The First Steam Powered Motorised Vehicles

3.2 The First Steam Powered Motorised Vehicles

• China: There are reports that a small steam powered trolley car was built by Ferdinand Verbiest (Belgian) in about 1672.
  
  
• Verbiest constructed this vehicle whilst working in China as a Jesuit missionary.
  
  
• Because this vehicle was capable of transporting a person, some believe that it may have been the world's first, if very basic, motorised car.
  
  
• France: In 1769 Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a French military engineer, constructed a three-wheeled steam powered carriage.
  
  
• The vehicle, which could carry four persons, achieved a top speed of 2.25 mph (3.6 kph).
  
  
• The vehicle is considered to be the first to successfully employ a device for converting the reciprocating motion of a steam engine’s piston into rotary motion.
  
  
• It did not carry reserves of water or fuel and as its boiler could only provide steam for about 12 to 15 minutes the driver had to stop frequently to add more water and re-fire the furnace.
   
  
• Within a year Cugnot had been commissioned to build a larger model for the transportation of artillery and capable carrying a load of about 4.5 tons (4,572kg).
  
  
• This second “fardier a’ vapeur” vehicle, which weighed about 2.5 tonnes (2,500kg), was completed in 1771 at the Royal Arsenal in Paris.
  
  
• Note: A fardier was a massive two-wheeled horse-drawn cart used by the army for the transportation of very heavy equipment such as cannon barrels.
  
  
• Cugnot’s “fardier a’ vapeur” vehicle was designed to travel at 4.9 mph (7.8 kph) but only achieved about half that speed.
  
  
• The vehicle was fitted with a single 51 inch (130 cm) diameter driving wheel and two 65 inch (165 cm) diameter rear wheels.
  
  
• The single front wheel was steered by a double handle tiller type arrangement and a crude brake was fitted onto the front driving wheel.
  
  
  
  
• By 1772 trials of the vehicle had been abandoned.
  
  
• In 1880 it was transferred to Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers.
  
  
• This important vehicle can still be seen at the Musee des arts et metiers in Paris. See www.arts-et-metiers.net, select “Collections”, “Videos” and go to “Transports”.  

• It is reported to have weighed 3,344 lbs (1,520 kg) fully loaded and had a top speed of 9 mph (14.5 kph).

• On Christmas Eve of that year the vehicle carried several men some distance. This was possibly the first public demonstration of transportation by a motorised car. Four days later it was destroyed by fire.

• By 1803 he had built another three-wheeled steam carriage called the “Puffing Dragon”, complete with seats and a “real carriage like appearance”.

• In 1803 he drove it in London on demonstration runs and reached speeds of 8-9 mph (13-14 kph).

• Some believe the “Puffing Dragon” was the world's first passenger car.
  
  

• United States: William James built several steam powered vehicles and drove one of them on the streets of New York in 1829.

• In about 1851 John Kenrick Fisher built a carriage for the American Steam Carriage Co. that had a top speed of 15 mph (24 kph).

• Italy: The Bordino steam carriage was built in 1854.

• The four-wheeled vehicle consisted of a Landau carriage body mounted on a chassis to which four wooden wheels were attached.

• The rear mounted boiler provided steam to drive the twin cylinder steam engine mounted below the carriage.