The automobile, the self-moved vehicle, existed long before Carl Benz’s patented motor car of 1886. In 1769, Frenchman Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot crashed his steam-powered vehicle into a wall on its maiden voyage. In 1875, Austrian Siegfried Marcus presented a rudimentary motor-driven vehicle. However, even Benz’s threewheeled vehicle was still a long way from what we understand today as an automobile. Numerous developments followed in terms of wheels, mudguards, axles, springs, bonnets, seats, lamps, windscreens and roofs. By the turn of the century, the construction of the automobile as we know it today had been established: with four wheels of identical size and often already enclosed bodies, although formally and technically still indebted to carriage construction.
The advent of closed bodies soon led to their previous materials of wood and fabric being replaced by sheet steel and glass, which allowed for arbitrary spatial deformations. In addition to necessary technical considerations, this inspired numerous formal variations. Initially, these variations mostly concerned the radiator, followed by the mudguards and windows, and later also the closed surfaces. With the design of the chassis to increase the
wheelbase, passengers could now sit between the axles and not above them as before – with the result that the height of the car could be reduced. This also brought the car roof into focus and, in addition to new technical requirements, invited various formal variations. Lighting technology transformed carbide pots into real headlights. Glass surfaces cautiously ventured out of two-dimensionality into three-dimensional design. Ironically, it was technology-based aerodynamics that showed early signs of the modern
car as we know it today.
The book shows many examples of models and their replicas, although there can be large-time differences between the original and the replica. Digitalised image research led to extensive and insightful results. However, it can also be assumed that an idea was sometimes conceived completely independently and that the later designer had no knowledge of the earlier idea.