Story modern car began quite recently - just a few hundred years ago, and the pace of development of the automotive industry is accelerating every year. The very first cars, which most often looked like motorized carriages, developed slowly and their owners and inventors were either not taken seriously or considered very strange people who were engaged in unnecessary and incomprehensible research. However, their work was not in vain, so let's remember today what were the first cars?
What was the first car in the world
The very first car was an ordinary cart, which was equipped with steam engine, which was capable of delivering the power needed to move the car itself and the driver. Such the first steam car was created in 1768 and there was only one copy, which is quite logical, since there was simply no need for such machines.
The very idea of moving from horse-drawn carriages to mechanized carriages is a real breakthrough, which can be compared to the transition from the usual preservation of fire among cavemen to its production.
However, steam cars did not receive development due to too bulky design and inconvenience when loading fuel, and the inventors tried to come up with new version engine.
The first car with a gasoline engine
It took almost 40 years to search for new engine options, and already in 1806 the first car with an engine was created. internal combustion. Its design was also not perfect, but it was more convenient to use, so it was this branch of cars that was developed.
Already 80 years later, in 1885 Karl Benz introduced the first car ready for sale and serial production. It was very different from modern ones and the first thing that catches your eye is that it had not 4, but only 3 wheels.
Around the same time, the first motorized bicycle was invented, and a year later, the motorized cart, but Gottlieb Daimler became its inventor.
However, back to the three-wheeled miracle from Benz. This car was equipped with a 954 cm³ engine and was controlled by a T-handle. Despite the fact that this car made a splash among the world community, widespread this miracle of technology did not receive due to the huge cost of the car.
Separately, it is necessary to say a few words about the engine, since it is he who is a real breakthrough in the era of mechanical engineering. Despite the fact that his weight was about 100 kg, the best options The engine didn't exist at the time. It is worth noting that in the patent for the invention of the automobile, received by Benz, the engine power was indicated at 2/3 horsepower, although the actual power of the car was slightly higher and reached 0.9 horsepower at 400 rpm. This tricycle miracle technology could reach a speed of 16 kilometers per hour, which for that time was a very good result, and already in 1890 the car began to be mass-produced. You can see this car in operation in the video:
Four wheels instead of three
A three-wheeled car for a modern person is a curiosity and antiquity, although it was very much quoted among connoisseurs of the beauty of that era for its unusual and elegant design. But despite this, a few years after the appearance of the first car with an internal combustion engine, even Benz himself came to the conclusion that the three-wheeled car needed to be improved. Despite the fact that the four-wheeled version seemed less elegant and looked more like a carriage or cart, it was the four-wheeled car that was easier to maintain and more durable due to the lower load on front wheel. And already 3 years later, in 1893, the first four-wheeled car appeared, which in fact was a modified version of the Benz car, and was no different from his first invention.
The modifications did not end there, and in 1885 the Victoria car appeared. The improvement of the four-wheeled car created by Benz continued until 1890 and during this time more than 2300 such cars were produced and sold.
From functionality to appearance
Naturally, Benz was not the only inventor who was involved in the creation of cars. In parallel with him, Gottlieb Daimler conducted his work, who decided to approach the issue of creating a car in a slightly different way. The first models of his cars were simple horse-drawn carriages, which were driven by a motor.
Such carriages appeared as early as 1886, but due to design features and too much load from a single-cylinder engine on the structure, were extremely inconvenient, which prompted the inventor to continue working on his car.
Gottlieb Daimler himself spoke of himself as a restrained and patient designer who does not rush forward, but thinks more judiciously. Instead of modifying the current model, he primarily focused on developing own engine internal combustion, for which he soon received a patent.
At this time, his employees were also working on a new car, which was put into production in 1895 under the name "Daimler". New engines were subsequently used to produce completely revolutionary car models.
It is worth saying that by that time the first car had already been produced that could reach a speed of 80 km / h, and this happened in 1985. This car was equipped four-cylinder engine with a capacity of as much as 24 horsepower, which was a real breakthrough at that time.
However, this high-speed car was very bulky, very difficult to drive and far from the safest, so the company still had a lot of work to do.
The very first Mercedes
The Daimler company did the best job with this work, and by the end of 1890 a world-famous car appeared, which was named after the daughter of the founder of the company, Mercedes Daimler. This car, according to experts and historians, has become the prototype of modern cars.
Mercedes, with a capacity of 35 horsepower, is a real achievement and the pinnacle of the engineering skill of that time. The ignition in this car was carried out using a magnet. low voltage, the car had the ability to shift gears, and there is nothing to say about the quality of the body - it was the last know-how in the automotive industry of that era. A high-quality stamped frame made the car stronger and made it possible to apply fundamentally new techniques in the manufacture of a car body.
The brakes of the new car have become more advanced, and the car itself has become more reliable and obedient, which made it so popular among motorists. A little later, models equipped with a 5.3-liter side-valve engine were released, which also became popular and is still considered almost the best example of cars of that era.
The first car in Russia
Russia, although lagging behind foreign manufacturers cars, but still eventually realized the prospects for the development of this industry. The first car that appeared in Russia was the French handsome Panard-Levassor, a French car brought to Russia in 1891 by Vasily Navrotsky. At that time, he served as editor of the Odessa Leaf newspaper. After that, interest in cars in Russia became more lively, and by the end of the year several more cars were imported into the country. However, despite this, for the first time cars on the streets of Moscow, the first cars appeared only in 1899.
At this time, the country also developed its own models of cars with an internal combustion engine, and the first such production car was the Frese and Yakovlev Car, which was first presented to the public in 1896. However, a lot of interest among the highest circles and official representatives Russian Empire at the fair, this car was not called.
This practically set the tone for the development of the automotive industry in the country, because in Russia, although they began to produce trucks and cars in small batches, they were assembled under a license foreign companies from spare parts produced abroad. Unfortunately, until 1917 own production there were no spare parts and cars in the Russian Empire.
The situation changed after the Revolution, when the old system and the old views on pre-revolutionary life changed dramatically. Since then, mechanical engineering in Russia and the countries of the former CIS has begun its difficult path.
From mechanical carts to modern cars
The history of the automotive industry also includes several dead-end branches of development, including electric cars of the 20th century and the like, which were not directly developed, but can give food for thought to current engineers, since the ideas of some cars were quite sensible and just lacked technical feasibility implement these projects.
Since every day the automotive industry and the number of cars produced are only increasing, more powerful engines and committed brake systems, new materials are used to make the car body and even computers are installed, it is quite possible that soon another industrial revolution awaits us and modern cars in the future will be looked at in the same way as we now looked at cars of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Any event that in one way or another gave impetus to the development of a fundamentally new type of activity is sooner or later regarded as historical. To establish its authenticity and exact time what happened are usually based on documentary evidence. The public of Russia relatively recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of the appearance of the first domestic car with internal combustion engines. But before celebrating the round date of the event that gave rise to the automotive industry in Russia, it would be necessary to collect information that would allow us to confidently assert the fact, time and place of this event.
Unfortunately, for a long time studies of the development of the automotive industry in our country were not conducted. In any case, there were few publications on this topic, and they were random. At the end of the 1940s, the facts of the primacy of domestic scientists and technicians attracted the attention of domestic historians. Then it became obvious that the country, which has become a great world power in the century scientific and technological progress should have a worthy biography in this area, which would create the foundation for the image of a great power.
In 1899, the first car appeared in Moscow.
The beginning of work in this direction was the article by A.M. Kreer, published in the journal "Automotive and Tractor Industry" No. 6, 1950, in which, for the first time in the post-revolutionary period, the names of 39 Russian engineers, inventors, entrepreneurs who played important role in the formation and development of domestic automotive industry and transport, as well as the creators of the first Russian car: Evgeny Alexandrovich Yakovlev (1857-1898) and Petr Alexandrovich Frese (1844-1918).
Later N.A. Yakovlev (1955), A.S. Isaev (1961), V.I. Dubovskoy (1962), L.M. Shugurov (1971), A.I. Onoshko (1975), N.Ya. Lirman (1976), V.N. Belyaev (1981) and Ya.I. Ponomarev (1995) conducted research in this direction. special attention the find of the employee of the State Archive of the Gorky Region A.I. Onoshko. Among the glass negatives M.P. Dmitriev, a photo chronicler of the Volga region, he found a fairly clear negative of a photograph of E.A. Yakovlev and P.A. Frese, according to which later, independently of each other, V.I. Dubovskaya, Yu.A. Dolmatovsky, L.M. Shugurov and E.S. Baburin determined the dimensional ratios of the structure and the scale using the graphical-analytical method. This made it possible to determine the dimensions of the parts and in 1996 to build a working copy of the car. Its base is -1370 mm, track - 1230 mm in front and 1290 in the rear, length - 2180 mm, width - 1530 mm, height - 1440 mm (with the top folded). The analysis showed that they differ markedly from the dimensions of the Velo and Victoria models from Benz. 
At present, another photograph of the first Russian car is known, placed by A. Shustov in the album "Illustrated Bulletin of Culture and Commercial and Industrial Progress of Russia in 1900-1901." Description of kerosene engines E.A. Yakovlev, which have been produced since 1891 at his plant in St. Petersburg (B. Spasskaya st., 28), were published on the pages of the Bulletin of the Imperial Technical Society (issue XI, 1891).
A detailed description of the car itself was placed in the "Journal latest inventions and discoveries” (No. 24, 1896), which came out before the opening of the All-Russian Artistic and Industrial Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod, which took place on May 27 (June 9), 1896
Emperor Nicholas II, as follows from his diary, examined the exhibits for three days and on August 2 (15) examined the crew department, where he was shown a car in action. (“There’s nothing to look at, it’s better abroad.”) 
What was said by the king, the anointed of God, was perceived as the ultimate truth. The emperor did not appreciate the first car in Russia.
At the Nizhny Novgorod fair, the hopes of the creators of the first Russian car collapsed. The engine of the Yakovlev system brought the designer a silver award, the crew of the Frese and K company was also awarded a silver medal, and their main exhibit, the car, was almost never mentioned anywhere. As if he was not at the exhibition. Perhaps irritation and resentment, lack of support prompted Evgeny Yakovlev and Petr Frese to the idea of getting rid of their creation.
Invention of the first automobile
The history of the first Russian car began in 1893 in Chicago, at the world exhibition, where the Benz car of the Velo model was demonstrated. He attracted the attention of two Petersburgers presenting their products here. Interestingly, they first met only at the exhibition. They were the owner of a kerosene plant and gas engines Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yakovlev and Peter Alexandrovich Frese, manager of the horse-drawn carriage factory. The decision to jointly produce a similar "self-running carriage" suggested itself. And three years later, in 1896, the first Russian production car was presented to the general public.
It is easy to guess that the engine and transmission were manufactured by the Yakovlev plant, and the body, chassis and wheels - by the Frese factory. Naturally, this car was very similar to the design of Benz both in appearance and in constructive solutions. However, it was not a repetition of the German design, but its original design. The drawings were not preserved, and historians restored the parameters of the car according to the available photographs and descriptions. 
What was this design?
Both in appearance and design, the first Russian car strongly resembled the Benz-Velo, as well as the Richard-Duc car produced in France under license from Benz.
The equipment of the car included a folding leather top, a horn with a rubber pear, lanterns with candles. For turning, a steering lever on a column mounted vertically in front of the seat served.
The layout is rear-engined. Engine - 2 hp. with., four-stroke, with one horizontally located cylinder. (The Benz had a power of 1.5 hp.) Water was used to cool the cylinder, and the heat exchangers were two brass containers placed along the sides at the rear of the car. The ignition of the mixture was electric (dry cell battery and patented candle), while many engines of those years used a glow tube. The carburetor was the simplest, the so-called evaporation type (as opposed to modern spray-type carburetors). Its body in the form of a high cylinder was located in the rear left corner of the body. As on all other Yakovlev engines, the exhaust valve had mechanical drive, A inlet valve acted, as they said then, "automatically" i.e. from discharging. In front of the engine (it was located at rear wheels) under the seat of the driver and passenger passed a transverse drive shaft with a differential. The sprockets mounted on its ends through the chains transmitted rotation to the driven sprockets connected to the spokes of the rear drive wheels by six stepladders each. Judging by the ratio of the diameters of the chain sprockets visible in the surviving photographs of the Russian car, gear ratio main gear was about 5.45. The car had two brakes. Hand brake(from a lever located at the left side of the body) acted on the tires of the rear wheels, pressing tiny brake pads. It was this brake, according to modern terminology, that was the worker, and the other, the foot brake, played an auxiliary role and acted on the drive shaft of the transmission.
Car "Russo-Balt" model 1910 in the State Polytechnic Museum in Moscow.
The gearbox is similar to the Benz one, but the leather belts have been replaced with more reliable ones made of multi-layered rubberized fabric. There were two forward gears and a mode idle move. Reverse gear was absent. Features of the belt drive made it possible to do without a clutch. The transmission was a very unusual design from a modern point of view. From the box, the force was transmitted to the differential with transverse drive shafts, from which, through two chain (bicycle) gears, the drive wheels rotated. That is, the cross-axle differential was not between the wheels, but somewhat in front of them. There were two brakes. The main (foot) acted on the drive shaft of the gearbox. The other (manual) pressed the rubber bars against the tires of the rear wheels. The gears were switched on by levers placed on the racks to the left and right of the steering column, the gear reversing was absent. Yakovlev and Frese's car was not just a copy german model, despite the fact that by 1896 four "Benzes" were already driving around St. Petersburg: two - the "Velo" models and two - "Victoria". In fairness, it should be noted the difference between Russian and German cars in the engine steering, in the design of the wheels and other parts. In addition, the first "Benz-Velo" arrived in St. Petersburg in May 1895, when even a detailed acquaintance with its device could not affect the constructive basic decisions of Yakovlev and Frese. 
The undercarriage of the car, made by the Frese factory, had a lot in common with horse-drawn carriages. The body was double, open, with a folding cloth top. In general, the whole structure was very reminiscent of a span without irradiation (the place where the coachman sat) both in appearance and in design. The suspension used full elliptical springs (they are also called "carriage"). Wheels - wooden, rear - more than the front, with solid rubber tires. The wheel hubs were mounted on plain bearings - a classic cart solution! front and rear axle connected the subframe, forming a kind of chassis, to which the body was attached with the help of springs. Very original done steering. The front wheels turned on pivots along with the springs.
The car weighed about 300 kg and could reach speeds of up to 21 km / h. The supply of gasoline allowed to move 10 hours. The length was 2.2 meters, width - 1.5 meters.
The first Russian car was demonstrated at the Nizhny Novgorod exhibition in 1896, where it made demonstration trips. Unfortunately, it did not arouse the interest of the officials of the Russian Empire, and the creators of the design could only rely on themselves. But both Yakovlev and Frese were not fanatic inventors, but industrialists. And already in 1897, an advertisement appeared in the Novoye Vremya newspaper with the following content: “E. A. Yakovlev’s plant offers self-propelled carriages with quick execution of orders and at reasonable prices.” Now it is impossible to establish how many cars were manufactured. One thing is for sure: the design of Yakovlev - Frese was created precisely as a serial, commercial vehicle. 
The first Russian car played the role of a kind of battering ram that broke through the wall that stood between Russian entrepreneurship and the automotive industry that was emerging in the world. Many energetic people took up this, in their opinion, promising and profitable business. In the capital St. Petersburg alone, a dozen and a half firms and enthusiasts appeared: the P. D. Yakovlev. "Iv. Breitigam”, “Victory”, joint-stock company “G. A. Lessner, as well as Skavronsky, Meise, Kryummel, Rogozin, Romanov and some others. In Moscow, P. Ilyin headed a group that began building cars in Karetny Ryad. For the construction of "motors" began in Riga, Warsaw, Yaroslavl, Nakhichevan, even in Blagoveshchensk.
It is the Russo-Balt S-24/30 car, which first traveled along the roads of the Russian Empire on June 8 (May 26, old style), 1909, should be considered the firstborn of the domestic automotive industry. All cars with an internal combustion engine that appeared in our country before that were, in fact, single handicraft products. And only the first "Russo-Balt" became a real serial machine industrial release.
The Russian-Baltic Carriage Works (RBVZ), which had been operating in Riga since 1869, initially specialized in the production of carriages for railways Ural and Trans-Siberian Railway. At the beginning of the 20th century, after the completion of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which connected the European part of Russia with the Far East, the demand for railway wagons decreased. And the plant switched to the production of military convoys for the needs of our army.
But with the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 production capacity RBVZ were again not loaded on full power. It was necessary to start the production of some new civilian products, and the director of the plant, Ivan Aleksandrovich Fryazinovsky, suggested mastering and starting the production of cars - an absolutely new “product” at that time.
Fryazinovsky approached the solution of the problem as an experienced businessman - in 1908, a Automotive department, who studied the possibilities and prospects for the production of cars in Russia. Soon, in 1910, for the Automobile Department of the RBVZ, they bought an existing production facility - the Frese and Co. crew factory, the creators of which, engineers Petr Alexandrovich Frese and Evgeny Alexandrovich Yakovlev, had been working on the design of the first samples of a Russian car with an internal engine since the end of the 19th century. combustion.
In addition to the developments of Yakovlev and Frese, the RBVZ Automobile Department also used advanced European experience, inviting engineers from the Belgian company Fondu to work in Russia. As a result, by 1909, in the Automobile Department of the Russian-Baltic Carriage Works, 10 engineers, 141 workers and 3 test drivers were already working on the creation of the first production car in our country.
over creation domestic engine for the first production car in Russia, a Don Cossack and a talented engineer Dmitry Dmitrievich Bondarev worked at the plant. Shortly after the start of production of the serial Ruso-Balt, it was he who headed the Automobile Department of the RBVZ.
This is how the first Russian mass-produced car was born - the Russo-Balt S-24/30, which rolled off the assembly line on June 8 (May 26, old style), 1909. The C-24/30 index was deciphered as follows: 24 is the estimated engine power in horsepower, 30 is the maximum power.
Car "Russo-Balt". Photo: cover of the magazine "Behind the Wheel", 1989
Then it seemed incredible that in Russia, with its off-road, the car would quickly become wildly popular. But the creators of Russo-Balt were not mistaken - already the first series was issued in the amount of 347 copies, which was a very impressive figure for the technology of the early 20th century.
The Russo-Balt vehicle was designed taking into account advanced European experience, but much more adapted to Russian circumstances. The first Russo-Balt model S-24/35 was also suitable for winter conditions, skis could be installed on it and rubber tracks with metal combs for increased cross-country ability.
Noteworthy is the fact that one of the copies of Russo-Balt, released in 1910, traveled 80 thousand kilometers in four years without major repairs. The reputation of the cars of the Russian-Baltic Carriage Works was so high that two copies in 1913 were ordered by the garage of the Emperor of Russia himself. Moreover, on the eve of the First World War, 64% of all vehicles of the plant were purchased by the Russian army, where they were used not only as headquarters and ambulances, but also as a chassis for building armored cars.
The Russian-Baltic Carriage Works began to develop its production in accordance with the specifics of the automotive industry. New foundries and assembly shops appeared, and the number of workers increased. The design department headed for the production of passenger cars in three new series: "C", "K" and "E". All models answered the most advanced technologies of that time, and participation in automobile exhibitions more than once made Russo-Balt cars gold medalists.
The RBVZ model, which has been produced since 1912 under the S-24 index, has achieved special attention and popularity. It was on her chassis that the most expensive crews were installed: limousines, open six-seater bodies, as well as racing cars. By the way, racing specimens of Russo-Balt could develop a record speed at that time - up to 85 km / h. Andrei Nagel, a famous Russian racing driver, made several victorious runs through Europe, Asia and Africa in 1912-1913 in his light streamlined Russo-Balt without any serious breakdowns.
During the First World War, in 1916, when German troops approached Riga, the RBVZ plant was evacuated to the outskirts of Moscow, in Fili, and received the name "Second car factory Russo-Balt. Until 1921, it was considered the most well-equipped plant in Russia and was re-equipped for the manufacture of armored vehicles. The last five copies of the Russo-Balt car were produced here in 1922.
In the following year, 1923, the plant's capacities were redesigned for aircraft production, and in this capacity, the heir to the Russian-Baltic Plant exists in our time, being part of the State Space Research and Production Center named after M.V. Khrunichev.
Only two original copies have survived to this day. legendary car Russo-Balt. The first one was recreated from fragments different machines and is located in the Moscow Polytechnic Museum, and the second is exhibited in its historical homeland, in Riga. It is thanks to the Russo-Balt car that June 8 can be considered the real birth date of the domestic automotive industry.
The first Russian car born in Petersburg in May 1896 and was first shown at the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod in June of the same year. The car with a double body weighed about 300 kg and developed a speed of up to 20 km / h. The first press report about this event appeared on July 8, 1896. in the Petersburg newspaper Novoye Vremya. The creators of the first domestic horseless crew were two inventors from St. Petersburg - a retired lieutenant of the navy Evgeny Alexandrovich Yakovlev and mining engineer Petr Alexandrovich Frese. One of them belonged to the First Russian Plant of Kerosene and Gas Engines E.A. Yakovlev" (now the plant "Vulkan"), to another - Joint-Stock Company the construction of Frese and Co. crews at 10 Ertelev Lane (now M. Morskaya Street, St. Petersburg), E. Yakovlev undertook to manufacture an engine with one horizontal cylinder about two horsepower, and a transmission ( two-stage box gears and differential). In this, he relied on the experience of K. Benz, like other car makers of that time in Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA.Interesting fact
At an early stage of the automotive industry, along with automobile plants, bodywork (crew) ones also appeared. Most of the factories produced only chassis and the buyer, acquiring the chassis, gave it to the carriage factory, where, in accordance with his wishes, "carosseri" were made - that was the name of car bodies at that time. The report on the IV International car exhibition held in Petersburg in 1913. Among its exhibits at stand No. 29 were presented five Mercedes cars with bodies of the St. Petersburg carriage factory Breitigam. Among other carriage factories, the leading places were occupied by such St. Petersburg factories as Frese, Pobeda, P.D. Yakovlev", "Otto" and "Bubbles". The bodies of Russian factories were repeatedly awarded the highest awards at international automobile exhibitions in 1907-1913. in Russia. At the first of these exhibitions in 1907, bodies of the P.D. Yakovlev". But of all these carriage factories, only Frese and Co. made an attempt to organize the production of passenger cars and trucks. From 1901 to 1904 she manufactured several dozen cars with engines and transmissions from De Dion Bouton, and also tested an experimental trolleybus and road train with electric transmission. But weakness production base did not allow the development of the started business.
In 1909, the “Russian Automobile Plant I.P. Bubble". Its founder set out to set things up in such a way that Russian production it would not have been just a name, but it would have been really Russian "... the plant independently produced all automotive parts from Russian material, by Russian workers and under the guidance of Russian engineers." The second task was to create a car that meets the requirements of movement in Russia (in relation to the features of our roads) .In 1911, the main model of the plant was designated "28-35", in 1912 "A28-40". This machine was quite simple in design, had a large margin of safety, but it was a bit heavy. Its differences were high cross, ground clearance in 320 mm and other innovations. On Puzyrev's cars, for the first time in the world, all gears in the checkpoint switched on by cam clutches- it was the factory's own invention. The gear levers were no longer located outside the body, but inside it. The crankcases of the engine, gearbox and differential were cast from aluminum, rear axle had axle shafts of a fully unloaded type.
The working volume of the engines was up to 6325 cc, power up to 40 hp. At the IV International Automobile Exhibition in St. Petersburg in the spring of 1913, I.P. Puzyrev exhibited three cars - an open one with a seven-seat "torpedo" body and a closed one with a five-seat "limousine" body - both with 40-horsepower engines, as well as a sports chassis with an overhead valve engine.
In the summer of 1896, at the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod, the first model of a domestic car was presented, a joint project of the carriage factory of Peter Frese and the machine-building plant of Evgeny Yakovlev.
The first 20 years for our automotive industry turned out to be much more turbulent and fruitful than subsequent eras.
Yakovlev-Frese (1896)
The engineers of the first self-propelled carriage planned to put it into mass production, however, the death of one of them, Evgeny Yakovlev, put an end to the idea. His companions considered the production of cars to be unpromising and ceased cooperation with the Frese factory. He was forced to buy engines abroad, and then sold the company to the Russo-Baltic Plant, which began to produce the first stock cars. The idea to assemble and produce a car in Russia came to Frese and Yakovlev back in 1893 at an exhibition in Chicago. There they saw the car of Karl Benz, which impressed them with its simple and efficient design. Russian industrialists spent three years to get around patent barriers and reinvent the wheelchair on their own. Weight finished model amounted to 300 kg. The gasoline engine contained two horsepower, allowed to drive without refueling for 10 hours and could accelerate to a speed of 21 km per hour. There were only two gears: forward and idle.
Romanov (1899)
3 years after the appearance of the first gasoline engine the first electric motor appeared. And the first electric car. It was created by Ippolit Romanov, a nobleman from Odessa. Romanov's car was much faster, but also heavier than Yakovlev-Frese's car. He accelerated to 37 km per hour with a weight of 750 kg. It is noteworthy that almost half the mass of the car was the battery. It was disposable, it was not subject to recharging and worked only 65 km: on average, it was enough for two to three hours of driving. In addition to cars, the enthusiast Romanov developed a model of an omnibus designed for 17 people, which could accelerate to 19 km per hour. Alas, Romanov's electric vehicles were not put into serial production: the engineer could not find financial support, although he received a state order for 80 models.
Dux (1902)
Russian cars ran not only on gasoline and electricity, but also on steam. Yes, they didn’t just drive, but in all respects they left behind both electric and gasoline counterparts. They seemed elegant to contemporaries, were relatively silent and faster. The first steam car (or, as it was also called, a locomobile) was assembled at the Duks enterprise. The engines of locomobiles had from 6 to 40 horsepower. The company produced not only passenger models, but also motorcycles, omnibuses, railcars, snowmobiles. racing model"Duksa" could reach speeds of up to 140 km per hour! All this was not enough for the inventor and entrepreneur Julius Meller, who owned the Dux company, and since 1910 he began to produce aircraft and airships. Gradually, with the development of aircraft construction, the automotive component of the enterprise fades into the background. And in 1918, "Dux" was nationalized and turned into the "State Aviation Plant No. 1".
Leitner, motorcycle "Russia" (1902)
In the same 1902, the first motorcycle appeared in Russia, which was called "Russia". It was assembled by the Riga industrialist Alexander Leitner. The first motorcycle was an improved bicycle equipped with a motor. The engine had a volume of 62 cubic centimeters, consumed 3.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers and developed top speed at 40 km per hour - at 1.75 horsepower. The first motorcycle cost three times more expensive than a bicycle: 450 rubles against, for example, 135 for a Duxa bicycle. However, this price was 10 times lower than the price passenger car: inexpensive "Renault" cost 5 thousand rubles, Russian models- even more expensive.
Cheaper compared to cars relative, because 450 rubles is almost a semi-annual income of a Russian with an average income. therefore, the trade in the first motorcycles was sluggish, at ten units a year, and by 1908 had ceased altogether.
Lessner (1904)
What is an omnibus or a motorcycle - in 1904, the first one appeared in Russia fire engine. It was made at the Lessner company by order of the Alexander Nevsky fire department of St. Petersburg. Its designer was already at that time well-known in Russia and abroad Boris Lutsky. Back in April 1901, two of his five-ton trucks and one passenger car arranged a test drive along Nevsky Prospekt and were shown to the emperor. However, it is the two-ton fire engine "Lassner" that is considered the first car completely assembled according to Lutsky's drawings in Russia. The model was designed for 14 people of the fire brigade and developed a speed of up to 25 kilometers per hour.
Another "Lessner", a dark green limousine of 1907, became one of the inhabitants of the densely populated garage of Nicholas II, who passionately loved cars. Due to the similarity in design and appearance this car was called "Russian Mercedes".
Russo-Balt (1909)
The most popular car brand in Tsarist Russia was Russo-Balt, first released in 1909. There were two main engines: C and K. The first was larger, more powerful, with an estimated engine power of 24 horsepower. The second is smaller, with twelve horses under the hood.
Due to production costs, the price of the Puzyrev-28-35 car amounted to eight thousand rubles, which even exceeded the price of the expensive Russo-Balts. The car was reliable, but bulky. All this did not add to her popularity. And in the press, the patriotic car was disliked: they called it handicraft and compared it with the worst foreign models.
Bad luck added to the failures in the market. In January 1914, a fire broke out at the Puzyrev plant, destroying eight assembled machines and fifteen sets of parts ready for assembly. And in September, the patriotic engineer died.
