127 years old and still going…wow
top speed of 38mph and could go 20 miles on a single tank of water
Leno’s next car?
It’s not a “car” it’s a motorcycle…
This was very interesting, but unfortunately the accompanying video perpetuates the myth that “Daimler and Benz invented the gasoline-powered internal combustion vehicle, in 1886”.
In reality, the earliest operating gasoline-powered internal combustion vehicle was built in Vienna in 1864 by Siegfried Marcus. While it probably only traveled about 500 feet under its own power, that vehicle was operated on the streets of Vienna fully 22 years prior to Daimler and Benz’s vehicles. In 1875, Marcus produced a greatly improved version of his gasoline-powered vehicle–still beating Daimler and Benz by 11 years.
How did this myth about the two Germans become ingrained in our consciousness? Through the efforts of the Nazi propaganda machine! Because Mr. Marcus was of the Jewish faith, all reference to him was eradicated from German and Austrian reference works. In fact, the 1875 model of Marcus’s vehicle would not even still exist today, if not for the heroic work of the director of Vienna’s Technical Museum. Suspecting that the Nazis wanted to destroy that vehicle, he walled it in behind a new masonry wall of the museum, and it was not unearthed again until several years after WW II.
The surviving vehicle, Marcus’s technical papers, and eyewitness accounts are all convincing evidence of the lie that originated with the Nazis and is perpetuated even today. In fact, current Mercedes-Benz commercials still make reference to the fable that Daimler and Benz were the inventors of the gasoline-powered internal combustion vehicle.
Just because a lie is propagated and then repeated ad infinitum does not make it correct. Siegfried Marcus beat Daimler and Benz by a country mile.
Pretty much all of our “inventor” ideas are myths, though not all linked to antisemitism. Most school kids are still taught that Edison invented the light bulb. The complete reconstruction & oversimplification of history is rampant.
Good point, cigroller.
Just as Edison and Bell get the credit for things that were actually invented by others, there is a lot of misinformation regarding our history.
I just find it outrageous that Mercedes Benz is repeating Nazi lies that they must know to be false.
According to Wikipedia Marcus powered his two vehicles in 1870 and 1888,
preceding D&B with the first vehicle at least.
I authored a research paper on Marcus, back in my high school days (and that was MANY decades ago), and I recall that the consensus among scholars was that his first semi-successful car was on the streets of Vienna in 1864. If you visit several websites other than Wikipedia, you will also see dates that precede 1870. Even if the exact year is somewhat in doubt, there is no doubt that he preceded Daimler and Benz by at least 11 years.
Most “inventions” are the culmination of an evolving technology, and in most cases it’s pretty tough to find out who was the first. The first one that manages to make a usable product and/or successfully market the idea usually gets the credit for inventing the item. Since the internal combustion engine is first thought to have been invented in the early 1800s, and other types of engines go back well before that, I suspect that the name of the first guy to start bolting engines to carriages has long since been lost to history.
“It’s not a “car” it’s a motorcycle…”
Then Leno is definitely interested. If there’s one thing he loves more than cars, it’s motorcycles. And it runs on steam! Jay’s all over it.
update:
$4.6M