September 25, 1725 – The inventor of the automobile is born, and later crashes…
The first automobile accident...
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, the man credited with building the first known working, self-propelled mechanical vehicle capable of carrying a driver, was born on this day in 1725. At the age of 40, Cugnot, a French military engineer and inventor, began to develop a steam powered vehicle capable of transporting cannons for the French Army. This led to the 1769 debut of a scaled-down version of a “fardier a vapeur,” translated to steam dray. A fardier is a massive two wheeled, horse drawn cart used to transport heavy equipment, but Cugnot's version utilized a third wheel where the horses would normally be.
Cugnot's 1770 fardier à vapeur, as preserved at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris.
In 1770 he built a full size version designed to carry...
