What it was like to drive a car in the 1890s 

To think my great grandma was born in 1900 and got to live to 2001 she really got to see cars change drastically in her lifetime

In 1908 my great grandparents were married and after their honeymoon, my great, great uncle gave them their first car ride ever when he went to pick them up at the train station. The trip back to their farm was so bumpy and uncomfortable that my great grandma thought, "Oh these things are terrible! They'll never catch on." Then my grandma was born a few years later and she prided herself on being of the first generation to grow up without ever knowing what it was like to live without cars.

"I miss the 90s cars".

In the early 1920s my grandmother wanted a car but my grandfather said a horse and buggy was good enough for him. She went out and bought a car, a 1921 Dodge. My mother said her earliest memories were of her sitting in the backseat while the car salesman was in the front seat teaching my grandmother how to drive.

"Up to 40kph the streets were OK but with higher speeds the bumpy streets became increasingly dangerous" - I can attest to this with my bike.

In 1915 my great grandfather drove his family from So. Dakota to San Diego. He had 3 flats on the first day but none after that. Driving across the California desert was scary. In some places the road disappeared. He had 4 children with him and wife too!

my country was way behind on cars, my great grandfather had one in the 1920s (maybe in 1918) and still the whole village would run out to see it.

It's mind-blowing that besides inventing the car, Benz in the forms of the person and the company were responsible for a large chunk of automobile innovations

The muffler didn't come about 'till 1899. These machines were also despised for their great clatter and noise. Their best advantage was they didn't leave poop on the road, but that didn't mitigate how often they were poop on the road.

I once had a neighbor who built an 1890's replica (4 wheel). It was quite authentic. I rode in it, once. It was pretty scary, just going around the block at 5 mph.

As someone born and raised in Detroit and a third generation auto worker I love these videos on automotive history. Great job!

Really enjoyable. My grandfather, who I knew in his old age, was born in 1871 well before the motor car. My father in 1908 a year before Bleriot flew the Channel. Me in 1943. My only son in 1998 so he has only known the computer age. My grandfather saw the beginning of motoring and my son, now 24, may see the end of the carefree travel that I knew. Four generations come and gone.

Wow ! Attaching a rocking horse head bust exactly like shown on my tricycle was first thing I had my dad do for me when I was 4 !

God bless the tenacity n endurance of the creators n users of the first cars....it is because of their efforts that we are mobile today.

These early cars were already nicely designed and some looked exclusive and luxurious.

Looks like having a mustache was mandatory to own and drive a car.😄 As well, " The more things change the more they stay the same " Cars were a pain in the butt 130 years ago, and in one way or another, they still are. Great vid. Love the old photos. Great history lesson.👍

Horses were, of course, at least as dirty and dangerous. Their hooves threw up mud and muck at the carriage and occupants, especially at speed, so if one were to 'dash' one needed a 'dashboard' for protection. Nice video. Thanks.

Great topic. I love the way everything is so strange yet relatable to any gear head. These very early cars were ridiculously expensive and crude. I can't even imagine what it must have felt like having to leave a "pride and joy" on the side of the road until they could find a horse to tow it home. Given the rural animosity toward such evil playthings it wouldn't surprise me if said car needed even more work before returning home.

So they used steel reinforcement in the car tyres already in the 1890s!

RedBull should replace their so called "extreme sports" events and create a "let's go on the highway in a 19th century car" extravaganza

A great documentary. As for me this shares many struggles with my lawn tractor with belts for just about any drive...

you are excellent at creating incredible videos, because it is a long video we do not even notice the number of minutes, but the quality that is your work.

To think that it was forbidden to park your car in public spaces and today more 50% of parking public space is taken up by cars. Imagine how a city without cars would look like today

it’s amazing that something so hated has become such a big part of our life and we could never live without them now.

I love how about 3/4 of the way thru this video he pointed out Old School road rage 11:30

Give mad props to the designers and builders of the machines that made the parts possible

It's a wonder those newfangled horseless carriages ever caught on! :)

Ty for ur time and efforts! Well done

Have enjoyed every video from the last few years, cheers !

I was recommended this channel from a commenter on The Intercooler, I have to say I am very glad! Also really liked your videos on the current F1 floors.

Another fantastic video, I have notifications turned on so I watch them the moment I notice a new one. Thank you!

It seems like a miracle that drivers in the early days persisted at all. I was also surprised to see radial spoking on the bicycle style driven wheels of the early cars. There must have been frequent breakage of these spokes.

This is fascinating . Well done!

I can't imagine driving Vis-a-Vis at a high speed. - To me, it's like a social party with a tiller in between. Great video!

This video is amazing! Thank you so much for your hard work creating this

"If they don't have a bucket full of water, then the men had to..." and I thought, is he gonna say it? But no, it was their hats... But the thing that is at least ironic is that the "respectable citizen" are the same still today at some parts of the world. Not necessarily the Mayor, but the priest, the cop and the teacher are still there making society better. Thank you for another great video with very good pictures of the era, I hope you'll have the time to make some more car history stuff.

At 5:11 you mention that means : in old fashioned dancing, there is a move called a dosie-doe which involves passing back to back. I wonder if they are related.

this will never catch...

In my western trilogy, my main character and his adopted daughter return to the USA after 14 years across the Atlantic moving around in Europe and they show up in a steam-engine car at a friends house. The year was 1890.

Absolutely subscribed! Great content!

Excellent content thanks!

Great video, I love your subtle sense of humor too.

My grandfather was born in 1883 so he saw some of the very first cars ever made. He lived to be 70 years old. I'm too young to remember him. My grandmother told me stories about him and their life together.

Thank you for this video! Finally a video without loud shouts "Hello guys" at the beginning. What a relief!

This is great, thanks! It's amazing to think both of the amazing brands that still exist today that were founded during those times (Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Renault, Fiat (or should I say F.I.A.T.), Skoda, Opel, Maybach), and some of the amazing ones that unfortunately disappeared after leaving a big impact (De Dion, Wolesley, Oldsmobile, the UK Daimler). At the time, everything was still possible... Today, the companies that survived are still some of the biggest, most important brands in the market (and they're all in Stellantis apparently).

yoo i love this, more history stuff pls it's great

Very informative. Thanks

My great grandmother's ride in my grandfathers model T was new to her. while underway she would hold her hand out and declare the wind was blowing terribly. When grandad stopped she would say the wind had stopped suddenly.

I worked at the Tampa Yacht Club got to see a collection of the oldest Rolls-Royce’s in the world. Very rich people gathered annually at the club. We employees got to see them up close. Many like these.

Great and very informational video!

The first cars with driveshafts were in Hotchkiss cars, and the term at the time was "Hotchkiss Drive".

What about steam cars though? I used to work in a brass era car restoration shop and 90% of our work was old Stanleys. The customers took them on "tours" a few times a year, by which I mean some rich guys ship their cars to interesting places and drive around a little (one guy I knew drove an old White across Europe and Asia, much due respect there), but Stanleys especially had some peculiarities though they were still a lot better than early gas cars. Locomobiles were the earliest steam cars we had with a tiller steer and very similar design to those Benz four and three wheelers with little more than a frame to sit on, but they were much more useful than these gas cars seem! There's a reason steam power was much more popular early on, and while Stanleys were a bit primitive, they would easily do 60mph down a modern freeway, while Whites with front mounted engines and radiator/condensers were arguably still viable vehicles and I've heard stories of some still in use today. The one brass era gasoline car I dealt with was a 1900ish CGV (a french car), and though it had been updated with a starter, it was still a vast improvement on these buggies. There was a full enclosed driver and passenger compartment, prop shaft, conical clutch, and the engine itself wasn't too dissimilar from a modern lawnmower engine, albeit water-cooled and four cylinder. By far the biggest difference between it and something from the modern era was the body and frame construction-- they still were built like wagons with wooden bodies and frame posts with very little rigidity. Without going on too much longer, the cars in this video are leaps and bounds behind that which came about less than a decade later. IIRC the land speed record for a steam powered vehicle was only broken in the mid 2000s after around 100 years when a wooden chassied Stanley first set it at 160mph or so, and only by a few MPH! I always appreciate homage to the early innovations in mechanised transportation and semiseriously long for the day that steam cars make a comeback for the efficient, simplistic means of transportation that they are.

5:07 This is a contemporary word in Romanian, meaning close. Pretty cool to see its origin

THANK YOU FOR SHARING 🇺🇸

Very informative thanks for such video.

Very informative and interesting. And I see you have much other interesting content on your channel. Suggestion: Video on early 1900's *electric* vehicles.

Beautiful works of art.

Great video!!

Great review!

Briscoe Darlin patented the "hat in the horse trough" water system. His truck was always good for 11 hat fulls.

Very enjoyable and informative

This was very interesting learning about cars from their beginning ☺️

I bought my first car in 1921 and it was the biggest pain in the a$$ to maintain.

Great video! And unusual one!

History is beautiful in any dommain. Tnx for sharing !

At least here in the UK a very common source of petrol was (of all things) hat maker’s shops. Milliners use petrol in hat making to stiffen the fabric, so before the first petrol stations & as cars became more common many milliners made a little extra money selling petrol as they could just order extra to sell on. @B Sport

Great Episode 🤠🇨🇦

Vielen Dank für die tierische Mühe die Du Dir mit Deinen Videos gibst. GENIAL!!!

In Brussels we have a very nice musée (Autoworld at the Cinquantenaire) where you can see some of those beautifull machines !

Thanks for this great video.

Excellent video mate 👍🏾

Fascinating and wonderful

Oldsmobile tried electrics at that time. Didn't work then either.

I think it was interesting watching this and finding out that they had cars with fake horses in the front. I never knew that. It probably looked silly but then, as the narrator described, it seemed that it was helpful for the driver in a way.

Great video, thanks, subscribed.

Exce;;ent video, thank you. Just the right balance of facts and humor 😁😁👍👍

All these problems and how everyone seemed to hate it just shows you how disruptive the revolution automobile was at the time

Beautiful account of an innovation and the problem it created and they were solved! Self belief and perseverance were key to this. Food for thought for present day innovators!

Very nice presentation.

Yeah, that was fantastic !! So many things I have never considered when the car was starting out. Mainly, the owner had to be mechanic & engineer also, no one to come help you out, they knew less than you did.

It is amazing on how far we have come.

My maternal great-grand-dad had a liveried coach pulled by 4 strong, white stallions. My maternal grand-dad was quite the car buff, though. He switched between a number of brands: Talbot, Lagonda, Sunbeam, Samson, and ending with the Nash 600.

Good video. Farmers also complained about the "new fangled contraptions making noise" that stopped their milking cows from giving milk and the chickens would stop laying eggs.

Fascinating!

Oh my gosh! Very Interesting!❤

I'm new to your channel and I enjoyed this video so much. The witty narration made me chuckle throughout the video and it made the information very lively and relatable. I'm amazed geese stayed at the side of the road instead of tearing cars and occupants apart. They must have been much better behaved back then :-) Looking forward to watching more of your content.

Fascinating bit of history

Great video

This was enlightening

Lpve history, love cars, liked and subbed. Cheers.

With motorized bicycles picking up traction, wouldn't be surprised if they bring these back

Love the video's, keep them coming. Just a small grammar mistake to point out: tyre puncture or flat is not a flat spot. A flat spot is either a temporary effect of a tyre standing still or a permanent one of skidding the rubber in one spot.

Yes I love the historical significance especially the first car in 1885

That was very interesting. Thnx

A “friend” of my father’s gave me a ride in a Model T when I was a child. It was something else! To think that it was advanced at one point in time!

It's kind of amazing the automobile even continued to be developed after the early problems.

11:38 - Road rage began much sooner than I thought.

Fascination 😮

Added to this are the dangers of the railway and tram rails with the narrow tires of the cars.

What I'd like to know is why there were not steam cars everywhere from the early 19th Century until the internal combustion engine took off. Plenty of steamships, big and small, and trains were all steam powered. And we had macademised roads from the 1820s. Plus, solid rubber tyres were around from the mid 19th Century, and paraffin was in good supply. Sure, internal combustion engines were far more convenient, and a better idea all round, but steam would have been very useful in cars until then. One of life's mysteries.