The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-02-22
Next April Will Celebrate Anniversary of First Sale
 of Motor Vehicle m Q. S.
American Manufacturer Disposed of Pioneer Automobile Just Twenty Two Years Ago. Merely Forerunner of This Coun-
 try's Third Greatest Industry

ton and Henry Ford are today national personages. Their genius has brought to millions of their countrymen undreamed of pleasures and prosperity
 Fifty years ago, the motor car was tho experiment of a few intrepid in ventors. It was classed by the public with the inventions of Jules Verne, won derful but impractical Not even in their widest fancies did the early in ventors conceive that their inventions would grow to be the third greatest manufacturing industry in the country.
 Surprising as it may seem, the motor car is the progenitor of the locomotive. The first was built and tried fifty years before the first railroad track was laid.
 Capt Nicholas Joseph Cugnot is ac- credited with having constructed in 1769 the first motor propelled road vehicle that actually ran. Steam was the ae- tivating force. In 17S7 Oliver Evans of Philadelphia built the first American mo- tor car under a patent granted by the state of Maryland. In 1881 Walter Han cock, an Engiishman, built a steam car that he called the infant. This car made regular trips between London and Strat- ford and in 1882 the distance was extend- ed to Brighton. This vehicle carried eleven passengers and was run at an average speed of nine miles an hour.
 THE GASOLINE ERA
 About 1874 Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz began their basic experiments in the field of internal combustion, hydro carbon motors. On May s, 1879. George Baldwin Selden of Rochester, N. Y,, filed an application for patent, cover ing the use of the gasoline motor as propelling force of road vehicle and upon the vehicle as a whole, This appli- ca ton was the pioneer patent of the did not DIflld car until some years after his patent was granted While Carl Benz of Mannheim, Germany. built the first internal com bustion. hydro-carbon motor propelled vehicle in 1885, it was not until 1893 that the motor car practically as it is known today was launched. Panhard x Levas- sor, in this year, manufactured 50 mo tors, nearly all of which were sold
 '"The first road race run in 1894 was known as the Paris-Rouen race over course of eighty miles. It had an entry list of forty-six cars, of which twelve were steamers. The first prize, $lOo, was awarded to Panhard & Levassor, and Peugeot whose entries were equipped with 31k-horsepower motors. The 11mes- Herald road race from Chicago to Wau- kegan, nl., and resnrn on Thanksgiving Dav 1Ss5. was the first American road race. Only two cars were entered In thls contest.
 Tn America, Charles F. Duryea and Elwood Haynes were the first to build gasoline vehicles that would run. The exact date, on which these respective American pioneers first ra ntheir cars, is not accurately recorded, but 1t was some time in 1892. To Alexander Win ton goes the credit of selling the first American motor car On April 1. 1898, he sold one-cylinder Winton 10 Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pa. Allison ran the car for two years and at Winton's solicitation sold it back to the Winton Company, where it is still in existence. practically as capable of delivering service as it was the day il was shipped to it's purchaser All these vehicles were of the horseless carriage type.
 Tt was not until 1901 or 1902 that the motor car. based upon the Flu ropean Panhard & Levassor type was introduced. The difference between this European model and ! the 'horseless wagon was that in the former a cen tral frame to carry thepower plant and act as the keystone of the car structure was developed. This idea is basic in modern automobile manufac- tnriup''