MOTOR-EQUIPMENT

MOTOR-EQUIPMENT

CROSSWORD

THE EARLY DAYS OF THE AUTOMOBILE

One of mankind's earliest and greatest inventions was the wheel.

Without it there could be no industry, little transportation or communication, only crude farming, no electric power. 

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Nobody knows when the wheel was invented. There is no trace of the wheel during the Stone Age, and it was not known to the American Indians until the White Man came. In the Old World it came into use during the Bronze Age, when horses and oxen were used as work animals. At first all wheels were solid discs. 

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The problem to be solved was to make the wheels lighter - and at the same time keep them strong. At first holes were made in the wheels, and they became somewhat lighter. Then wheels with spokes were made. Finally, the wheel was covered with iron and then with rubber. 

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Light two-wheeled carriages were used widely in the ancient world. As time passed they were made lighter, stronger, and better. Later people joined together a pair of two-wheeled carts into a four-wheeled vehicle. At first only kings and queens had the privilege of driving in them.

The earliest attempts to propel a vehicle

by mechanical power.

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 One of the earliest attempts to propel a vehicle by mechanical power was suggested by Isaac Newton. But the first self-propelled vehicle was constructed by the French military engineer Cugnot in 1763. He built a  steam-driven engine which had three wheels, carried two passengers and ran  at maximum speed of four miles. The carriage was a great achievement but  it was far from perfect and extremely inefficient. The supply of steam lasted only 15 minutes and the carriage had to stop every 100 yards to make more steam. 
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But there was a great need for a more efficient engine than the steam engine, for one without a huge boiler, an engine that could quickly be started and stopped. This problem was solved by the invention of the internal combustion engine. 
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The first practical internal combustion engine was introduced in the form of a gas engine by the German engineer N. Otto in 1876. 
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From 1860 to 1900 was a period of the application of gasoline engines to motor cars in many countries. The first to perfect gasoline engine was N. Otto who introduced the four-stroke cycle of operation. By that time motor cars got a standard shape and appearance.

The motor car is not the product of any single inventor. 

 Like most other great human achievements, the motor car is not the product of any single inventor. Gradually the development of vehicles driven by internal combustion engine - cars, as they had come to be known, led to the abolition of earlier restrictions. Huge capital began to flow into the automobile industry. 
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Since then motor transport began to spread in Europe very rapidly. But  the person who was the first to make it really popular was Henry Ford, an   American manufacturer who introduced the first cheap motor car, the famous Ford Model "T". Henry Ford said “transportation is civilization”. In 1908 Henry Ford created the world’s first car assembly line.  
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From 1908 to 1924 the number of cars in the world rose from 200 thousand to 20 million; by 1960 it had reached 60 million! No other industry had ever developed at such a rate.