OK, I'm no dummy. I know by sticking Gene Sears' name in my blog subject – I guarantee a thousand extra hits and visits from anti-Union Pacific folks and maybe a special guest appearance by a pseudonym known as Mike Cooper. Nevertheless, I was thinking of my co-worker when I ran across this beautiful automobile and a story about it.NEW YORK - A steam-powered car, billed as the oldest car in the world that still runs, will be sold in a Pebble Beach, Calif., auction in August. The car was built in France in 1884, about a year before Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz of Germany built their first experimental gasoline-powered cars (The two were working independently of one another.) Henry Ford, the man many Americans mistakenly believe invented the automobile, built his first car 12 years after this one. The four-wheeled De Dion-Bouton et Trepardoux, nicknamed "La Marquise," was originally buit for the French Count De Dion, one of the founders of the company. The car has had only two other owners since, according to auction house Gooding & Company, which is handling the sale. In an 1887 demonstration drive, the car covered a 19 mile course at an average speed of 26 miles per hour. The following year, it won the world's first car race, according to Gooding, beating a three-wheeled steam-powered De Dion-Bouton. Fueled by coal, wood and bits of paper, the car takes about a half-hour to work up enough steam to drive. Top speed is 38 miles per hour.
I love that it takes a half hour to get going. Perfect for anybody waiting behind a train.
