CarlFriedrich Benz was a German engine designer and automotive engineer. His Benz Patent Motorcar from 1885 is considered the first practical modern automobile and first car put into series production. He received a patent for the motorcar in 1886, the same year he first publicly drove the Benz Patent-Motorwagen.
In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake air, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement.
Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was a German engineer, industrial designer and industrialist born in Schorndorf, in what is now Germany. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development. He invented the high-speed liquid petroleum-fueled engine.
An antique car is an automobile that is an antique. Narrower definitions vary based on how old a car must be to qualify. The Antique Automobile Club of America defines an antique car as over 25 years of age. However, the legal definitions for the purpose of antique vehicle registration vary widely. The antique car era includes the Veteran era, the Brass era, and the Vintage era, which range from the beginning of the automobile up to the 1930s. Later cars are often described as classic cars. In original or originally restored condition antiques are very valuable and are usually either protected and stored or exhibited in car shows but are very rarely driven.
Bertha Benz was a German automotive pioneer. She was the business partner, investor and wife of automobile inventor Carl Benz. On 5 August 1888, she was the first person to drive an internal-combustion-engined automobile over a long distance, field testing the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, inventing brake lining and solving several practical issues during the journey of 105 km. In doing so, she brought the Patent-Motorwagen worldwide attention and got their company its first sales. Bertha Benz was not allowed to study in the Grand Duchy of Baden and her financial and practical engineering contributions have long been overlooked until the 21st century.
André Jules Michelin was a French industrialist who, with his brother Édouard (1859–1940), founded the Michelin Tyre Company in 1888 in the French city of Clermont-Ferrand.
Barthélemy Thimonnier was a French inventor, who is attributed with the invention of the first sewing machine that replicated sewing by hand. He was born in L'Arbresle, in Rhône in France.
François Isaac de Rivaz was a French-born Swiss inventor and a politician. He invented a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine with electric ignition and described it in a French patent published in 1807. In 1808 he fitted it into a primitive working vehicle – "the world's first internal combustion powered automobile".
Crude ideas and designs of automobiles can be traced back to ancient and medieval times. In 1649, Hans Hautsch of Nuremberg built a clockwork-driven carriage. In 1672, a small-scale steam-powered vehicle was created; the first steam-powered automobile capable of human transportation was built by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1769. Inventors began to branch out at the start of the 19th century, creating the de Rivaz engine, one of the first internal combustion engines, and an early electric motor. Samuel Brown later tested the first industrially applied internal combustion engine in 1826. Only two of these were made.
Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown was a Swiss businessman and engineer who co-founded Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC), which later became ABB.
Béla Barényi was an ethnic Hungarian engineer from Austria-Hungary, who was a prolific inventor, sometimes even compared to Thomas Edison. Barényi made numerous crash protection inventions, and is therefore regarded as the father of passive safety in automotive design.
Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir, also known as Jean J. Lenoir, was a Belgian-French engineer who developed the internal combustion engine in 1858. Prior designs for such engines were patented as early as 1807, but none were commercially successful. Lenoir's engine was commercialized in sufficient quantities to be considered a success, a first for the internal combustion engine.
Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre SA, or simply Jaeger-LeCoultre, is a Swiss luxury watch and clock manufacturer founded by Antoine LeCoultre in 1833 and is based in Le Sentier, Switzerland. Since 2000, the company has been a fully owned subsidiary of the Swiss luxury group Richemont.
A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people over cargo.
Velcro IP Holdings LLC, doing business as Velcro Companies and commonly referred to as Velcro, is a British privately held company, founded by Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral in the 1950s. It is the original manufacturer of hook-and-loop fasteners, which de Mestral invented.
Jean Lassale was a Swiss watch company that designed the Calibre 1200, featuring the thinnest mechanical watch movement: 1.2 mm. In the 1970s, Pierre Mathys, master watchmaker in La Chaux-de-Fonds, designed and built the prototype of a revolutionary watch caliber, with the goal of making the thinnest watch in the world. To achieve this feat, Mathys based his design on the work of Robert Annen, who previously had the idea of using ball bearings in small scale horology. Mathys decided to remove the bridges and counter-pivot, and instead use ball bearings for the axis.
Gustav Guanella was a Swiss inventor who held numerous patents.
Alfred Büchi was a Swiss engineer and inventor. He was best known as the inventor of turbocharging. Büchi was born July 11, 1879, in Winterthur, Switzerland, growing up there and in Ludwigshafen. He was the son of Johann Büchi, a chief executive at Swiss industrial engineering and manufacturing firm Sulzer.
Elmar Mock is a Swiss watch engineer with specialized knowledge in polymers, an industrial designer, and inventor.
Louise Sarazin, Louise Sarazin-Levassor,, played a significant role in early automotive history having been party to its beginnings in France and Germany. She was the wife of Edouard Sarazin, an entrepreneurial Belgian industrialist and patents lawyer who was in a mix of automotive partnerships and agencies with Émile Levassor, René Panhard, John Cockerill, Deutz AG, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. In 1884 Sarazin acquired the licence to build Deutz engines in France, which he duly contracted to Perin, Panhard & Cie in Paris. Around 1886 he similarly acquired licences to build Daimler engines in France and started to commission Panhard & Levassor in Paris. After his death in 1887 his widow Louise developed the business relationships and negotiated the partnerships with Daimler and 'Panhard et Levassor'. In 1890 she married Emile Levassor.
