The pioneers of automaking

The same show inspired the enthusiasm of George Baldwin Selden, of Rochester, a young lawyer with a mechanical bent, who set out to modify Brayton's engine for road propulsion. In 1879, he obtained a patent which, as we shall see, was to form the base for the development of the American motor industry for many years. The association between Otto and Daimler was not to last forever. There were increasing differences of opinion of a technical nature between the two men and in 1882 Daimler left Cologne and returned to his home, where he began a series of studies to improve the Otto engine, particularly in the matters of weight, speed of rotation, and ignition. One year later, in 1883, the first Daimler-Maybach engine with 'hot-tube' ignition was built — once more a big step forward compared with the Otto engines whose engine speeds did not exceed 200 rpm; this new engine of Daimler ran at 900. The ignition system consisted of a tube passing into the cylinder head which was maintained at a high temperature by a burner outside the cylinder. While Daimler and, Maybach were moving to relatively light, high-speed engines, another German, Karl Benz, was working on the application of petrol engines to locomotion. In 1885 he built his first tricycle powered by an internal combustion engine, at the same time as Daimler was testing a motorised cycle. Both produced four-wheeled vehicles the following year. This was not an accident. The spirit of the times, the progress already made in motoring research, and the previous work of Otto led to the simultaneous construction of two vehicles of fundamental importance.

But the engine that Benz mounted in his tricycle was very different from Daimler's light, high-speed single vertical-cylindered unit with hot-tube ignition. The Benz engine was heavy and slow-moving, producing 4/5 hp at 200 rpm in a single horizontal cylinder. Transmission was by chain and the wheels were spoked. Maximum speed was around 10 mph. Benz' ignition was by means of magneto and sparking plug. The engine was rear-mounted in the tricycle, which was capable of around 12 mph.

Benz built his four-wheeler the following year, with a mechanical layout similar to that of his tricycle. It boasted an engine of 1.5 hp and a maximum speed of 12 mph. He immediately began to organise production, which was continued obstinately unchanged for the next 15 years or so. He sold his first car in 1887. But it was only in 1889 that Daimler himself began serious production of a model in which he had satisfactorily solved problems of ignition and carburation.

Unit 2