AUTOTRADER.COM

The Benz Motorwagen, built in 1885, was patented on 29 January 1886 by Karl Benz as the first autotrader powered by an internal combustion engine. In 1888, a major breakthrough came when Bertha Benz drove an autotrader that her husband had built for a distance of more than 106 km (about 65 miles). This event demonstrated the practical usefulness of the autotrader and gained wide publicity, which was the promotion she thought was needed to advance the invention. The Benz vehicle was the first autotrader put into production and sold commercially. Bertha Benz's historic drive is celebrated as an annual holiday in Germany with rallies of antique autotrader. In 1892 Rudolf Diesel got a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine" by modifying the Carnot Cycle. And in 1897 he built the first Diesel Engine. On 5 November 1895, George B. Selden was granted a United States patent for a two-stroke autotrader engine (U.S. Patent 549160). This patent did more to hinder than encourage development of autotrader in the United States. Steam, electric, and gasoline powered autotrader competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Ransom E. Olds, the creator of the first autotrader assembly line The large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable autotrader was debuted by Ransom Eli Olds at his Oldsmobile factory in 1902. This assembly line concept was then greatly expanded by Henry Ford in the 1910s. Development of autotradermotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910-1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes. Although various pistonless rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the conventional piston and crankshaft design, only Mazda's version of the Wankel engine has had more than very limited success. Model changeover and design change Since the 1920s nearly all autotrader have been mass-produced to meet market needs, so marketing plans have often heavily influenced autotrader design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of autotrader produced by one firm, so that buyers could "move up" as their fortunes improved. The makes shared parts with one another so that the larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; the LaSalle of the 1930s, sold by Cadillac, used the cheaper mechanical parts made by the Oldsmobile division.