This was first published as an essay in the New Indian Express
Buildings
have architects. Do cars have architects too? But think about it! A car has
doors, windows, a floor, a roof, seats, air conditioning, radio, television.. a
car is a room designed to move! But also - it has an engine, a petrol tank, a
steering wheel, gears, speedometer, headlights, wheels…
Isnt a
car just bullock cart or a horse carriage with an engine? Did bullock carts or
horse carraiges have architects? In fact, in ancient times, chariots, called rathas
in Sanskrit, were made by a caste of people called rathakaaras – also called
taksha in Sanskrit or thachcha in Tamil; this word also means sculptor. Sthapathis
who built temples in Darasuram and Konarak shaped them like.. rathas. And
sthapathis are architects!
Horseless
carraiges
We saw
how Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, independently fitted the petrol engines
they designed to horseless carriages. Benz called his vehicle the Patent Motorwagen. Daimler named his
motorcycle Motoren Gesselschaft. Daimler
also fitted engines to horseless carriage and sold them.
But
neither Benz nor Daimler’s vehicles were really cars as we think of them today;
they were horseless carraiges. Like bicycles, they had a chain based
transmission. The seats were on top of the engines. Their brakes were nominal,
operated by leather cords, but effective at the low speeds they were driving. At
best, their vehicles were glorified fish carts!
Neither
vehicle had a proper steering mechanism. There was no steering wheel, just a
rod-like tiller, which demanded great physical strength to operate. Horses and
bullocks were steered by whips. Trains ran on rails, their steering needs were
very different. Benz and Daimler invented the mechanical working parts of the
car, but a lot of things had to be invented to make them usable.
A Marriage, A License, A Newborn
Both Benz
and Daimler’s companies successfully sold a few hundred vehicles every year and
they exhibited their vehicles in the 1889 Paris World Fair.
Two
Frenchmen Rene Panhard and Emile Levassor, who worked for a company that manufactured
engines for saw mills, were intrigued by Daimler’s engines. They formed a
company Panhard et Levassor and negotiated
rights to build Daimler engines in France, with Edouard Sazarin, who handled
Daimler’s patents on his engine. When Sazarin died, his widow successfully
negotiated with Daimler and won the license to build vehicles with Daimler
engines. Then she married Emile Levassor – never have the words marriage and
license been simultaneously so romantic and businesslike, in society or
business!
But this
marriage resulted not only in both a family and business – it gave birth to the
automobile as we know it today.
The
mindset of engine manufacturers like Benz and Daimler was to adapt an engine to
a carriage, made traditionally by artisanal communities. Panhard et Levassor was the first company that decided to make
automobiles with no reference to horse-drawn traditions.
 |
| Emile Levassor |
He also
designed the clutch, gear box and transmission which mechanisms still drives
cars today. In their next model, a windshield and side curtains. This model built
in 1892, was called the Cabriolet. Like the word car originated as a contraction of carriage, the word cab
comes from this innovation.
The
successof Levassor’s innovation can be guaged from this fact : Panhard et Levassor’s cars sold more
successfully than the cars built by Daimler or Benz, even in Germany!
Car Races and Accidents
When
cars are invented, can car races be far behind? In Paris, in the world’s first
car race in July 1894, four cars with Daimler petrol engines did very well
coming second to fifth. But the first place was won not by a car, but by a De
Dion and Bouton tractor which had a steam engine!
This is
one of the other amazing things about the history of the automobile. In this
period, steam engines and electric motors were actually more popular and
successful than petrol engines in the experimental street vehicles of the day.
In the United States, concurrently, Thomas Edison was experimenting with a
battery operated electric car, after having amazed the world by inventing the
phonograph and the incandescent electric light bulb.
A year
later, though, Levassor himself drove his test model in the 1200 km Paris
Bordeaux round trip race, his car won. We may not call this competition a race
today – the average speed was only 24 km / h. Chennai autorickshaws go through
red lights faster than that. But races made cars popular and a number of
sportsmen were soon buying and racing cars.
Sadly, in
1896 Levassor was seriously injured while driving in the Paris Marseille race.
He died of wounds caused by this accident, the next year. It seems tragic and
ironic that the architect of the car would die of a racing accident
But the
fundamental model of the car that Levassor gave us continues to serve us today.
The
success of the Levassor design so enamored an Austrian businessman living in
France, Emile Jellinek, that he asked Daimler to make bigger engines with better
design, like Levassor’s. Daimler’s partner Wilhelm Maybach joined Jellinek, who
then named this design after his daughter – Mercedes.
Not long after, in the USA, a young engineer refused Edison’s offer of a job designing electric cars and started his own experiments with petrol engines : Henry Ford.
References
1.
Dreams to Automobiles Len Larson
2.
Creating the Twentieth century, Vaclav Smil
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