Myth Buster
Debunking the most common old wives’ tales
Petrol and diesel fuel
PETROL AND DIESEL 1 KARL BENZ INVENTED THE PETROL CAR
Karl Benz always gets the credit for inventing the internal combustion-engined automobile, with his 1885 Benz PatentMotorwagen (which didn’t actually get a patent until 1886). He overshadows those who did it before him because he did get beaten to the idea. Fellow German Siegfried Marcus built a two-stroke handcart in 1870 and a four-stroke vehicle in 1880, while Frenchman Edouard DelamareDeboutteville converted a horsedrawn carriage to run under its own power in 1883/84.
2 RUDOLF DIESEL MADE THE ENGINE NAMED AFTER HIM
Even though the diesel engine is named after Rudolf Diesel, he was some way off actually coming up with it. It’s actually a British design, courtesy of Yorkshireman Herbert Akroyd Stuart. His 1886 ‘hot-bulb engine’ was patented in 1890; by 1891 it was being mass-produced in Lincolnshire by Richard Hornsby & Sons, and had even developed pressurised fuel injection by 1892. Diesel’s first, um, diesel, meanwhile, didn’t actually appear until 1897. The legal battles between the parties continued right up until Diesel’s mysterious death aboard a cross-Channel ferry in 1913.
3 MERCEDES AND HANOMAG SOLD THE FIRST DIESEL CARS
Diesel engines were initially large, heavy and crude, and took some time to make it into cars. Mercedes-Benz launched its 260D in 1936, with Hanomag unveiling its Rekord the same year; these are generally accepted as the first production diesel cars. However, Citroën also offered a 1.8 diesel on the estate car variant of its Rosalie – in 1933.