ShmoopTube

00:03

The automobile industry really took off in the twenties but it actually [Men building wheels]

00:07

had its start as far back as the 1860s that's when a french dude named Lenoir

00:13

built a vehicle that ran on coal gas which he called a hippo mobile no

00:18

seriously that's what he called it and no actual hippos were not involved in

00:23

his experiment so why aren't we all riding around in hippo mobiles today [Man riding in hippomobile]

00:27

Because when Lenoir's invention ran on coal gas and when the internal

00:31

combustion engine came along coal gas engines were blown out of the water lots [Coal gas engines blown out of water]

00:36

of people in the early stages of car development were building cars that ran

00:41

on different sources of energy in the 1880s what were the two newest most

00:46

exciting kinds of energy we had.... nope not sunshine and magic jelly beans steam and

00:52

electricity these early car designs were creative [Man riding early car design car]

00:56

like if they turn them in for a school project it would have gotten a b-plus

00:59

and a teacher's note saying oh my goodness you have such an imagination [Person reading teachers note]

01:02

there dear after Lenoir's experiments a whole slew of inventors, tinkerers and

01:07

industrialists began improving on the design well the first car that was

01:11

seriously mass-produced was the 1901 oldsmobile oh she was something no [People looking at the 1901 oldsmobile]

01:17

roof or sides apparently no steering wheel two gears, yep and it cost $18,000

01:23

in today's money and a top speed of 20 miles an hour...guys we think he's a

01:28

winner well cars like the Oldsmobile were

01:30

basically just fun toys for wealthy people it wasn't really a national road [Construction workers look at rocky mountains]

01:34

network so long-distance driving was mostly impossible also there wasn't a

01:39

system of gas stations yet so like where would you get fuel would have been kind

01:43

of hard to stop dig for oil refine it and then you know pump it in as gasoline [Man digging for oil in a field]

01:47

but in 1908 the whole cars are useless rich people toys thing went straight out

01:53

the window a fellow by the name of Henry Ford legendary emblem of American

01:57

industry had been tinkering with car designs and auto companies for several

02:02

years he'd finally achieved his goal to design a car that could be assembled [Henry Ford riding a bike]

02:06

cheaply and marketed to the masses and that car was a Ford Model T... Model T's

02:12

were reliable, practical and way cheaper than any car before him

02:16

about 7,000 bucks for the basic model in today's money..America was about to [Man proposing to a Ford Model T]

02:21

discover just how much it loved cars....

02:25

.....Well in 1914 Ford sold over

02:30

200,000 cars by 1918 over half of all the cars in the country were his beloved [Ford Model T's driving in the streets]

02:36

model T's and the total number of cars out there was skyrocketing well the

02:41

entire American idea of transportation was changing from mass transport like

02:45

trolleys and buses and trains to individual movement and the whole world

02:50

was starting to change with us...The car craze was in full swing in Britain as

02:54

well and Karl Benz of mercedes-benz Fame had been making cars in Germany since [Karl Benz thinking about a three wheeled vehicle]

03:00

the 1880s owning and driving a car wasn't just a fun hobby for rich people

03:05

anymore now was for everybody and luckily for us other rich people had

03:09

different hobbies like bronzing favorite show dogs and yeah luckily that hasn't taken off.

03:14

Full Transcript