Early Days at Daimler Vehicle Works - Richard Dobson
October 2010
Gottlieb, I thought you said a 'horseless carriage' . . .? Well,call me pedantic if you like but you seem to have kept the horses but lost the wheels . . . is this really the way forward? (and, by the way, what' s with this Page and Moy name - sounds like a music hall act to me, you're not ashamed of the family name are you?)
Anyway, I know you like animals, but, horses! They take up a lot of room and look at the mess they make. To be fair I suppose this thing might go down well in Russia or Finland - but what about the Global market?
Another thing - we don't have all the time in the world - I'm hearing rumours about some guy called Ford, somewhere in America. He's only a school-boy but is already talking about a machine that dispenses with the horses. Yeah, I know, these hill-billies can't be much good with engineering but we better not get too complacent.
So, help me out here . . . we need to keep the wheels, but drop the horses? agreed? So . . . how we gonna move the thing. You said once, before you went into recession, we need some kind of motor or engine and there wasn't room for a steam engine or it was too heavy or something.
O.K. Hans, I hear what you say and, I admit, I did take my eye off the ball a bit lately; what with family troubles and that revolution in France, or wherever it was. But I'm back on the case now. Only last week I was talking to Benz, you know that creepy guy over in Mainz. Reckons he's made a contraption does away with with the actual animals but still keeps the 'Horse Power'. He calls this thing, wait for it, an 'Internal Combustion Engine'. I may even be able to use it in one of my carriages, if I can ever sort out the wheels problem.
Thus began what became the huge, international motor-vehicle industry we all know and love (or hate) to this day. Amen.