World's first car crash

Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot was born in Void-Vacon, Lorraine, in and was trained as a military engineer.

Fardier a vapeur

The vehicle was modelled after the fardier, which was a massively built two-wheeled horse-drawn cart for transporting very heavy equipment, such as cannon barrels. Instead of having a horse at the front, there was a third wheel, which supported a large copper boiler and the driving mechanism. Cugnot was one of the first to successfully employ a device for converting the reciprocating motion of a steam piston into a rotary motion by means of a ratchet arrangement, which was used to drive the front wheel.

The vehicle was reported to have been very unstable owing to poor weight distribution, a serious disadvantage for a vehicle intended to be able to traverse rough terrain and climb steep hills. In addition, boiler performance was also particularly poor, even by the standards of the day. In , during a trial Cugnot drove one of his vehicles into a stone wall, giving the inventor the distinct honor of being the first person to get into a motor vehicle accident.

The story goers that Cugnot was arrested and convicted of dangerous driving, another first for him if true. After several trials, the project was abandoned by the French Army. Nevertheless, the development was so impressive that King Louis XV awarded Cugnot a pension of Livres a year for his ingenuity. Unfortunately, the French Revolution cut off the pension, and the inventor withdrew to Brussels, where he lived in poverty.

Who was credited with the world's first practical motorcar

Shortly before his death, Cugnot's pension was restored by Napoleon Bonaparte and he eventually returned to Paris where he died on 2 October The replica worked perfectly demonstrating the validity of the concept. Another replica was built by the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum in The boiler was fed with a supply of oak, and after about 45 minutes there was enough steam to push the vehicle forward at about 3 to 4 mph.

It'll go about yards before it needs to be recharged, and the steam and smoke all blow back in the driver's face.