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September 18: The Lost Inventor of the Auto

lawrencebush
September 18, 2011

Siegfried Marcus, who invented the first vehicle propelled by an internal combustion engine — that is, the first car — in 1870, was born in Germany on this date in 1831. Marcus held 130 patents in sixteen different countries and created ignition devices, telegraph systems, and several different car models — though he never sought a patent for a car, only for the engines he built. Marcus died at age 67 in 1898. He was world-renowned until the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda removed his name from the German Encyclopedia and named Daimler and Benz instead as the first creators of the automobile.

“He often told us how he drove his auto for the first time on Mariahilferstrasse and was stopped by the police because he was driving without a horse. [A] stethoscope for doctors was also his invention, and he also told us about his firearm that could shoot 30 bullets per minute. He told us about so many other inventions that I cannot recall them all.” —Clementine Schmid, a friend of the inventor’s granddaughter