Books: The Horseles Carriage - The birth of the motor car'by Stuart HyltonThe History PressWe declare that the world’s wonder has been enriched by a fresh beauty, thebeauty of speed. A racing car with its trunk adorned by great exhaust pipeslike snakes with explosive breath…is more beautiful than the Victory ofSamothrace….’From The Futurist Manifesto, Filippo Tomassa Marinetti, 1909
CONTENTS Introduction 1. What is it? 2. Life before the motor car 3. Internal combustion 4. Carriages without horses 5. Speed! The first road races 6. The birth of circuit racing 7. Motoring pioneers 8. The British experience 9. The American experience 10. Poop! Poop! On being an early motorist 11. Driving the cars 12. Technological breakthroughs and backwaters Epilogue: Preservation – and a lost opportunity Bibliography Introduction In my book The Grand Experiment (Ian Allan 2007) I told the story of the first twenty-five years of the railway age. It documented the dramatic changes that railways made to our perception of time and space across the entire world, and the impact of railways on the economy and society. In the course of writing I was struck by the fact that each of the major transport developments of the past two centuries had their own revolutionary impacts in their first few decades. In the case of aviation, this takes us from the Wright Brothers to Guernica in the Spanish Civil War and the prototype Spitfire, and the profound impact that aviation was to have on the conduct of warfare – the full effects of civil aviation were yet to be felt. With the motor car the impact was felt in terms of personal mobility. Important though they were, railways opened up areas within a relatively narrow proximity to the railway stations. Even in a small and densely developed country like Britain the railways could not be everywhere. Beyond the stations the pace of life was still dictated by the speed at which men could walk or horses could carry them. For reasons which this book explores the clear potential for steam traction to transfer across from rail to road was never realised. It was the boom in bicycling in the 1870s that first gave the public in Britain and abroad a taste of a new era in personal mobility. But it was the motor car that was to reveal its full potential. Over a period of about a quarter of a century, from the first limited production of cars in 1891 to the outbreak of the First World War, there was a revolution in the performance, reliability and affordability of the motor car, which changed the course of the twentieth century just as railways changed that of the nineteenth. Huge areas of the country were exposed to tourism, became potential commuter areas, and focal points for a host of other economic activities. In our towns and cities, one health hazard (the massive amounts of horse manure in our streets and the diseases which came with it) led to the motor car being promoted as a major contributor to clean air. One thing that did not change: traffic jams remained an urban fact of life, whether the traffic was horse-powered or driven by petrol. In this book I have tried to provide an overview of the development of the motor car up to 1914, and its impact on society. There is nothing magic in the choice of 1914 as an end-date, beyond the following facts: that most of the world became preoccupied by other weightier matters than the development of the motor car from that date on; that much of the manufacturing capacity and technical expertise of the emerging motor industry was diverted to the war effort; that international cooperation – and sporting competition – both of which contributed to technical development, largely came to an end (though war can be its own driver of technological change, and the conflict gave the internal combustion engine a first real chance to demonstrate its military applications). In fact, as others have argued, the cars of 1914 had much more in common with those of the 1930s than they did with their 1904 counterparts, in terms of their performance and equipment. In some respects 1904 (the date that separates veteran from vintage cars in Britain) might have been a better end date to choose. By then, many of the early blind alleys of motor car technology – such as tiller steering, hot-tube ignition, belt drive, horizontal engines and the possibility of steam as an alternative to internal combustion – had been largely abandoned and the broad layout of the modern car established. Largely abandoned too was the practice of inter-city racing on public roads, following the horrendous accident rate that had its unhappy climax in the 1903 Paris–Madrid race. The age of the closed, purpose-built racing circuit was about to dawn, led by Brooklands in Britain and Indianapolis in the United States. But the period I have chosen does cover the most interesting phase of the development of motoring, as society struggled to get used to the idea of individual members of public travelling about among us at what were previously seen as supernatural speeds, while the motor industry wrestled with the technology that enabled them to do so safely and reliably. Different countries went down different routes, and at different speeds, on entering the age of the motor car. In the United States the development of car technology proceeded rather more slowly than in Europe, though American manufacturers led the way in developing modern manufacturing techniques. In writing this book I am keenly aware that there are others far better qualified than myself to cover different aspects of the topic. In particular, I make no claims whatsoever to be a mechanical engineer, and these parts of the book have been as much of a voyage of discovery for me as they will be for some of my readers. At the same time, I hope that my layman’s attempt to explain the mechanical development of the motor car up to 1914 will be of interest to, and not beyond the grasp of, the most technologically challenged of my readers. If I can understand it, anyone can! I would like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to all the sources listed in my bibliography. In particular (in alphabetical order): * Cauntier and his account of the evolution of the light car; * Georgano’s book explaining early coachbuilding technology and the blind alley of following traditional horse-drawn methods and designs; * Knight’s 1902 book on motoring, giving a contemporary perspective on the activity; * The books by Nixon, and Karslake and Pomeroy, for their fascinating insights into the experience of being an early motorist; * Newcombe and Spurr, for their authoritative but accessible account of how early motor car technology evolved; * Nicholson’s comprehensive three-volume account of the evolution of the British motor car; and * Villard’s fascinating (if sometimes horrifying) history of the early road races. I commend these and all the other sources listed in my bibliography to any reader who would like to find out more. Any errors or omissions in my book, despite this wealth of authoritative guidance, are entirely my own responsibility. In some cases consideration of space forced me to curtail the detail or scope of my coverage. In particular I had to lose an entire chapter devoted to the various attempts (through voiturettes and cyclecars to public transport) to make powered road transport more widely available. The historic photographs in the book come from the collection at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, and my thanks go to Jonathan Day, the Picture Library Manager, for his help in tracking them down. I have tried to identify and seek permission from any copyright holders, but if any have slipped the net, please let me know via the publisher and I will try to ensure that this is rectified in future editions. Last but not least, a word of thanks to my wife Sheila, who has patiently endured many years of my obsessive scribbling. P.J. O’Rourke once dedicated a book to his wife with the words ‘Thank you for not killing me, dear’, to which I would only add ‘so far’. Stuart Hylton October 2008
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