Thursday Trivia

Welcome to Thursday Trivia where we offer up a historical automotive trivia question and you try and solve it before seeing the answer after the jump. It’s like a history test, with cars! 

This week’s question: What was the world’s first Front-Wheel Drive car?

If you think you know the answer, go ahead and make the jump to see if you are correct.

Owing to its packaging efficiencies, weight-savings, and improved traction in having the engine’s weight over the driving wheels, it’s no surprise that Front-Wheel Drive has become the de facto standard for most smaller and midsize cars these days. In various forms front wheel drive goes back decades and is a notable feature of such famous rides as the Cord, Citroën Traction Avant (actually named for it), and the Cadillac Eldorado. None of these cars however, was the first to offer it.

The first front-wheel drive car was in fact the first car ever – or first auto-mobile to be exact.

From About.com:

In 1769, the very first self-propelled road vehicle was a military tractor invented by French engineer and mechanic, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot (1725 – 1804). The steam engine and boiler were separate from the rest of the vehicle and placed in the front. The following year (1770), Cugnot built a steam-powered tricycle that carried four passengers. 

In fact Cugnot’s tractor was little more than a steam-powered unicycle pulling a single axle wagon behind it. Not only was this the first automobile, and first front-driver, but remarkably its steam engine predated the advent of the steam locomotive by a good 35 years. The first steam-powered railway (as opposed to horse-drawn) appeared in 1804 to transport iron in Wales.

Image source: NicolasCugnot.com