This vehicle, like the bicycle, is not essentially a modern invention; the reason any one can manufacture it is that practically all the basic ideas antedate 1840.

Indeed, the automobile is really older than the railroad.

In the twenties and thirties, steam stage coaches made regular trips between certain cities in England and occasionally a much resounding power-driven carriage would come careering through New York and Philadelphia, scaring all the horses and precipitating the intervention of the authorities.

The hardy spirits who devised these engines, all of whose names are recorded in the encyclopedias, deservedly rank as the "fathers" of the automobile.
The responsibility as the actual "inventor" can probably be no more definitely placed.

However, had it not been for two developments, neither of them immediately related to the motor car, we should never have had this efficient method of transportation.