125 Years Ago on August 29: The Gottlieb Daimler "Riding Car" Patent Was Filed and the Dawn of the Automobile Era Began

(Note, I thought I had scheduled this to be published on August 29, but it somehow sneaked out a few days early.)

In any case, Daimler filed for his patent on the Reitwagen (literally, "riding wagon" but normally translated as "riding car" -- it is actually more like a motorcycle) on August 29, 1885, as you can read at the Daimler website -- a patent issued as DRP Nr. 36 423 on August 11, 1886.

Image via Wikipedia

2-wheeler

Chuck Squatriglia of Autopia at Wired in The Dawn of the Automobile Era informs us, together with great photographs, that:

"The age of the automobile started exactly 125 years ago when Gottlieb Daimler filed a patent for his revolutionary “riding car,” a two-wheeled machine driven by an internal combustion engine."

As written at the Daimler website, that was preceded by Gottlieb Daimler's April 3, 1885 patent for  a light, heavy-duty 4-stroke combustion engine, and followed in 1886 by the 3-wheel "Patent Car" of Carl Benz and the 4-wheel "car" of Gottlieb Daimler, a "motor carriage".

Image via Wikipedia

3-wheeler

Image via Wikipedia

4-wheeler

See also ZERCustoms.com.