The Real Pioneers: Front-wheel drive

Why did the first production cars use engines that pushed and not pulled? After all, our previous preferred mode of wheeled transport was a carriage pulled up front by a horse.

When the world’s first self-propelled vehicle, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot’s three-wheel tractor, made its maiden run in 1769, its steam engine drove its front wheel. Designed to haul heavy artillery for the French military, its big copper boiler was mounted out front, where in those days you’d expect to find a horse.

And when early petrol-powered motor cars first spluttered into life in the late 19^th century – in 1885 Karl Benz’s drove well enough to hit a brick wall – they were all influenced in construction and architecture by the pony-traps, broughams, phaetons, chaises, cabriolets, chariots, troikas, voiturettes, limousines and landaus that were the favoured mode of wheeled transport before. Some, including Daimler’s first car, were converted four-wheel horse-drawn carriages.