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The famous quote attributed to Isaac Neoton – “if I have seen in the distance it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants” – goes back much further in time, its first appearance being in the 12th century, with the French Neoplatonist philosopher Bernard of Chartres. The idea has come to symbolize scientific progress, carried out through gradual and iterative improvements; applicable to almost any discipline but, especially, to the automotive industry.
In the case of internal combustion engines, their constituent elements can be found millennia ago: the fire piston, a device to compress air and make it easier to light fires, already existed in Southeast Asia in prehistory and the connecting rod to a crankshaft, fundamental mechanism for the movement of the piston, appeared for the first time in the Roman water mills of the third century.
Leonardo da Vinci himself theorized the atmospheric propellant in 1509, but by then the human being already had experience with the storage, use and transport of liquid fuels, as was the case with Greek fire, the favorite naval weapon of the Byzantine Empire since the year 673.
One of the first combustion engines on record is that of the French Nicéphore Niépce, in 1807. The inventor associated it with a barge and sailed with it down the Saone River. That same year, Napoléon Bonaparte granted him a patent. However, its low power and its difficult fuel -it used a mixture of dry herbs with charcoal- did not make it commercially viable and Niépce would develop, together with Daguerre, photography.
Until the middle of the XIX century, technical advances were made (1839: Babbitt metal, used in pistons) and theoretical (1824: Carnot publishes the ‘Theory of thermodynamics of thermal engines’), but it is from 1850, when oil and its derivatives begin to be widely marketed, when progress becomes unstoppable.
Since 1956, Pietro Benini’s static internal combustion engines begin to replace steam engines in some factories. Four years later, the Belgian Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir creates the internal combustion engine with cylinders, connecting rods, pistons and it becomes a commercial success. That same year, the Roots brothers design an air pump to heat the air in foundries. This system would be the basis of the superchargers, increasing the power of the thrusters.
The accolade for engine innovation of the 1860s undoubtedly goes to the German Nikolaus Otto. Based on Lenoir’s model, he succeeded in making several versions of a stationary gas engine. In 1867 he received the first prize at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, since his system consumed less than half the gas of the Belgian and offered more power.
Although the first four-stroke internal combustion engine was patented in 1861 by the Frenchman Alphonse Beau de Rochas, it would be Otto himself who perfected it in 1876, collaborating with Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler. His system is the one that standardized the compression of air in combustion.
Three years later, another German, Karl Benz, would patent a two-stroke engine based on the designs of Beau de Rochas. Later, he would develop a four-stroke, which he would patent in 1885 and, the following year, coupled to a light three-wheeled carriage, thus creating the first automobile in history.
Benz did not trust the commercialization of his invention, but his wife, Bertha Benz, drove the car from Mannheim to Pforzheim (106 km) in 1888, showing how useful it could be to the public. Two years later, Benz joined Friedrich von Fischer and Julius Ganss, who would respectively handle the administration and sales of his new company, leaving him free time to focus on the technical development of the car. The first four-wheeled Benz model, the Benz Victoria, arrived in 1893 and the Velo, the foundation of road transport, would be developed soon after.
The 20th century begins with infinite potential: in 1900, Rudolf Diesel presents the operation of his own engine at the Paris Exhibition, which used peanut oil. That same year, Maybach introduces the Daimler-Mercedes engine. In 1908, production of the Ford Model T begins.
Although the engine is the essential element of any car, advances began to be made in all areas: suspensions, transmission, tires, comfort, electricity… At the start of the 20th century, oil seemed inexhaustible and attempts to create electric cars had been dismissed – the Flocken Electrowagen was built in 1888. The first batteries, only for lighting, began to be used in 1905. 130 years later, it will be the only thing that powers cars in Europe.
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