History Of The Car Essay Example For Students

History Of The Car Essay History of the CarPeople lives changed more during twentiethcentury than in any previous period in history. With so many inventionscame in this period, there are few of them that have influenced and changedworld more than automobile. Since most people alive today have grownup in the automotive age, the impact of the automobile on the society iseasily overlooked. Out of experiments in many places and withmany elements of design, the essential features of the automobile emergedaround the turn of the century. In the last quarter of the nineteenthcentury, and especially in the 1890s, much work was carried in France,Germany, Great Britain, Austria, and United States to develop practicaldesigns of both vehicle and motor. In 1885, Gottlieb Daimler, whohad previously worked with Dr Nikolaus August Otto, applied a single cylinderand air-cooled vertical machine to a carriage. A few years laterDaimler created his first four wheeled wooden built light wagonnete poweredby petrol. Karl Benz of Manheim (Germany) then built an engine specificallyintended for motor cars, leading to the four-wheelers (Thomas 321). As petrol cars became more dependable the advantage of not having to waituntil steam was generated gave them clear superiority over the steamers,and the self-starter took away the principal advantage from electric propulsion. At the beginning of the century, petrol driven internal-combustion motorcar had established itself as the dominant mechanical road vehicle andstarted its expansion with great rapidity (Ware 291). In 1894, the French newspaper La PetitJournal introduced a new invention to the wider public by organizing atrial run of motor cars from Paris to Rouen. In 1895 the race wasorganized from Paris to Bordeaux. The winner averaged fifteen milesan hour. In the first decade of 1900s, French led the world in theproduction of cars, and automobiles even took part in French army maneuvers. In England, they were allowed to travel on roads at fourteen miles an hour. Around the same time in the United States, Henry Ford was making twin-cylinderwater-cooled engine cars, which traveled at 25 miles an hour. (Zeldin II640). Car ownership early in the century was limited to the rich and privileged. The revolution in the whole character of the car, as well as its methodof manufacture, was made by the introduction of mass production. In 1908, Henry Ford, a farmers boy from Michigan with little education,conceived the idea of a car designed for the masses. After carefulexamination of the Sears Roebuck factory, he began mass production of hismodel T car. The benefit of this mass-production was a low-pricedand affordable car. It was the beginning of mass production and massacceptance of automobiles. The consequence was that, in 1913, therewere already over a million automobiles on the United States roads as opposedto 200,000 in Great Britain, 90,000 in France, and a mere 70,000 in Germany(Zeldin 649). Cars, which were not mentioned in the census of theUnited States business in 1900, soon will be at the top of the list. The rapid development of cars requireda great range of facilities. Around the turn of the century and fornearly two decades into the 1900s, most roads continued to be made ofsand, clay, or dirt. So, when it rained, they became quagmires. The roads surfaced with gravel or sand which had served for the trafficof the horse-drawn vehicles, were soon find to be entirely inadequate formotor transport. The car whipped up a cloud of dust, loosened andwore the surface, and broke down the roadbed with its weight. In1903, The Grand Prix automobile race from Paris to Madrid was called offin the mid-course after many of the drivers, blinded by dust, crashed todeath. It wasnt until the end of the first decade of this century,when modern road-building techniques began to evolve rapidly, that roadsbegan to be paved with concrete. Constructors started to use asphalt,which provided a solid surface (Ware 294). By than, however, therewere thousands automobiles worldwide. So, driving a car in the earlypart of the century was more adventure than pleasure. Getting stuckin mud midway through trip, hitting a rut and breaking an axle or slidinginto a ditch were all-too-common occurrences for early motorists. Othello As He Saw Himself EssayAt this period it is not unusual for individuals to move hundreds and sometimesthousands of miles from their birthplace. This new mobility has beena major factor in the changing of the family structure. For mostof the history the extended family and multi-generation households werethe norm. The automobile has influenced every area of pop culture,from movies to literature, too. Movies such as the 1955 James Deanclassic Rebel Without A Cause, with its 1949 customized Mercury, foreverwill be linked with rebellious teens. In the United States, the automobile camewithin reach of the average wage earner earlier in the century. Inthe Europe, it didnt do so until 1950s. That explains the disparityin the number of cars in use between United States and Europe. In1950, France had 2,150,000 cars in use, Great Britain 3,290,000, and UnitedStates 49,143,275. Roads in the 1950s were incomparably betterthan those from the beginning of the century. Least noticeable, butperhaps important, were miles of local, secondary roads and streets thatallow people to drive within a community and get to the highways. Through traffic was separated from local by special through motorways. The Autostrade in Italy, Autobhanen in Germany, and Turnpike in the UnitedStates were some of the best roads. These fast throughways permittedextremely rapid automobile travel from city to city. In 1957, therewere nearly 4,000 miles of such motorways in West and East Germany andformerly Germany Poland, about 600 miles in the rest of Europe (mainlyItaly), and some 2,500 miles in the United States (Thomas 330). It is hard to exaggerate the influenceof the motor car on the industrialized countries. From the earlyyears, when it was an experimental vehicle of interest only to technicalenthusiasts, automobile became a necessity in the lives of millions offamilies and businesses. It became, at the same time, a symbol ofprestige and status and the basis of a major industry. As the automobilehangs precariously on the cliff edge between necessity and status symbolone must agree that to get by today without an automobile is quite an impossibletask.