STL All Sports

Thrilling and dangerous sports always attract 300,000 fans. Thousands of races are held spectators. One of the leading crowd-pleasing throughout the country on a weekly, sometimes sports is automobile racing. A prime example is twice-weekly basis. The crowds are big, as are the the annual Memorial Day 500-mile race at purses for the successful drivers. Races for big Indianapolis Speedway, which draws almost cars, midgets, stock, sports, and drag have brought drivers from all over the world, either amateur or pro, into their particular classification.

Although the automobile is a modern invention and came into existence after the practice of keeping records, was adopted there is a controversy, and always will be, as to who created the first vehicle that actually could travel under its own power.

England, France, Italy and the United States present claims, whereas Germany, which never aspired to credit, certainly seems entitled to the honor of perfecting the first device that could operate, both on land and water, under its own means of propulsion.

The claim of France is centered in something put together by M. Cugat about 1769. Cugat had the idea for a vehicle that was to be steam-driven. What he put together is not fully established, but there is no evidence that Cugat built anything that was practical, or could move along through its own power.

The English award the invention prize to Robert Treverthick and attempt to bolster it with untenable claims. Treverthick is given the distinction of building a steam-driven automobile. He is supposed to have put it into operation in 1824, at which time it is reported to have "hauled 3 or 4 cars from Gloucester to Cheltenham (England) at the rate of 14 miles an hour." The time that is quoted provokes the challenge, since it was not until more than 70 years after Treverthick's machine that an automobile, blessed by internal combustion, which was unknown to Treverthick, traveling alone, and at limited speed, and for merely one mile, moved at 39.24 miles per hour.

The Italians had in the Industrial Museum, Torino, Italy, a strange contraption created in 1837 by General Bordio, who also was an engineer, which they claimed was the "first automobile." The operating principle was steam. However, there is nothing to indicate that the Bordio vehicle ever moved an inch under its own power. It was something Bordio thought might travel by its own power, not something that actually did travel by itself.

Until Gottlieb Daimler perfected internal combustion in 1885 using petroleum spirits, which actually meant kerosene, the men striving to create an automobile worked on the idea that it must be steam-propelled. To create steam, an enormous tank of water was necessary, plus a gigantic furnace, since wood then was used as fuel. The steam-driven theory appeared to be impractical because the required boiler and water tank were too large.

Daimler, a German, tinkered with the internal combustion idea through the early 1880's. In 1885 he attached his engine to an ordinary bicycle, with chains operating off the engine onto the wheels. He succeeded, by using "petroleum spirits," in driving the bicycle forward. In 1887 he attached his motor to a rowboat on the River Seine and the experiment was successful Thus, the motorcycle and the motorboat, which were supposed to have followed the automobile, actually preceded it.

Levassor, a Frenchman, improved on the Daimler idea by building an automobile body, into which he placed an engine. This was in 1887 or 1888. Therefore, while Daimler originated internal combustion, making the automobile possible, Levassor was the actual creator of the automobile as we know it today, since Daimler perfected only the motorcycle and motorboat.