The History of Cars: From the Very First to 2027

In August 1888, before dawn, a woman and her two teenage sons quietly pushed a strange three-wheeled machine out of a workshop in Mannheim. Her husband had patented it — but almost nobody believed in it. This is the full story of the automobile: from steam carts that crashed into walls and the Red Flag Act, to Karl and Bertha Benz, the Model T and the moving assembly line, the Beetle, the 2CV and the Mini, the seat belt and crumple zones, Thrust SSC breaking the sound barrier on land — and the cars of today that drive themselves. With 3D reconstructions of how the very first car worked, real archive photos and the key moments of every era. 0:00 August 1888: the first car taken in secret 0:47 Steam: Cugnot's fardier and the Red Flag Act 1:55 The engine: Otto, Daimler and Maybach 2:46 How the first car worked (Benz Patent-Motorwagen, 3D) 4:04 Bertha Benz's 106 km journey 6:05 The first races and the first electric record car 8:07 The first rules of the road 9:00 The Model T and the moving assembly line 10:42 Cars for everyone: Beetle, 2CV, Mini 12:27 Land speed records and Thrust SSC 14:02 Safety: seat belts, crumple zones, crash tests 15:26 How a modern car works 16:35 Cars today 17:28 What came next Photos: Wikimedia Commons (public domain / CC0). 3D reconstructions are illustrations; some details are simplified.