The world’s first gas-powered car
Everyone knows gas powers most of our cars but in 1870, this idea was revolutionary. Siegfred Marcus put a one-cylinder internal combustion engine with a crude carburetor on a handcart and filled it with liquid fuel making him the first man to drive a vehicle by means of a gasoline. The cart drove for around 500 feet and is now known as the "first Marcus car". In 1883, Marcus used a low voltage magneto-type ignition working together with his rotating brush carburetor for his famous "second Marcus car". It ran at 10 mph and considered very innovative at the time with a few historians naming it as the forerunner of the modern automobile for being the world’s first gasoline-powered vehicle.
Siegfried Marcus was born a German but later moved to Austria in 1852. He manufactured scientific instruments in Vienna and held 131 patents, improving several electric devices such as telegraph systems and ignition devices.
