The first people to become interested in Gottlieb Daimler's work were not enthusiastic admirers, but... police officers! For a year they watched his house in the small German town of Kannstadt. Something incomprehensible was going on in the small workshop. A hammer was beeping, clattering and rattling all the time. Daimler himself, the owner, and his partner, Wilhelm Maybach, were extremely unsociable, keeping away from people and letting no one in.
Finally, when something rattled and clattered in the workshop so loudly that even the neighboring street could hear it, the police couldn't stand it and burst into the shop. The owners were too absorbed in their work and did not immediately notice the intruders. Then the senior policeman loudly ordered the outrage to cease. In the silence that ensued, the question sounded, "What is this?" The two designers enthusiastically began to explain that it was the world's first gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. They even tried to explain how it worked. The police officers were not taken in by the enthusiasm of the inventors, fined them and left.
The power of the first engine was only half a horsepower. For comparison, the engine power of an ordinary modern passenger car is 100 hp.
Next, H. Daimler began to think how he could better use his engine. At first he installed it on a two-wheeled "saddle car" - that was the name of the design.
The prototype of a motorcycle had wooden wheels and a wooden frame, and it sped up to 12 kilometers per hour. But it was not a car yet. Daimler built it a little bit later, in 1886. The inventor put the engine on a carriage and attached a steering device. Thus, the first four-wheeled car was born. It could reach 18 km/h. A speed record for that time! The engine could only be started immediately. First, the crew had to push the car, and then jump in on the fly. Once Daimler failed to catch up with his car, and it rolled straight into a ditch. That's how the world's first car accident happened.
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