Although antique cars look frail and filmsy and delicate today, when these machines were brand-new, they were put through some INCREDIBLY gruelling and dangerous endurance-tests.
Don't forget that during this time, there were no modern, asphalt-paved roads. It was all cobblestones, brickwork, and dirt. Roads were incredibly uneven once you got outside of town (and even within the boundaries thereof). For the early motor-car to be successful, its sellers had to prove to the public that it could drive over ANYTHING and still survive.
One reason why early cars are SO high off the ground is because they had to clear ruts, pot-holes, bumps and gullies worn into the roads. A simple, hand-cranked, Model T Ford with gas-fired headlights doesn't look like much...
But a car like that in 1908, could go off-roading and cross-country driving in ways that would RUIN a horse and carriage. A Model T doesn't have an incredible top speed by today's standards. Downhill with a strong wind behind it, it might top 45 miles an hour, but it was a tough little bastard that would drive across anything at all - Mud, snow, dirt, sand, gravel, the smoothest city streets or the worst country lanes. It was to deal with the very HARSHEST road and driving conditions that these early cars were built for. Otherwise they would never have sold to the average driver, who back then, would've valued their car highly, and would've used it for EVERYTHING from family outings to making deliveries to going on picnics and holidays. They had to be tough!
That said, there was a LOT of competition amongst early car-makers.
Electrically-powered cars were quiet and fast. But they needed regular battery-charges.
Gas-fired cars were noisier and slower, but gas was cheap as old chips - 5c a gallon (roughly four liters). Back in the old days, you bought your gas from the local chemist or drugstore instead of the service-station.
Steam-powered cars could be INCREDIBLY fast (a steam-powered car set a speed-record in 1906, I think, which wasn't beaten by another steam-car until over a century later in 2010, or something), but steam-cars were dangerous (if the boiler overheated or the pressure got too high, you'd have an explosion), or if you ran out of water, the boiler would melt. And steam-cars took a long time to start. An electric car, you flip the switch. A petrol car, you turned the crank, the steam car? You had to light the pilot-light, boil the water, build the pressure....It could take quite a while.
That said, a steam-car was VERY VERY fast compared to an electric or gas-fired car. You could easily reach 100+ miles an hour, which was about the speed of an express-train back in those days. And this was in like, 1905.
For all the advances in technology, some things were still remarkably old-fashioned.
The wheels were wooden-spoked. The headlights were fired by gas (natural gas, the kind you have in your stove), or even by oil or kerosene. If you wanted to drive at night, you'd have to light the headlights by hand before you could take off.
The glass on early motor-cars was very delicate. It could shatter very easily. No seat-belts, of course. And the controls could be very complicated. It wasn't until around the time of the First World War that the modern control-arrangements that we have now, took effect.
Henry Ford is credited with making cheap cars for the masses, but he wasn't the only person to do so.
In England, the Morgan Cyclecar Company manufactured cheap, three-wheeled motor-cars for the British motoring public in the years before the Great War of 1914. They were cheap, fairly fast, they could carry two people and they were surprisingly fuel-efficient.
As is hinted in the episode, starting an early motor-car was a hazardous business. You needed a fair amount of strength to turn the crank. The engines were pretty small, so it didn't take many turns to start it (unless the engine required cleaning), but it was still dangerous.
You'd have to grab the crank and turn it clockwise to engage the engine and get the pistons moving. Once the engine's running, the crankshaft whips the handle back in the opposite direction. If you're not holding it correctly, the force of the kick would break your wrist. There was a special way of gripping the crank-handle so that when the engine started kicking back, the handle flew off your hand and away, instead of taking your arm with it.
If you really want to know just HOW tough early motor-cars were, take a look at the famous 1907 Peking-to-Paris race.
In 1907, a group of motorists drove from Peking, in China, to Paris, in France, cross-country.
No roads.
No petrol stations.
No cellphones.
Just the drivers, the mechanics, and the newspaper-reporters to record their adventure.
And they all survived, and reached Paris.
That's China, Mongolia, Russia, the countries of Eastern Europe, Poland, Germany and France.
Shame Anna was flirting with William 
I enjoyed the road race, since there were racing like that with early cars. There really was uncertainty which would win out in the marketplace, electric or gasoline. I thought it was funny when someone said gasoline was cheap and always would be.
Jan 30, 2013 21:44:55 GMT
Jan 30, 2013 21:44:55 GMT