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Try again, Mr. President - America didn't invent the auto
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An early Benz, NOT invented in America (LOC photo)
While the right-leaning blogs blaze with the inaccuracies, over-reaches and empty promises of last night’s Presidential Address to the Joint Session, I have been contemplating the backlash had it been Dubya who claimed this country invented the automobile.
President Obama, while trying to convince the taxpayers that we need to save the ineptitude that is Detroit, stated that he believes “The country that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”
Now, the infancy of the auto took on a number of forms – steam, electric, gasoline – but according to our very own Library of Congress, the credit for inventing the first automobile goes to Germany’s Karl Benz.
Benz’ three-wheeled, single chassis, gas-powered vehicle was on the road in 1885/86.
It wasn’t until 1895 that an American – George Baldwin Selden – received a patent for a gasoline-powered carriage. His invention was never manufactured.
Scotsman Robert Andersen gets the credit for the first electric carriage (reducing those CO emissions between 1832 – 1839) and Frenchman Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the first self-propelled, steam-powered road vehicle for the French army in 1769.
Top speed was 2.5 miles-per-hour, and it enabled the future armies of France to perfect motorized surrender.
Charles Edgar Duryea (and his brother Frank) patented the first successful gas powered car (with a four horsepower, two-stroke motor), and also founded the first American car manufacturer.
Soon after, younger brother Earl invented the “My Other Car is a Benz” bumper sticker.
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