The Automobile from Horseless Carriage to Everyday Technology

Part I: The Automobile From Horseless Carriage to Everyday Technology by Arthur D. Delagrange, Massachusetts Beta ’64 F ONE PIECE OF TECHNOLOGY had to be cho- The development of the modern automobile is a micro- sen to represent twentieth-century America, a cosm of the development of modern engineering. The story likely candidate would be the automobile or, more is recounted here, both for those young people who would precisely, the presence of a car in every household, like to know how we went about achieving personal land on the average. (There are more cars than licensed rockets that sit in massive traffic jams, and for the old-tim- idrivers.) The microcomputer is certainly impressive, but ers who long for the good-old days when cars wouldn’t start every new car has at least one of these plus a host of other in cold weather, boiled over in hot weather, and wouldn’t highly-developed parts. The machines that produce these stop in wet weather. cars, nearly au- tomatically, are marvels in themselves. If engineering is Origins: The 1700s science in quan- The history of the automobile can be conveniently divided tity, then the au- into three periods: the 19th century (and earlier!) and the tomobile is an first and last halves of the 20th century. That break may be engineering mas- taken at WWII as civilian car production ceased during the terpiece. Not war and resumed immediately afterward—pre-war models. only is auto-mak- The first section is short. Steam-powered vehicles were ing the biggest demonstrated in the latter half of the 18th century, the first industry in the practical application being traction engines (tractors) avail- U.S., it supports a able in the 1770s. Some steam-powered horseless carriages number of other were used in the 1800s. They were large, and there were major industries, few roads adequate for them. Instead, steam was mostly e.g., steel. applied to boats and locomotives where large size and heavy Sociologi- weight were partly an advantage. cally, few things define the American cul- ture better. One of my earliest Steam-powered “traction engines” (tractors) Beginnings: Cars & Traffic memories from such as this were available in the 1770s. A major, if not overriding, factor in the advent of the auto- childhood was (Henry Ford Museum) our car. I was mobile (literally, moving by itself) was the invention of the impressed that you just got in, turned the key, pumped the internal-combustion (IC) engine (as opposed to steam, where accelerator, pulled out the choke, pushed a button, and it combustion takes place outside the cylinder). Electric was started—if the weather were not too cold—and it went also a competitor, but the required batteries were expensive, nearly anywhere you wanted to go. I was told our car would short-lived, heavy, and of limited capacity. In this applica- go clear across the country, and when I was 10 we went! I tion, nothing could match the performance of the IC engine. was told a car was a precious thing (it was World War II), and I should be thankful we had one, which I was. 1896 Today’s young people see the car pretty much as a given. Duryea: You turn the key and it goes; if it doesn’t, you pick up the one of 13 similar cars cell phone and call for another. Of course, we engineers re- from the alize there is really much more to it. There was a lot of de- first real velopment to get to this point, and a lot of things have to auto work correctly to drive down the road safely and reliably. factory. Tales of traveling by horse and buggy seem further removed (Henry Ford from today’s life than Star Trek is in the future. Actually, Museum) this is probably correct, because it took not just one century, but more than two, to reach this point. SPRING 2001 T HE B ENT OF TAU BETA PI 11 There is some argument, but the first car is generally credited to Benz in Germany. In 1885, he designed, as an integral unit, a 3/4 hp, 8 mph three-wheeler (it still exists) with a surprising number of features FORD FLATHEAD V-8 still used, including a four-stroke gasoline engine with electric ignition In 1932 Ford advanced from a and a differential. The first automobile factory likely belonged to the four-cylinder engine directly to a Duryea Brothers in Massachusetts, who produced 13 similar cars in 1896. V-8. The result established the By 1900 there were more than 100 brands. Early vehicles were mostly Ford name for performance, but built one-at-a-time, sometimes entirely by the builder, and were often it was almost a disaster. Being to a customer’s specifications. This made them very expensive, but it frugal, Ford did not want to add was understood they were for the rich. As quantities increased, sec- tions were farmed out, particularly the coachwork, which was often of an oil pump but wanted to stay parlor quality. When Ransom E. Olds suffered a fire in his factory, he with splash lubrication. His contracted out nearly everything and became basically a designer/as- engineers finally persuaded him sembler. Some of Ford’s early cars used almost entirely parts made by that the power achieved the Dodge brothers, who did not sell a car of their own—yet. destroyed the engine without it. The early twentieth century was dotted with the names of pioneers, Ford was also overly optimistic some becoming rich from cars that bore their names, some winding up as to making an integral V-8 broke, and several doing both: Chevrolet, Ransom E. Olds (Oldsmobile block with the casting tech- and REO), Ford, Dodge, Chrysler, Cord, Duesenberg, Firestone, Benz, niques of the day, and many Bugatti, Buick, Daimler, Renault, Packard, Studebaker, Dunlop, defective blocks had holes Michelin, Mitsubishi, Bentley, Citroen, Peugeot, Rolls, and Royce. Some welded in order to get enough attempts were made to produce an inexpensive car, notably by Olds, but it was Henry Ford who succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination. He engines built. made some decisions that revolutionized the industry (although some of The engine clearly reflected these were apparently accidental), and he made some bad decisions, too. its lineage; the two sides were He felt it wrong to charge too much for a car, and hit a more favorable nearly independent: twin water spot on the pumps had twin hoses from the supply/de- radiator, which had twin return mand curve. hoses from the heads. The The product distributor had twin caps for the of many buy- two sides. The carburetor had ers times a two barrels, each pretty much low price turned out to feeding its side. Oddly, it had but be much more a single exhaust, a tortuous than a few design where the two manifolds buyers times were connected together and a high price. only one was connected to the Ford was also exhaust pipe. persuaded by The Chevrolet straight-6 was his partner a nicer design, theoretically, being that workers inherently balanced, whereas the should be 1908 Model T Ford: the start of major mass production. (Henry V-8 was not. But this was of little treated and Ford Museum) consolation when one was paid better. They reduced the workday from nine hours to eight and nearly dou- literally left in the dust. Perfor- bling the prevailing wage rate. This gave Ford the pick of the work mance was especially exciting force and worker loyalty, at least for a while. He set a speed record, 91 or because Ford resisted changing 100 mph, depending on the account, personally driving a car of his own from mechanical brakes to design at considerable risk. He was also responsible for the first re- hydraulic. The Ford flathead V-8 corded auto accident, running his first car over a pedestrian, who went was the choice of hot rodders on his way once the spindly car was lifted off him. for decades, and performance Ford’s crowning achievement was the Model T in 1908. To achieve parts are still made for it today! his goals, he had to cut costs and improve efficiency. The key was an assembly line producing identical cars in huge quantities. Ford didn’t invent assembly line mass production, but he mastered it. He may have invented the moving assembly line, which produced a “steady stream of cars flowing forth” from the factory. Everything was carefully engi- neered to support the process. Parts suppliers, eager to be chosen for the huge quantities used, were required to ship the parts in boxes made with certain-size boards with certain-size holes drilled in specific places. These re-appeared in the cars as floorboards (hence the name). The T was a front-engine, rear-drive layout. It used a water-cooled four-cycle engine and would exceed 40 mph. The transmission used epicyclic (plan 12 SPRING 2001 T HE B ENT OF TAU BETA PI etary) gears, which would be replaced later, only to re-appear in auto- matic transmissions. But the production line had its downside. Workers, installing the same part hour after hour as the line moved faster and faster, began to envy the freedom and individuality of the farmer, even at more work for less pay. It was called dehumanizing, certainly true in the sense that Ford sought to eliminate human error. Ironically, the first big labor demon- stration in the industry was directed at Ford, who had originally im- proved the worker’s lot.

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