America was 

 held on November 2, 1895, at Chicago, over 

 a course of ninety miles. Two cars started, 

 but only one car finished, covering the ninety- 

 mile course after eight hours forty-eight min- 

 utes of clattering and puffing. During the race 

 this automobile consumed five and one-half 

 gallons of gasoline, stopped ten times for 

 repairs, and made an average speed of nearly 

 ten miles an hour. The automobile was 

 stopped several times to take on supplies of 

 gasoline and cakes of ice, the ice being placed 

 in a receptacle attached to the motor to cool 

 the engine. 



These details seem laughable in this day of 

 swiftly-moving, high-powered and efficient ma- 

 chines, but in 1895 they aroused a general pub- 

 lic interest which laid the foundation for the 

 present great industry. In 1890 there was no 



automobile industry; according to the census 

 for 1900, there were in the United States alone 

 fifty manufacturers who made about 4,000 cars 

 valued at $5,000,000. In 1910 seven times the 

 number of manufacturers were making over 

 thirty times the number of automobiles, valued 

 at fifty times $5,000,000. Since 1910 there has 

 been an enormous increase in the number of 

 automobiles made and used. From 125,000 in 

 1909 the production jumped to 175,000 in 1910, 

 to 378,000 in 1912, 515,000 in 1914 and nearly 

 900,000 in 1915. The retail value of these 

 900,000 automobiles was about $750,000,000. At 

 the beginning of 1916 there were over 2,000,000 

 automobiles in the United States alone, and 

 the production for 1916 was estimated to bring 

 the total for the United States and Canada to 

 nearly 3,000,000. Great Britain and Ireland 

 have about 250,000 automobiles of all kinds; 

 France, 90,000; Germany 70,000; Austria-Hun- 

 gary 50,000; and Russia not more than 12,000 

 or 15,000. 



In the course of a single year the United 

 States alone uses considerably more than 

 1,000,000,000 gallons of gasoline for driving 

 automobiles. If this quantity were placed in 

 five-gallon cans, and the cans placed side by 

 side, a double line of cans would encircle the 

 earth at the equator. It is also estimated that 

 about 30,000,000 gallons of lubricating oil and 

 12,000,000 rubber tires are used each year. 



The enormous increase in the number of 

 automobiles has been due to the great reduc- 

 tion in prices. In 1899, when automobiles were 

 still novelties, the average price of a runabout 

 was $1,300; a touring car seldom sold for less 

 than $2,500. In 1907 the average price was 

 $2,100, but now the average price is a little 

 less than $700, and more than one-half of all 

 the automobiles sold are priced below this 

 figure. Once the automobile was a luxury 

 reserved for the rich; now it is a convenience 

 and in many cases almost a business necessity 

 for persons in moderate circumstances. At the 

 same time American manufacturers have 

 learned how to make the finest automobiles, to 



