Talk:Car

How old are cars

how old are cars 2A02:C7C:8A11:A800:4DFC:39F4:5472:DF27 (talk) 13:16, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

From the article itself Car#History, the first production car is generally considered to be by Benz in 1986. The same section also lists some predecessors.  Stepho  talk  23:33, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

1886*, however in the introduction it says that a car has 4 wheels, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen only had 3 wheels, so can it be first? MUIsab (talk) 16:18, 7 March 2026 (UTC)

Most definitions do indeed say 4-wheels. But it is not absolute. Examples of 3-wheel cars include the Reliant Robin and the F-Series 3-wheeler. There are also examples of 6-wheel cars like the Mercedes-Benz W31.  Stepho  talk  13:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

edit request

please wiki link "costs to society" to Societal effects of cars. Thanks! ~2026-56296-9 (talk) 14:54, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

No need. The last sentence of the intro "far-reaching implications for the nature of societies" already has a link to that. We generally only link once per article.  Stepho  talk  07:04, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Edit Request

I would like to propose adding a brief mention of the growing automobile entrepreneurship in Bangladesh.

Proposed Addition: "In South Asia, entrepreneurs like Ibrahim Hawlader (CEO of Ebrahim Motors) are contributing to the expansion of global car trading and distribution networks."

Reference: Official Profile of Ibrahim Hawlader

Thank you for reviewing this. IbrahimHawlader2026 (talk) 05:52, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

No way, for a number of reasons

• It matches your user name see WP:CONFLICTOFINTEREST.
• It is a very specific point about a very specific region, so does not belong on this summary article.
• It is advertising - see WP:SPAM and WP:SPONSORED.
• Even it passed all that, it still needs references from reliable, independent sources and definitely not from the person involved. See WP:FACT, WP:RS and WP:RSSELF.  Stepho  talk  07:11, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

 Not done See Stepho's explanation above. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 07:36, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Is it fair to say Carl Benz was the inventor?

Benz invented an early internal combustion engine based car. But in some ways, it has little in common with what you call a car (with some jurisdictions calling similar vehicles today "three-wheeled motorcycles), and electric cars (which make up a significant minority of cars driven) are older. So are vehicles that use a steam engine. You may as well name Henry Ford and be like the American elementary school textbook press, since his Model T was the first to roll off a sizable assembly line AND have four wheels instead of 3 like Benz's smaller run car. ~2026-16346-90 (talk) 22:23, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Saying that it is different to modern cars is a false argument. Imagine if in 2036 we were looking at anything from before 1900 and saying "it doesn't have any form of automatic guidance system or any form lane collision avoidance, therefore it isn't a car." It has the basics of all cars in that it has an engine (non-animal power source), balances by itself (compare to motorcycles), has steering (compare to trains), does not require rails (compare to trains), goes across ground (compare to boats) and carries people.

Comparing to the first electric car is a fair question. However, the main thrust (pun not intended) of Benz being called the first is because he put it into production. All cars before him (electric, steam or petrol) were one-offs or very, very, very limited numbers. If you want to allow earlier one-off electric cars then we can also find earlier one-off cars.

I recognise your joke about Americans thinking Ford was the inventor. However, there were many 4-wheel cars before him.  Stepho  talk  00:23, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Benz was not the first to put a car into production. That was La Mancelle in 1878, predating Benz' patent by 8 years. And to say it even was put into production at that point is not supported; this article states "25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893." It's reasonable to assume the bulk of that number was after 1891 when Benz added a 4th wheel. As there is no documentation for more specific sales figures, we cannot conclude that the pre-1891 three wheel variant was even technically a production model. And by 1891, two other cars were in production: the Panhard et Levassor (1891) and the Peugeot Type 2 (1890). The Type 2 was sold in low (but verifiable) numbers but the successor Type 3 sold 64 units between 1891-94. It is inclusive then to declare any of these to truly be the first production car, but Benz probably has the weakest case. GreatCaesarsGhost 01:50, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

This is to say nothing of the fact that "first to put a car into production" would hardly qualify one as it's inventor. Quite simply, the modern car evolved over a period of years such that no one person could be thought of as its inventor. To the IPs point, considering Benz' car on the timeline would not strike anyone as making substantial strides toward the modern vehicle. Your qualifications that the Benz "has an engine, balances by itself, has steering, does not require rails, goes across ground, and carries people" were met by many predecessors. GreatCaesarsGhost 02:01, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

La Mancelle was a steam car, and those are not considered "modern cars". Benz sold several Patent-Motorwagens (PM) to his sales' partner E. Roger in 1887 (), and there is evidence that Roger advertised Benz's cars in 1888. He allegedly also sold one to Émile Levassor, which Benz noted himself in March 1888 (). Other persons who bought three-wheeled PM's (which thus date back to at least 1887/88) include include entrepreneur Richard Freudenberg (bought one in 1890, was the first car driver in the Netherlands, in 1893) ( ) and painter Eugen Zardetti (). So the PM was a production car, as stated by many historians, including G. N. Georgano, who named the PM "the first motorcar" due to its commercial production. However, it would indeed be great if Mercedes-Benz would clarify some of the early sales figures, although maybe some of the documents are lost.

"... would not strike anyone as making substantial strides toward the modern vehicle" - it's already been argued here that Benz built the first practical, modern car. The PM was also the first fully integrated car because it was designed as a single unit. Eem dik doun in toene (talk) 07:27, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

My objection is that we are declaring Benz the inventor of the car, when anyone can clearly see from our own article that it was developed incrementally by many different people. In order to arrive at this theory, we exclude or include certain characteristics in the definition of a modern car seemingly at random. How can we call a car practical for everyday use when it has no onboard fuel storage and cannot scale a small hill? How does a car being fueled by steam make it not "modern" but its lack of a fourth wheel not? When was the last time a three-wheeled vehicle was called a car by anyone? And if three wheels are enough, surely Trouvé's tricyle counts? And speaking of being first to market, why in the world would a car being marketable be obligatory to it being a car? GreatCaesarsGhost 13:34, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

"... it was developed incrementally by many different people" - isn't this the case for most, if not all inventions? If you take a look at airplane, only the Wright brothers are mentioned (in the infobox), yet other people were involved as well. If you search "who invented the car?", the name Benz will come up most often, by a large margin (he's also frequently named in early sources, by the way). Many historians and journalists will also explain and argue why Benz is usually credited.

"... exclude or include ... seemingly at random" - not really, as several reliable sources are used in this article for the definitions and characteristics.

The PM had fuel storage from 1887 onwards, so only the first model would have been without one. Shortly afterwards, Benz added a third gear to the car so it could climb up hills. I wouldn't call any hill in SW Germany "small", and I doubt any vehicle from that period could climb up all hills, given the low speeds they all had.

There are many reasons why steam cars aren't considered modern, see e.g., Steven Parissien's book The life of the automobile (2014). Cars also don't exclusively need to have four wheels, they can also have three or six (of course far less common; ( ). Trouvé showed his car at the Expo, but dismantled it afterwards, so it was a one-off/an experimental one. Eem dik doun in toene (talk) 07:54, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

I would argue that the airplane infobox makes the same mistake of being too absolute about a nuanced point. The Wright Brothers article is actually a good example of properly qualifying the achievement without detracting from it: "generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane" (emphasis mine). I'm not arguing that Benz was unimportant, but that the way this sentence is constructed obfuscates the distinction between confirmed fact, unconfirmed fact, generally held opinion, and specious fluff. I think we should remove the sentence "Although several other German engineers...acknowledged as the inventor of the car." Then after the graf about Benz add something like, "Historians consider Benz' advances so significant that they largely credit him as the inventor of the car and regard his 1886 patent as the birth of the modern car." GreatCaesarsGhost 13:05, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

I see. Does this work for you? Cheers, Eem dik doun in toene (talk) 14:24, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

Perfect! GreatCaesarsGhost 15:55, 14 May 2026 (UTC)