Great Cars: OLDEST AUTOS

right from the start the automobile captured the attention of people all over the world these were dream machines that promise to make horses obsolete and transform the world the Auto pioneers were in a hurry but they had to overcome tremendous obstacles the public had to be convinced that autos were more than dreams it was a trial and error race that finally put us all on the road [Music] the world was mesmerised by the promise of the automobile people knew this invention would transform their lives but for the inventors it was all about trial and error they were struggling to find what would work it was a very new idea and most of the concepts being used in the automobile came from other industries wagons bicycles carriages even some industrial machinery so really the technology was just starting to be explored and that's why there were so many different approaches inventors all over the world were taken with the notion of the automobile they transformed their shops and garages into the test beds that would launch a technological revolution they tried everything some of these people were visionaries and some of these people were just excited by something new and wanted to experiment and play with it just getting one of the crude machines to rum was a major accomplishment if you've written in or driven some of the very early automobiles you soon realized that if you had a horse and buggy it was just as good and maybe better and so the people who adopted these cars were often more interested in playing with the new technology because it was meat we tracked down the earliest example of Motoring technology that can still be found to run hidden away in the English countryside near Cambridge was a part of automotive history an 1884 de dion-bouton and a trip are due it was a coal-fired steam propelled carriage it's probably the oldest auto still running anywhere in the world it was invented before the first gasoline-powered car the today on here is particularly special in that it was made before Dana and Benz invented the petrol engine car they Dame ran Benz both produce their vehicles in 1886 and the today on Stilo was made in 1884 d Dion and others were seen by many as being a little too passionate about their new inventions counted er in France who was experimenting with steamers and then later internal combustion cars was passionate about trying to develop this his family however got injunctions against him because they saw him as being unstable wasting his time and effort with these inventions that could amount to nothing there were just toys unstable toys of a little boys bind he ignored his critics and teamed with two engineers mrs. Bhutan and Trevor do they transformed his tinkering into a business they offered these for sale it was the first time anybody had offered a self-propelled vehicle for sale from a catalogue to paying customers and they sold several of them their vehicles were extraordinary Tim Moore was able to purchase one for his collection and keep it running the car took part in one the world's first motor race on the 28th of April 1887 it was the personal vehicle of count today on himself Moore bought the car in France he didn't realize he needed permission from the French government to bring it home he finally worked that out but had to figure out how to get it to run it didn't have an owner's manual when I first got the car home the first problem was that I knew nothing about steam so a great deal of research went into discovering how it might have worked keeping it on the road requires constant oversight you have to focus and pay attention whilst it's demanding to drive the fact that it goes as well as it does is really just a fantastic achievement it's a real historical milestone remarkably the day deal can hit 37 miles an hour considerably faster than a horse and carriage count de Leon's invention demonstrated the promise of the automobile it would take many years and countless others to perfect the auto but the ground had been laid [Music] daimler-benz that soon demonstrated the viability of gasoline and several French firms began to make great technological advances with their ideas it was left to the French with firms like panade Lavasa and Peugeot who really got to grips and saw the future of what you could do with this machine the French cars abandoned dead Yuans cold fire combustion for gasoline it was a cleaner and more reliable fuel that picked a lot of punch they quickly became the leading builders well this car is 1894 type 5 Persia it's the second model that Peugeot produced in any number 14 of these cars were produced between 1894 and 1895 while it wasn't coal-fired it's hot tube ignition were still relatively primitive the world would have to wait for spark plugs the tube is hated by what for all intents and purposes is a Bandstand burner this is it's fueled by by petrol which is pressurized and you get a blue flame which heats the tube and it's the it's the heat from the compression coupled with the heat generated at this tube which far as the cylinder it was a lot of work to get one on the road but this didn't deter a steady stream of buyers who had to have the new road machines they didn't seem to care that the per show still had a few bugs to work out these were rolling experiments and part of the excitement was you didn't know what would happen this was an adventure to learn more about the evolution of the automobile we journeyed to another collection of Pioneer autos in Sussex England Paul Phelps halberd and his son Carl have put together an astonishing collection of vehicles their historic automobiles include the orient-express a car which contributed yet another important piece of technology to the development of the automobile the big difference is the transmission this uses the transmission a series of belts adapted straight from the early factory power plants the belts are tensioned by hand clutch and once the attention the car will start to move and final drive is via chains to the back wheel though advanced for 1898 it are still primitive we'd be frustrated today by the ritual of just starting one this single cylinder engine isn't designed for the impatient commuter starting anything as early as the Orient is it is always a big thrill there's all certain procedures you have to go through there's certain ingredients that have to be there you have to have compression you have to have fuel and you have that recognition and it's all all those three are present and everything's ok it'll go [Music] two breakthroughs spot plugs and the magneto ignition system made starting the orient-express faster but it still wasn't as easy as turning a key it's always a thrill when she when she sparks him to life and why she goes firing up the engine wasn't even half the battle you had to know what to do to keep it heading down the road it's single cylinder engine generated a lot of power they didn't make for a smooth ride this wasn't a vehicle for the faint-hearted for delicate you also really have to know the vehicle's quirks there was always something that had to be done there was no cruise control is a technique it's not anybody that can drive it I mean any of these cars can be quite dangerous and you do after know what you're doing because otherwise somebody can get hurt you get shaken about quite a bit you have to think all the time well ahead what you're going to do next and you have to be aware of what's going on at all times of the engine controlling the mixture and all the ignition settings etc the Orion obviously is probably pretty slow but it doesn't really matter to go down the road on an 80 90 a car that's still raining on its original piston and original valves and original bearings and got its original upholstery it's got a great appeal I think the French Germans and English led the automotive world but their exploits were being closely followed by many Americans Henry Ford's imagination were set racing by the promise of the automobile he'd grown up on a farm and saw the auto as a way to break the isolation of farm life [Music] others shared Ford's passion ransom erodes the son of a blacksmith also dreamed of eliminating the unpleasant aspects of rural America with his wheels mr. Uhl's after school and on weekends had to work in his father's shop but he didn't like horses he didn't like the smell of horses he didn't like the road apples he left but he thought there must be a better way to move goods and people then horses ransom olds started with steam besides it was too complicated built a gasoline car and around 1900 started production of his little curved dash Oldsmobile his curved dash olds looked like a horse-drawn carriage but ransom had given it a few modern touches it was a fairly stylish and contemporary vehicle for turn of the century America something that stood out well it was an entirely different design than most of the other vehicles being introduced at that period of time so you had that grease for curved ransom olds was convinced that the only way to get people to trade their horses for his motorized carriages was to offer something that was simple affordable and reliable he worked on this formula for success and started to attract a following for his runabouts curve - holes was extremely popular because it was easy to operate it was easy to maintain and the car most of all was extremely reliable and dependable it's single cylinder 4 cycle engine delivered only 4 horsepower for the curved - olds but it was peppy it could fly down a good smooth road at about 25 miles per hour far faster than walking or riding in a buggy so that automobile really got things moving it was a viable product that could be turned out that was reasonably reliable that could be repaired without too much trouble and could be made using the available skills around the Detroit area while most credit Henry Ford with the first assembly line to produce autos it was really ransom olds his rudimentary assembly line didn't move like Henry's wood but he did speed up production and help him lower costs and that was really America's first mass-produced automobile they were building five or six thousand a year that they're the peak mr. Rawls made it clear that he wanted to target the masses around the world he did not want to produce a car that was only available to those who were wealthy he wanted the common folk to have a chance to enjoy this - things kept autos from growing they were hard to start and to drive women felt these machines were only for men olds realized he had to change that perception if the car was to succeed his ads early adds to the curve - showed women that was the first women are supposed to know how to drive a car but he showed women so easy to learn even a child or a woman could regret about that I thought that was cute the advertising helped to broaden the curved - olds appeal it was the most popular car of its day it made driving fun not just an adventuresome chore driving the curve - holes Mobile is a real treat every time I get the opportunity to climb in the car start it up and have a chance to go for a ride whether it's at a show or here in the back roads it's exciting and I know that what I'm experiencing is exactly what new Oldsmobile owners experienced a hundred years ago the thrill of getting your hands on history prompted ray car to collect and drive his old cars one of his favorites is a car very similar to the curve - olds the 1902 northern the northern automobile was built in Detroit by he and Charles king and Jonathan Maxwell both of whom had worked for ransom olds and who King and Maxwell I guess thought well we'll take on old and we'll build a car not on my case and and so they did the northern was a durable and reliable vehicle car has put thousands of miles on his northern he believes these cars should be driven and not just in the occasional parade he takes them across country I tried to drive on secondary blue roads and so I don't have it too much traffic and in doing that you just get a sense that that your existing back in the time when that car was first built and you're rolling along as if you were a part of that generation if you will when I can understand why some folks would say get that old car off the road but then when they stop and think about it that old car was the reason that they're now driving a new car while the gasoline-powered engine had many fans right away some weren't willing to give up steam when people first started to try to build self powered road vehicles they actually had a lot of choices as to what to power and buy they had steam engines which had been around for well over 200 years and people knew a lot about steam engines steam picked a powerful punch but steamers also have some drawbacks the steam car was the most powerful car much more powerful than the gasoline car gasoline driven car initially but the steam car had problems in that it sort of would take anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to fire up the boiler and get ready to take off the 1909 Stanley Steemer takes off slowly the work doesn't quit once you're on the road they are complicated machines I guarantee you you have to be part mechanic part plumber no question about it because if there are 23 valves on the car alone and if something happens you better be they want to plumb those valves back up again it's a big plumbing job is something epic they also had a tendency to blow up the danger complexity and slow starting process killed the steam engine but some thought electricity was the answer electric cars outnumbered gasoline or steam in the early days the ease of starting this 1912 Baker electric shows why the beauty of electric cars was their simplicity you had batteries and you had a motor and you hooked the motor up to the wheels of a car to start it up you turn on the switch you move the rheostat the car takes off it's silent it doesn't put out any smoke curve anything like that it's very nice electrics were quiet they were clean they were easy to start and they were fast enough but one problem couldn't be solved electricity seemed for a lot of people to be the real ideal solution very quickly its grand limitation came to the fore the limitation is range on batteries and that's that's a hundred years later that's still the problem is electric cars won't go despite the limitation of its batteries car wanted to demonstrate the potential of electric power he drove his Baker from Astoria Oregon to Atlantic City New Jersey he thinks electric cars should be given another look well I thought it was very significant number one it was the first and only factory built electric car to ever attempt its across America from coast to coast and then I thought that it might draw attention to the electric car electric cars began to fade away they couldn't compete with cheap gasoline but offered plenty of power a longer range and easy Philips [Music] the automobile was headed into a gasoline-powered future in the early days of the 20th century no one could imagine a time of oil shortages or environmental damage it was full speed ahead once Henry Ford figured out mass production his moving assembly line made automobiles affordable for everyone not even Count de Dion or ransom holes could have envisioned a time when millions of autos would roam the globe the horse was put out to pasture by the excitement generated by the Model T and all the others that rolled out after it while cars have become so advanced they've taken the adventure out of driving for most of us unless you're Dave light belt he's found a way to keep it interesting an antique automobile specialist at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan he drives his 1915 Model T every day I grew up in a family where that right from my childhood my father had a 15 model teetering car my grandfather has an 11 model teetering car and so I grew up with those cars all the time I was an infant a Model T can turn the daily commute into a trip through time but there are some drawbacks there are a few times that get a little nerve-racking Model T's do not have very good brakes they also don't have very good steering and there's a little bit of a lack of power which in the the traffic of the Detroit area can get a little hairy Dave is committed to seeing that these old cars have a place on today's roads he feels antique cars are meant to be driven not just admired I don't like to do shows obviously you see the car isn't polished it's not clean it's not a pristine car and that's fine that's the way it is for me for me the joy is driving it is experiencing life sorta life at that time Liefeld isn't alone there's a growing interest among collectors in keeping their cars on the road you're much closer to the to the technology than a modern car where you're kind of insulated from everything and you rely on your automatic transmission and your power steering you got to drive these cars you have to learn how they did it in the early days you have to learn how to fix them like they did in the early days and you have to learn to think like they did in the early days I think anybody can drive a lighter car it's not a problem the very early ones have got their own fascination they are victorian cars i forget when that was new queen victoria's on the throne the Boer War was on well the old saying is they don't build a lot I used to there have been a lot of changes since the first automobile rolled onto the streets it set the world in motion it's given as the freedom of mobility and a few headaches but for all of its drawbacks the automobile still excites the imagination of fans around the world [Music] you

Channel: King Rose Archives

Views: 240,871

Rating: 4.8539433 out of 5

Keywords: Auto History, DeDion et Bouton, Trepardeux, Daimler Benz, Count De Dion, Panhard-Levassor, Peugeot, Coal fired autos, Orient Express, Curved Dash Olds, Ford Quadracycle, Ransom Olds, Henry Ford, Northern Automobile, Charles King, Jonathon Maxwell, Maxwell automobiles, Stanley Steamer, Baker Electric

Id: ZsARm0O4twQ

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 10 2017