The story of the automobile is, in the grand scheme of history, fairly short — but cars have come a long way since the steam-powered horseless carriages of the early 1800s. What started as a pastime for enthusiasts and the wealthy spread quickly throughout society, unlocking all sorts of new ways and places to travel. Even as modern cars get more and more advanced, vehicles from the past still capture our imagination, conjuring up images of muscle cars, luxury convertibles, and the open road. So hop in your DeLorean and get ready for five facts from the vehicular past.
Model-T Ford cost $290
At the end of 2022, the average cost of a new car was a whopping $48,681, a record-setting high. So it might be hard to believe that in the 1920s, when cars were still a relative luxury item, you could get a brand-new Model T Ford for just $290, or right around $5,000 in today’s dollars. These days, that’ll barely get you a 10-year-old Ford Focus.
The price wasn’t always that low; when Model-T runabouts first hit the market around 1908, they cost $825, or roughly $17,000 today. The price was still lower than the average person’s yearly salary, though, and that was by design.
"I will build a car for the great multitude,” Henry Ford said of his design ethos for the Model-T in his 1922 autobiography. He envisioned a car that was convenient and high-quality, but “low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one.”
In 1912, there were fewer than 10,000 automobile registrations in the United States. By 1927 — the last year of the Model-T — Ford had slashed the price, and automobile registrations had soared to more than 20 million.
First practical gasoline powered car topped off at 10 mph
Steam-powered “horseless carriages” date back to the 18th century, but the first practical vehicle with an internal combustion engine was designed by engineer Karl Benz in 1885. The Benz Patent-Motorwagen had three wheels and not a lot of oomph; a journalist who drove a replica of one for Car and Driver in 1986 reported that it “gathers speed like a fog bank cresting a hill.” Its one-cylinder, four-stroke engine generated just one horsepower, and at 400 revolutions per minute, it could reach a max speed of 10 miles per hour (unless it was headed downhill). It was not hard for someone on foot to outrun the car.
Nevertheless, the Patent-Motorwagen was the first modern car to actually hit the market, and more than 25 of them were built between 1886 and 1893. Sales quintupled the following year, with more than 136 selling in 1894 alone.
‘76 Cadillac advertised as last-ever convertible
Convertible cars were synonymous with “cool” for decades, from the Alfa Romeo Spider to the Ford Shelby. In 1965, at the convertible’s peak, American automakers produced 509,415 of them. But in the 1970s, open-top cars dwindled as one by one, automakers removed them from production. This was due to a few factors: Automobile manufacturers were expecting new safety regulations around rollover accidents; high freeway speeds, air pollution, and the availability of air conditioning made an open car less appealing; and sunroofs, a more comfortable alternative, entered the scene in 1968.
By 1975, General Motors was the only car manufacturer still making convertibles, and in 1976, GM made only one single model: a luxurious white Cadillac Eldorado, which the company claimed was the last American convertible. Each car even had a numbered plaque. When the expected highway regulations never surfaced, convertibles crept back on the market in 1982. Not wanting to be left behind, GM resumed making the convertible Eldorado, angering the small group of people who had purchased the 1976 model thinking it would be a collector’s item.
Prius wasn’t the first hybrid car
A century before the Toyota Prius’ 1997 debut, Ferdinand Porsche — who later founded the eponymous sports car company — developed a hybrid, gas-electric vehicle. He even put one on the market. At the turn of the 20th century, gas engines hadn’t become standard yet, and one-third of all cars on the road were electric. Porsche, then working for vehicle magnate Ludwig Lohner, devised an automobile that used both gas and electric power by mounting electric motors to the wheel hubs, powered by a generator fueled by gas engines. Electric cars at the time had especially limited ranges, and by integrating the charger into the car, he expanded them considerably. He and Lohner dubbed their invention “Semper Vivus,” Latin for “always alive,” and presented it at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
A second, improved model, the Lohner-Porsche Mixte, actually went on the market for more than a decade, although not at a large scale. At the equivalent of more than $80,000 today, they were prohibitively expensive, so not many of the hybrid cars sold —but they performed well enough for Porsche to win the large car division of the 1902 Exelberg Hillclimb race while driving one.
Flying cars have existed since the 1950s
Flying cars are the ultimate futuristic vehicle, cemented in the public imagination by shows such as The Jetsons. Weirdly enough, flying cars actually existed — and were even on the market — years before the animated series premiered in 1962. They just weren’t very practical, and the transition from road to sky, while surprisingly fast, was far from seamless.
Moulton Taylor, a former naval engineer, prototyped the Aerocar in 1949, although the Civil Aeronautics Administration (a precursor to the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA) didn’t certify it until 1956. The main body of the vehicle was a sporty, compact coupe, with detachable wings that could either be carried behind it like a trailer or just left behind entirely. It took less than 15 minutes to transform the vehicle from car to airplane: You’d flip the license plate to attach the tail, then swing the wings up and pin them into place so the Aerocar could take flight.
The car did not go completely unnoticed. Taylor showed one off on the 1950s game show I’ve Got a Secret; it was featured prominently on the 1961 TV series The Bob Cummings Show; and a Portland, Oregon, radio station used one for weather reporting from 1962 to 1963. But the car never really caught on, and flying cars remain the purview of the imagination today.
America’s first car race lasted over 10 hours
The first American motorcar race took place in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day in 1895, and it had one very notable entrant: the Duryea Motor Wagon, the first gas-powered American automobile, driven by co-inventor Frank Duryea.
The race itself was harrowing. After a blizzard rolled in, the route was cut from 92 miles to 50 miles, and entrants had to wrap their tires in twine for traction. At least 70 racers planned to take part, but only six actually participated, and just four made it significantly past the starting line. Ultimately, only two cars, the Motor Wagon and a Benz, finished the race. Duryea, who took 10 hours and 23 minutes (including stops for refueling and repairs) to complete the race at an average speed of 7.3 miles per hour, took first place and a $2,000 prize. The runner-up rolled through two hours later.
That race sure didn’t go as planned — especially for the drivers that crashed along the way — but it worked out swimmingly for Duryea, at least in the short-term. He and his brother Charles got enough publicity to sell the very first vehicles purchased in the United States. They also made the first American car to enter (and the first to win) the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run (known then as the Emancipation Run), in 1896. Their luck proved to be short-lived, however, and the company folded in 1898.
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