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On this day in 1886: the car was invented

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Saturday, 29th January 2011

  German engineer Karl Benz patents the first practical car powered by a petrol internal combustion engine.
  
  Sure there are a few isolated communities that remain untouched by the infernal combustion engine… in such a short time its brought us a long way… can you imagine the world today without it. It’s only a return to the times of our grandparents, great grandparent at the most for some, and a world of steam engines, gas lights and horses.
  
  How would we cope…?
  
  

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 29th January 2011

  Yes - the 125th anniverasry since Karl Benz' patent is a remarkable landmark.
  
  Put another way, 125 years before 1886 would take one back to 1761 when the Seven Years War was ongoing, when Mannheim (where Benz's workshop was located) was still the capital of the independent Electoral Palatinate and Karlsruhe (where Benz was born and grew up) was located in the (also independent) Margraviate of Baden. The nominal overlord at that time would have been Holy Roman Emperor Francis I. Other major figures would have included Frederick the Great in Prussia, Louis XV in France and George III in Great Britain who would only have suceeded his father George II 3 months earlier. In other words it was a completely different world to the Germany of 1886.
  
  And yet 28 years after the advent of the motor car, in 1914 the cavalry was still considered to be the trump card of most armies around the world. Even in 1941 (with Operation Barbarossa) a considerable proportion of German military transportation on the Eastern Front was still horse-drawn. That was 55 years into the age of the internal combustion engine. And as late as the 1980s (i.e one hundred years after Benz' patent) horse-drawn traffic on the streets of Tirana in Albania still outnumbered motorcars and motorbuses.

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  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Saturday, 29th January 2011

  It is at least possible that if the IC engine had never been made a practical proposition, that electric and steam vehicles would have been developed to an extent that the change would have been negligible.

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Monday, 31st January 2011

  Vizz,
  
  And yet 28 years after the advent of the motor car, in 1914 the cavalry was still considered to be the trump card of most armies around the world.Β 
  
  Soon to be trumped by the advent of the motor lorry/truck and the tank. Not to mention the airplane, which wouldn't have been possible without Karl Benz's petrol engine.
  
  Still, the automobile was considered quite the leap. It wasn't in the movie, but in his memoir T. E. Lawrence recalled the thrill of riding in a motor car in the desert.
  
  
  And as late as the 1980s (i.e one hundred years after Benz' patent) horse-drawn traffic on the streets of Tirana in Albania still outnumbered motorcars and motorbuses.Β 
  
  The Iron Curtain being the politico-socio-economic time-freeze that it was, I'd discount that example.

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