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When the first wheels rolled into India

December 23, 2008

And in America, Charles Duryea built a car carriage with a petrol engine in 1892. By 1898, there were 50 automobile manufacturing companies in the United States and as many as 241 by 1908.

In that year, Henry Ford, who had built his first car in 1893, revolutionised the manufacture of automobiles with his assembly-line style of production. Herbert Austin and William Morris introduced the system in Britain.

Motorised public transport had its beginnings in 1830, when Sir Goldworthy Gurney in the UK designed a large stagecoach driven by a steam engine to serve as a bus. The first truck was built by Gottlieb Daimler in 1896 with a four-horsepower engine.

It was meant to carry heavy loads. Until the 1920s, a bus consisted of a bus body mounted on a truck chassis. It was in 1921 that a chassis was developed in the United States especially meant for bus operation.

Both steam and gasoline driven cars were well developed before they made their appearance in India.

Image: A portrait of Ford founder Henry Ford hangs in the historic Piquette factory in Detroit, Michigan. | Photograph: REUTERS/Gary Cameron