When was the first ever automobile event?

[FIA]

When was the first ever automobile event?

weather it was a race, rally, time trial or whatever

Because this question has troubled, some say it was 1885, some say it was 1894, some say it was 1895, so when was the first ever automobile event.

Because cars were around for quite a few years before this, so could there have been events before these years.

[Mark]

I think the first official, organised event was 1894. But of course there would have been small scale unofficial (or even illegal) races from the moment the car was first invented.

I would imagine the first race was probably in a car factory between two mechanics ;)

[FIA]

Yeah, I see your point it's just annoying we can't find out like local races or any national events that could have happened around that time.

[D-Type]

The trouble is that the first event would have been some form of motor show and perhaps the cars gave a demonstration.

According to the Guinness Book of Car Facts and Feats
"The first road race between mechanically propelled vehicles took place in the USA in July 1878, seven years before the petrol engine was invented. Run over 201 miles between Green Bay and Madison, in Wisconsin, the contest included long-haul and ploughing tests as well as the race. It attracted six entries, all steam-powered. and two starters, both virtually road locomotives. An Oshkosh built by Dr. J. Carhart and driven by F. Shomer and A. M. Farrand won the race in 33hrs 27 minutes, averaging 6 mph. while a Green Bay built and driven by E. P. Cowles retired 20 miles from the finish after coverering part of the journey by railroad. The winner received $5,000 prize money"
I wonder what that would be worth today?

I'm sure you know of the 1894 Paris-Rouen Reliability Trial and the 1895 Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race.

However in The Chequered Flag Ivan Rendall writes
"On 20 April 1887 Le Velocipede organised the first ever motor race in Paris. Vount Jules deDion - the sole entrant - won on his steam quadricycle.

[FIA]

The trouble is that the first event would have been some form of motor show and perhaps the cars gave a demonstration.

According to the Guinness Book of Car Facts and Feats
"The first road race between mechanically propelled vehicles took place in the USA in July 1878, seven years before the petrol engine was invented. Run over 201 miles between Green Bay and Madison, in Wisconsin, the contest included long-haul and ploughing tests as wellas the race. It attracted six entries, all steam-powered. and two starters, both virtually road locomotives. An Oshkosh built by Dr. J. Carhart and driven by F. Shomer and A. M. Farrand won the race in 33hrs 27 minutes, averaging 6 mph. while a green Bay built and driven by E. P. Cowles retired 20 miles from the finish after covrering part of the journey by railroad. The winner received $5,000 prize money" I wonder what that would be worth today?

I'm sure you know of the 1894 Paris-Rouen Reliability Trial and the 1895 Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race.

However in The Chequered Flag Ivan Rendall writes
"On 20 April 1887 Le Velocipede organised the first ever motor race in Paris. Vount Jules deDion - the sole entrant - won on his steam quadricycle.

Thank You D-Type that is really interesting, I will look out for this book in the shops. Perhaps it was an unofficial race and that it why in 1887 they created the "first ever" race.

[D-Type]

You'll probably have a job finding either of them. The Guinness Book of Car Facts and Feats dates to 1971 and The Chequered Flag to 1993.

I don't understand what you mean by an unofficial race. In the 1880's there weren't any motor clubs or the FIA to make a race 'official'. So surely any organised race must have been official.

Benz patented his car in 1886 and made his first sale in 1887 so any race, trial, show or demonstration of internal combustion engined cars must be later than that.

[FIA]

You'll probably have a job finding either of them. The Guinness Book of Car Facts and Feats dates to 1971 and The Chequered Flag to 1993.

I don't understand what you mean by an unofficial race. In the 1880's there weren't any motor clubs or the FIA to make a race 'official'. So surely any organised race must have been official.

True, accept my point is there was no FIA or motor clubs, but it seems legit.

[D-Type]

Most of the early motoring events were sponsored by newspapers so that gives them some legitimacy as they were definitely organised events and presumably the organising newspaper had to obtain permission from someone to run the event - the police or the local council[s] presumably.

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.　　　 /　\./　\/\_　　 I Hand You　 __{^\_ _}_　 )　}/^\　　　 A Rose...　/　/\_/^\._}_/　//　/ (&#12288 ;( __{(@)}\__}.//_/__A___A__wow gold (http://www.comegames.com/)____A__wow gold (http://www.comegames.com/gamecy.jsp)_A______A____　\__/{/(_)\_}&#12288 ;) \\ \\---v----V-----V--Y----v---Y-----　&#12288 ;( 　 (__)_)_/&#12288 ;) \ \>　　　　 \__/　　 \__/\/\/

[Don Capps]

The first event to be truly representative of racing in anything remotely like the modern sense took place in September 1896 in Cranston, Rhode Island, at the Narragansett Track. The events used massed starts by the competitors, which would not become a feature of European racing until the Twenties, but was commonplace in American track racing from the very beginning. This meant that the competitors raced head-to-head rather than against a handicap or the clock, the latter being the standard for road races for a number of years in America as well as, of course, Europe.

This was the prototype event for American racing, the features of this event being adopted by promoters for many years to follow. Although I consider the Wisconsin event as a forerunner of what was to come, true automobile racing began in Rhode Island in September 1896.

[Rollo]

The following story relies on tissue paper evidence:

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wlhba/articleView.asp?pg=1&id=3778

Dr. J. W. Carhart built a steam powered car in 1871. It was practical enough for the Wisconsin State University to persuade the State of Wisconsin to hold a race. Eventually, the State of Wisconsin offered a prize of $10,000 to the winner of a race in 1878.
11 competitors entered and only two showed up; a car from Oshkosh and another from Green Bay. The Oshkosh car completed the course at an average speed of 6mph, but the State of Wisconsin only paid them $5000.

I can't verify a lot of this, but a steam carriage race in 1878 predates the Rhode Island event. And because a prize of $10,000 was offered, that's pretty Grand as well.

[Don Capps]

The following story relies on tissue paper evidence:

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/wlhba/articleView.asp?pg=1&id=3778

Dr. J. W. Carhart built a steam powered car in 1871. It was practical enough for the Wisconsin State University to persuade the State of Wisconsin to hold a race. Eventually, the State of Wisconsin offered a prize of $10,000 to the winner of a race in 1878.
11 competitors entered and only two showed up; a car from Oshkosh and another from Green Bay. The Oshkosh car completed the course at an average speed of 6mph, but the State of Wisconsin only paid them $5000.

I can't verify a lot of this, but a steam carriage race in 1878 predates the Rhode Island event. And because a prize of $10,000 was offered, that's pretty Grand as well.

I have written about the Wisconsin steam wagon contest in a RVM column some years ago. Below is a short excerpt from that column. Please note the emphasis I have placed on one paragraph. I did considerable research on the contest and found many contemporary articles in newspapers to document the events of the contest. The contest certainly happened. However, I still maintain that the Narragansett event in 1896 is the true prototype of racing as we know it.



On Thursday, 18 July, the Cowles Wagon finally reached Oshkosh at just before 10 o’clock in the evening courtesy of a flatcar on the C&N Railway. The Oshkosh Wagon had arrived there under its own power, covering the 14 miles in two hours. Meanwhile, the Madison Wagon finally arrived in Watertown on Thursday and was directed to proceed to Oshkosh to participate in a series of tests. First thing on Friday morning, however, the Cowles Wagon had to spend time at the Morse machine shop and foundry undergoing repairs on a number of problems that seemed to be plaguing the steam wagon.

The program of events on Saturday was announced on Friday afternoon and would commence with a hauling test. This was predicated on the Madison Wagon arriving and the repairs to the Cowles Wagon being completed in time. The tests given by the Commissioners would be held at the Jones & Fosters lumber yard, after which the steam wagons would depart on their journey to Madison. Any machine not ready to depart at 1 o’clock in the afternoon would simply have to leave as soon as it could and catch up with the other(s) as quickly as possible.

The tests at Oshkosh got underway with the Green Bay Wagon finally ready to perform after spending the entire previous day being repaired. Without any word as to where the Madison Wagon was or when it would arrive, the Green Bay and Oshkosh steam wagons squared off against one another on Saturday morning. The first test was to haul a load of approximately three tons from the Foster & Jones lumber mill to the Oshkosh Fair grounds. Each steam wagon hitched a wagon to the machine and was then asked to negotiate the roads around the lumber mill, the route being one block around the mill on the loose sawdust which comprised the road surface.

After circling the block, the steam wagons headed for the Fair grounds hauling their loads. The Green Bay Wagon was in the lead with the Oshkosh Wagon trailing closely behind. After creeping closer to the Green Bay Wagon, the Oshkosh Wagon pulled out to pass the lead steam machine. Unfortunately, a wheel of the loaded wagon struck a hole on the outer edge of the road and the impact broke the log chain attaching the wagon to the steam machine. After a quick inspection, a toggle was devised to attach the wagon once again to the steam machine. When the Oshkosh Wagon started to pull off with its load, the jerk of the acceleration broke a pin, which necessitated one of the crew hastening to the machine shop to obtain a replacement.

This delay and the late start caused by the wait for the Madison machine led the Commissioners to ask that the loads be carried about on the streets of the town rather than being hauled to the Fair grounds as originally intended. This led to further excitement for the Oshkosh Wagon. With what was described as “considerable headway” in the Green Bay Daily State Gazette in its Sunday 21 July edition, the engineer of the Oshkosh machine was forced to suddenly “hold back” on the power after encountering a frightened horse in front of the Beckwith House. Without any means to effectively brake the heavily loaded wagon it was hauling, the lumber wagon veered sideways, the tongue being snapped off and the wagon crashing into the sidewalk and breaking one of the front wheels.

The load in the lumber wagon hauled about town by the Oshkosh Wagon tipped the scales at 9,100 pounds. Although the load of the Green Bay Wagon was not weighed, it was determined to roughly equal in weight. After dinner, the two steam wagons proceeded to the Fair grounds for the next test on the agenda.

The Commissioners asked each of the steam wagons to complete a lap of the one mile horse racing track. The Oshkosh Wagon did its initial laps of the track with a set of outside tires – or “shoes,” in place, with a best time of 4 minutes and 35 (or 36) seconds being recorded. The Green Bay Wagon made three attempts and did not complete any of them without stopping for with overheated journals, a lack of power (“steam”) or other mechanical problems. However, the Cowles crew soon thought that they had solved the problems.

Both steam wagons then lined up to do a lap head-to-head. At the start, the Green Bay Wagon got away much more quickly than the Oshkosh Wagon. The Cowles machine was obviously faster on the track, pulling away to open a gap of what was estimated to be nearly a quarter of a mile! As the steam wagon closed in on the distance post (the finishing post), it suddenly made a loud “Bang!” and coasted to a stop and refused to budge. The Oshkosh Wagon then sailed past the distance post with a time of 4 minutes and 41 seconds, accomplishing this time without its “shoes” in place.

This is perhaps the first recorded contest of self-propelled machines on a closed circuit. It certainly was a race since the object was to establish which of the machines could make it to the distance post first. This does lend a degree of validity to the old saying concerning the origin of motor racing: it was the result of the owner of the second automobile asking the owner of the first if he would like to see how fast they could go…. It must be noted that despite the extreme heat, the race – which is what Madison Wisconsin State Journal called it – attracted a considerable crowd.

After the laps of the Fair ground track were completed, repairs to the Green Bay machine commenced. The Commissioner had set 5 o’clock as the departure time for the steam machines to renew their journey to Madison by way of Waupun, 34 miles away. Each crew was allowed to determine the roads to be used. The actual starting time ended up being 7 o’clock. The newly repaired Cowles machine got barely two miles outside Oshkosh when it stopped, the problem being traced to the driving gears. The gears were removed and rushed to the Morse workshop where, once again, repairs were undertaken. The bearing were turned and the steam wagon was able to head south towards Waupun and arriving there at about 8 o’clock in the morning on Tuesday.

It is a quite interesting topic and I'm also curious to know about little bit of motor rally history.

auto transport (http://www.a1autotransport.com)|auto shipping quotes (http://www.a1autotransport.com/quote/quote.php)