On This Day

Friday 6th March 1896

124 years ago

Charles Brady King, an American engineer and entrepreneur test drove his first car in Detroit, Michigan, US in front of hundreds of spectators at speeds up to 7 mph, becoming the first man to drive a car in the Motor City. The car was powered by a Sintz engine. While driving up and down Woodward Avenue his Horseless Carriage broke down, spectators responded by telling him to “get a horse”. The following report appeared in the Detroit Journal the next day: “The first horseless carriage seen in this city was out on the streets last night. The apparatus seemed to work all right and it went at the rate of five or six miles an hour at an even rate of speed.” Following the car intently on a bicycle through the cold, snowy Detroit streets was a lanky, 32-year-old mechanical engineer who worked for the Edison Illuminating Co. His name was Henry Ford