Extra Information From Quiz Committee:
Cars had already come quite a way since 1770, when Nicholas Cugnot built, in France, perhaps the first true self-propelled `road wagon' that had ever appeared in public. It had three wheels, with a cumbersome steam engine driving its single front wheel at about 2.3 miles an hour - for about 20 minutes until it stopped to raise more steam.

The first Canadian horseless carriage was built by Henry Seth Taylor, a Stanstead, Quebec watchmaker. By 1867, Confederation Year, he had made a 4-wheeled open carriage propelled by a steam engine at the rear. He called it a "steam pleasure palace" but it had problems: the engine was hot and dangerous and the carriage had no brakes. One day his "palace" rolled down a hill and smashed beyond repair. Steam engines continued to evolve, getting lighter and more efficient. In America, they were used in cars until the mid 1920s, the Stanley Steamer, for example.

The second Canadian horseless carriage was built in Toronto, in 1893. Electric powered and with an energy-efficient battery it could travel at 15 mph for an hour before a re-charge.Well-made and with features ahead of its time such as electric lights, pneumatic tires and a folding top, it was used by its first owner for at least 20 years. Electric cars continued to be popular until the start of World War 1.

Towards the late 1800s, inventors in Austria, England, France, Germany and the U.S.A., had pioneered all the major mechanical elements required by a modern car, plus a new power source, the gasoline engine. The first successful gasoline-powered car was built by Karl Benz (Germany) in 1885, with a top speed of 10 to 16 km/hour. Then Gottlieb Daimler (Germany) patented a high-speed 2-cylinder V engine in 1888.

In Europe, the early motor car was hand made and only affordable by the rich. It was the Americans who perfected mass production methods that would make the car affordable to many. By 1902, early American automobile makers were producing about 9,000 per year. Streamlined-assembly methods, pioneered by such men as Henry Ford of later Model-T fame, then increased American production to nearly 200,000 a year by 1911.

Sources:
- Doug M. Symons, "The Village That Straddled A Swamp" p.138 (Woodstock Public Library)
- Ed Bennett, local historian; Quiz Committee member
- The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 28, p. 771 (Woodstock Public Library)
- Desmond Morton, "Wheels - The Car In Canada" (Woodstock Public Library)