"The first production of automobiles was by Karl Benz in 1888 in Germany and under license to Benz, in France by Emile Roger. By 1900 mass production of automobiles had begun in France and the United States. The first company to form exclusively to build automobiles was Panhard et Levassor in France. Formed in 1889, they were quickly followed by Peugeot two years later. In the United States, brothers Charles and Frank Duryea founded the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1893, becoming the first American automobile manufacturing company. However, it was Ransom E. Olds, and his Olds Motor Vehicle Company (later known as Oldsmobile) who would dominate this era of automobile production. Its large scale production line was running in 1902. Within a year, Cadillac, Winton, and Ford were producing cars in the thousands (formed from the Henry Ford Company).
"Within a few years dizzying assortments of technologies were being produced by hundreds of producers all over the western world. Steam, electricity, and gasoline-powered autos competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Dual and even quad-engine cars were designed, and engine displacement ranged to more than a dozen liters. Many modern advances, including gas / electric hybrids, multi-valve engines, overhead camshafts, and four-wheel drive, were attempted and discarded at this time."
In 1895 a patent was granted to a USA manufacturer, Sheldon, but it may have hindered the industry in that country rather than helped it. By granting a license to successive car manufacturers afterward he collected a fee on every car produced. Well, that was probably a good business outcome for him.
There were great handicaps to motoring in those times. The roads were bad, fuel was scarce, breakdowns were frequent, and the noise of a horseless carriage frightened the hacks pulling buggies around.
Restoring one of these vehicles is fraught with difficulties. Parts are not available and usually must be hand made or located with great effort. But that has not stopped collectors from coveting them and many are restored to their former glory. At one stage there were over a thousand manufacturers in the USA alone making the task even harder.
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