Horsey Horseless - 1899 horse-headed car by Uriah Smith

Horseless carriage is an early name for the motor car or automobile. Prior to the invention of the motor car,

carriage A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...

s were usually pulled by animals, typically horses. The term can be compared to other transitional terms, such as wireless phone. These are cases in which a new technology is compared to an older one by describing what the new one does not have. Most horseless carriages are notable for their similarity to existing horse-drawn carriages, but with some type of mechanical propulsion. Features of the first horseless carriages include tiller steering, an engine under the floorboards, and a high center of gravity. In the 19th century,

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

s became the primary source of power for railway

locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

s and ships, and for powering processes in fixed installations such as

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. Th ...

. In 1803, what is said to have been the first horseless carriage was a steam-driven vehicle demonstrated in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, by Richard Trevithick. In the 1820s, Goldsworthy Gurney built steam-powered road vehicles. One has survived to be on display at Glasgow Museum of Transport. In the United States, a four-wheel steam carriage was made by Sylvester H. Roper in 1863. The 1896 Armstrong horseless carriage is notable as an early hybrid vehicle, which combined an electric motor with battery and

gasoline Gasoline ( North American English) or petrol ( Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When for ...

-fueled internal-combustion engine. In 1893, Frank Duryea is reported to have made the first horseless carriage trip on U.S. roads, in

Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is the most populous city in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States, and its county seat. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ea ...

, traveling approximately before engine problems forced him to stop and make repairs. He went on to found the first U.S. car company, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company, with his brother. In April 2016, horseless carriages from the turn of 19th and the early 20th centuries were featured in a re-creation of the first London Motor Show in 1896.

References

{{reflist 19th century in transport History of the automobile Innovation

See also

References