The history of the car gives an account of the birth and the evolution of the Automobile, technological invention major which considerably modified the companies of many countries during the 20th century. It occurs with the 19th century when the technique makes the good share with the vapor like energy source for then directing itself massively towards the Pétrole and the Engine spark-ignition .

Beginnings of the car

The Automobile word “”, itself, is forged only in 1890 and it is necessary to await 1896 to see the French Academy coming to a conclusion about its kind, female in fact.

If one sticks to the etymology automobile word, “which is driven by oneself”, it would be the small vehicle with vapor manufactured by Ferdinand Verbiest in the palate of the emperor from China to Beijing towards 1668, which, the first, meets this condition.

In 1769, the idea of Ferdinand Verbiest is taken again by the French Joseph Cugnot who presents his " dray with vapeur" , a carriage propelled by a boiler with vapor. This machine with self-propelled vapor was intended to move heavy guns. It reaches a speed of 4 km/h for 15 minutes an average autonomy.

In 1801, the English Richard Trevithick presents the first British road vehicle propelled to the vapor. In 1804, the American Oliver Evans makes in the same way with the the United States.

Among the most famous adaptations of the propulsion to vapor, it is advisable to announce Amédée Bollée which markets in 1873 the first true car, a vehicle called " Obéissante" being able to transport twelve people. Top speed: 40 km/h. Bowlful designs then a slow train with vapor (in 1876) whose 4 wheels are driving and directors, then a car called " Mancelle" lighter (2,7 tons) that its first model, which exceeds easily 40 km/h (1878). Exposed to Paris at the time of the World Fair, these two cars are classified with… the material railway one.

The World Fair of Paris of 1878 allows the public and several industrialists to discover these machines. Orders tributary of all shares, of Germany particularly where a Bollée subsidiary company sees even the day in 1880. Bowlful leaves then to the conquest the world and presents its models of Moscow to Rome, of Syria in England (1880-1881). A new model is launched: it is a sedan of six places with a gear box with two reports/ratios, an engine steam of 15 CV (1880). It is called “the News”.

In 1881, a model “the Rapid” of six places which can reach 63 km/h is proposed. Other models will follow, but the propulsion with vapor proves to be a dead end as regards weight ratio/performance. Bowlful and its son Amédée Bowlful, try out a propulsion with alcohol well, but it is finally the Engine spark-ignition and the oil which are essential.

The tricycle with vapor Wild thyme - Peugeot is presented to the World Fair of 1889, it is the first vehicle considered as a car and Leon Serpollet obtains the first Permis to lead French.

The spark-ignition engine

In 1859, the Belgian engineer Etienne Lenoir deposits his patent of a “gas engine and with dilated air”, an internal combustion engine at two times and it is in 1860 that it develops the first outline of an Engine spark-ignition . This new engine, initially, is supplied with the Gaz of lighting. Some time later, Lenoir invents a Carburateur making it possible to replace gas by Pétrole. Wishing to try out its engine as fast as possible, it installs it on a rudimentary car, and, of Paris, arrives to Joinville-le-Pont. Unfortunately, for lack of average financial materials and, Lenoir is seen in the obligation to give up its research.

It is into 1883 that Edouard Delamare-Deboutteville made circulate his car whose engine was supplied with gas, but the Durit of gas supply having burst during this first test, it replaced gas by gasoline (at the time one did not say gasoline, but carburizes oil). To use this product, he had invented a carburettor with wicks. This vehicle circulated for the first time in the first days of February 1884 and the patent was deposited by it the 12 of this same month under number 160267. The anteriority of Eugene Delamare-Deboutteville on Karl Benz is thus absolutely undeniable.

In 1885, French Fernand Forest invents the carburettor with float and constant level. It is on this principle that all the carburettors will be manufactured during more than 70 years. One still owes in Fernand Forest the invention of the six-cylinder motor (1888) and in 1891 that of the engine with 4 vertical rolls and mechanically operated valves.

In 1889, Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor install the Four-stroke engine first (that of Daimler) on a car in four places. Rudolf Diesel will develop the type of engine which bears its name.

In January 1891, Panhard and Levassor already make roll in the streets of Paris the first French models equipped with the Benz engine. It is the first engine car spark-ignition marketed.

End of the XIXe century

As from this period the research and the evolution of the car will progress in a way fulgurating in Occident. It is also at this period which the vexations of the car begin: whereas it remained a luxury article reserved for most fortunate, the roads without coating nor indication proved very difficult to practice. The starting of the engine as for him was a tiresome test and the bad weather as dust were dreaded, the occupants not being insulated in a closed space.

The April 2nd 1891, Armand Peugeot discovers the joys of the car at the wheel of Levassor. Marius Berliet begins his activities in 1896, and in 1898 Louis Renault only builds his first carrier with Billancourt. Georges Latil, in 1897, makes patent the principle of an articulated transmission, making it possible to actuate the wheels of a broken axle, making them thus at the same time driving and direct, as train-before complete. All these pioneers improve mechanics and the performances and set up a true industry.

France is then with the point as shows it the figures of production of the beginning of the century: in 1903, France produces 30.204 cars (that is to say 48,77% of the worldwide production), the USA 11.235. The British (9 437), the Germans (6 904), the Belgians (2 839) and the Italians (1 308) are the other producer countries. Peugeot, Renault and others Panhard has already sales outlets with the the United States.

France counts 30 car manufacturers into 1900,57 in 1910 and 155 in 1914. In the United States, in 1898, one counted 50 marks and into 1908,291.

But at the end of 1905, France counts only 21.523 cars. The department of the the Seine has the greatest number of cars: 4.627. The the Gironde has only 342 cars.

First races

It is in 1898 that the first fatal accident in race occurs: the marquis de Montaignac finds death on board a car Landry Beyroux.

In 1899, the Belgian Camille Jenatzy exceeds the first the 100  km/h on board the Jamais Satisfies , a Electric vehicle profiled like a cigar. The spark-ignition engine with oil is indeed not the only continuing candidate to propel a car, and electricity, as of the end of the XIXe century, is a track explored by the Engineer S.

Impassioned car knew many difficulties and suffering, but they did not reject them, and among them some could also treat to the driver, but all were eager to make discover “the car without horses” as one called it at the time, with the greatest number. For that they organized races such as the Paris - Rouen which was, for the first time organized in 1894. All these races resulted in to destroy the engine steam and to emphasize the flexibility and the endurance of the engine with deflagration but they also showed, thanks to the Peugeot controlled by André Michelin, that the car gains much “to run on the air”.

In 1900 begins the epopee of the automobile Coupe Gordon Bennett which will finish in 1905. France gains four times the victory, affirming its prevalence in incipient auto industry.

It is in 1903, with the race Paris-Madrid, and after several accidents fatal, that the races of road will become rallys and very framed hill climbs. For speeds highest it will be the circuit with the ovals, a speciality of the the United States.

Starting from the models of races to the enormous engines, the manufacturers endeavor to develop models much more accessible as the Ford Modèle T then has by a research of the reduction in the production costs, in particular by the splitting up of the tasks in the stamping and assembly lines.

Taylorism

The “Taylorism” or Scientific management very early makes debates in auto industry.

In 1908, the American manufacturer Ford (founded in 1903) in fact its philosophy, while in France Renault adopts it partly; it is necessary to await 1912 to see Renault completely succumbing to Taylorism. Levassor refuses this option as of 1908. Taylorism, as called Fordisme in auto industry is more as one industrial revolution, because it transforms the Artisan S of antan of an industry of " luxe" reserved with privileged people as semi-skilled workers in a product standardized for the general public; the nuance is of size. Ford knows indeed at the beginning of the century of serious problems of personnel: miss qualification, absenteeism, alcoholism… Taylorism is for Ford an aubaine which enables him to set up true chains of work requiring little or not skilled labor. Moreover, this strategy allows an important fall of the production costs and made it possible the greatest number to be able to offer this new means of transport. Famous “the Modèle T” of Ford is the first model has to profit with full with this system with “assembly line work”. Consequently, the United States exceeds France in term of produced vehicle.

Whereas in 1907, France and the United States produced approximately 25  000 cars, the Great Britain only 2  500 and that the two-thirds of the cars exported were French, the assembly line work gears down the production.

In 1914,485  000 cars of which 250  000 Strong T are produced in the United States against 45  000 in France, 34  000 in Great Britain and 23  000 in Germany.

In 1919 André Citroen founds the firm Citroen, with the source of many innovations.

The car contributes to revolutionize the work world, with the assembly line work, the Fordisme and the Taylorisme. The car played a big role at the time of the First World War (1914-1918), and even more at the time of the Second world war (1939-1945).

Inter-war period

The Entre-deux-guerres was a golden age of the car for the easiest categories of the population because the vehicles started to become reliable, the highway network improved and the regulation was still embryonic.

But the Krach of Wall Street of 1929 (the “Black Thursday”) plunges auto industry in the crisis as well as the other economic sectors. To leave this stagnation, the European manufacturers and states-uniens seek to allure financially reticent customers by proposing models to him light, increasingly faster and economic, which was made possible by the progression of the cars in many fields such as the improvement of the engines and the synchronization of the gear boxes. The body which equipped this increasingly sophisticated mechanics gave up the salient angles and adopted an aerodynamic line a little more while being copied on the Avion S. But even for this crisis period, the prestigious manufacturers continued to produce cars of competing dream of prestige

After the Second world war

As of the end of the war, one noted an extraordinary rise of the world automobile production, it tripled during the glorious Thirty (roughly of 1945 with 1975) and passed from 10 million to 30 million cars. The industrial merger, technological advances and the increase in the productivity facilitated in Europe the appearance of the economic small cars.

In 1946, 10  000 first Volkswagen AG (Ladybirds) were built in Germany. Volkswagen had produced 15 million in 1972 of them. In France, it is the 4CV of Renault which, launched in 1946 reached the 500  000 specimens in 1954. In Italy, small FIAT, launched before the war, were, after the latter, a success without precedent. A little more tardily, it was the England which started to manufacture small cars with famous the Mini of which 4,5 million specimens was sold to date.

The first car sold with credit in France was Simca V.

End of the XXe century

At the end of the 20th century, in the countries known as developed, one counts approximately a car per capita. This density is not without posing problems. Thus, since the Years 1970, the car is a source of polemics in particular because of its negative impact on the environment or the security issues road at the origin of one of the first causes of mortality of the population of these countries.

To decrease the environmental impact, the manufacturers, encouraged by increasingly strict regulations, develop reduced engines with consumption, even market vehicles hybrid like Toyota with the Prius, while waiting for the possibility of building a “clean” car. It is however only about one aspect of the problem, to make the car “clean” or far from harmful will not solve the problems of circulation and the impacts of the road infrastructures on the environment.

The beginning of XXIe century

With the beginning of the 21e century, one assists with a development of the international movement Carfree (“released of the car”), which supports the installation of cities without cars and promotes examples of districts without cars like the Quartier Vauban of Freiburg-in-Brisgau. This evolution of the perception of the car, in bond with the Climate warming and many criticisms related to the drifts of the automobile system, seems to announce the end of the company of the car.

In addition, the market evolution involves the rise of the car S known as low-cost like the Dacia Logan moreover, the price of the increasing Pétrole, the consumers turn each time more worms of the sober vehicles, consuming little. These new orientations allow the manufacturers Japan board, mainly Toyota, to gain in market shares in particular with the the United States. Thus this beginning of century is marked by the strong American retreat of the manufacturers S, following the example General Motors whose offered products prove to be unsuited to the evolution of demand even on its national market.

Esthetic evolutions

After the period of development of the car, the esthetic first revolution relates to the integration of the driver in the cockpit (sedan). Then, after the Second world war, it is the integration of the wings in the front cap. At the end of the Eighties, one notices the complete integration of the bumpers to the body, moulting oneself out of shields. Finally, the concept of Monospace, vehicle monocorps emerges.

Museums of the car

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