Hi, BTN.
My name's Abeng, and I would like to know,
when was the first car made?
Jack. Jack!
Oh! I mean, Doc.
I have a big question I need answered.
Well, what is it, then?
I need to find out when the first car was made.
The first car. Great Scott!
We're going to have to go a long, long way back for that one.
Get in the DeLorean.
Um, that's a Holden. Whatever.
OK.
(HUMMING NOISE)
Wait a minute, this doesn't look like the 1800s.
This is the National Motor Museum.
Hey, come back! Where are you going?
Jack.
Huh!
Oh, well, I guess I'll give this a try then.
Hi, Charlotte, I'm Matthew.
Hi, Matthew.
I was just trying to go back in time
to find the first car.
Mm. I'm not sure that we can go back in time,
but I might have the next best thing.
Do you want to come and have a look? Yeah!
So, Matthew, what have we got here?
OK, so here we have a thing called the Shearer steam vehicle.
It uses high-pressure steam,
which is hot water, to power the engine
and it runs on pressurised steam.
The very first steam-powered car was invented
back in 1769 by a Frenchman named Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot.
At the time, most people got around by horse
and that didn't change for a while
because the early steam cars
were really slow and expensive to maintain.
It wasn't until 1885 that a German man named Karl Benz
came up with the world's first petrol-powered car,
although some of the earliest cars were actually electric.
In the early 1900s, there were steam-powered vehicles,
there were electric-powered vehicles and gasoline-powered vehicles.
And, at the time, nobody knew quite
what was going to be the future fuel,
so everyone was trying different ideas.
Obviously, gasoline won out in the end.
By now, people were starting to see the benefits
of these horseless carriages,
although they were reserved for the very rich,
and it wasn't until the famous Ford Model T came out in 1908
that cars really became popular.
OK, Charlotte, this is it. This is a Ford Model T.
This is a 1922 example.
As you see, it's got all the essential features
of what we consider a modern car.
It's got the radiator at the front, the engine behind it,
enough passenger compartments for five adults and four wheels.
What made this car so significant was the way it was put together.
The founder of the Ford company, Henry Ford,
created the world's first moving assembly line for cars
where lots of them could be put together quickly.
That made the cars cheaper,
so more and more people could buy them.
Over time, lots of other manufacturers
started to mass-produce cars.
We've got big cars, little cars
and whatever this is!
And, of course, these days,
it's kinda hard to imagine life without a car.
Which reminds me, how am I going to get home now?
Oh, man!
Better start walking.