The birth of the car as we know it today took several years and the works and developments of many people. It was not until 1885 that the first car rolled down the streets; however, earlier attempts at steam powered road vehicles were successful, giving people the idea that cars as we know them today have existed for a lot longer than they have.
The first steam-powered vehicle was designed by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769 and could attain speeds of up to 6 km/hour. Two years later, he designed another, much faster steam-driven engine, which was so fast that it rammed into a wall, recording the world's first car accident. These early steam-powered vehicles were so heavy that they were only practical on a perfectly flat surface as strong as iron. However impractical as these cars may have been, the design for these vehicles were the basis for the first self-propelled vehicles and ultimately the basis for the design of the car we know today.
The next step towards the development of the car was the invention of the internal combustion engine. Francois Isaac de Rivaz designed the first internal combustion engine in 1807, using a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to generate energy. Several designs were developed for a car to run on the internal combustion engine during the early 19 th century, but with little to no degree of commercial success due to the fact that there was no known fuel that could be safely internally combusted.
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