When Was the First Car Made in the United States? 1893 and Rivals

The first successful gasoline car in the United States was road-tested by Frank Duryea in Springfield, Massachusetts, on September 21, 1893, according to the Smithsonian. But “first car” has several honest answers: a steam machine ran in Philadelphia in 1805, Elwood Haynes tested a car in 1894, and the Duryeas built the first series-produced cars in 1896. This guide sets out each claim, the evidence behind it and what is still disputed.

First American Car: Key Dates and Milestones

The table below puts every serious contender side by side. Each row names who made the claim, what exactly is claimed, the source we read for it and the part that historians still argue about. The sources are named in plain text so you can look them up: the Smithsonian, The Henry Ford, the Detroit Historical Society, Indiana Landmarks, History.com, Wikipedia (as plain-text corroboration only) and the text of US patent 549,160.

Year	Contender	What is claimed	Source and evidence	What is disputed
1805	Oliver Evans, Philadelphia	First self-propelled road vehicle in the US: a steam dredge on wheels called the Oruktor Amphibolos	Wikipedia: driven through Philadelphia streets on July 13, 1805; built for the city’s Board of Health; about 30 ft long and 17 tons	Few contemporary accounts survive and Evans often exaggerated; overland travel is considered improbable. It was steam, not gasoline
Before 1894	John William Lambert and Charles Black	Earlier gasoline horseless carriages than Haynes	Indiana Landmarks says both built earlier horseless carriages	We did not read a primary source for these cars, so treat their dates as unconfirmed
1893	Charles and Frank Duryea, Springfield, Massachusetts	First successful American gasoline vehicle	Smithsonian (Berkebile): first road trial September 21, 1893; first run of about six miles January 18, 1894	The first engine failed, early trials were short, and the Smithsonian says other engineers worked on similar cars
1894	Elwood Haynes, Kokomo, Indiana	“America’s first car,” a phrase from his own advertising	Indiana Landmarks: tested July 4, 1894 on Pumpkinvine Pike; built with Elmer and Edgar Apperson	Indiana Landmarks says it was not the first gasoline car tested in the US, only one built from the ground up as an automobile
1895	George Selden, Rochester, New York	A patent for a road vehicle with a liquid-hydrocarbon engine	US patent 549,160, “Road-engine,” issued November 5, 1895	A patent is not a built car, and Ford defeated it on appeal on January 10, 1911 (Wikipedia)
1896	Duryea Motor Wagon Company	First series-produced automobile in the US	The Henry Ford and the Smithsonian: thirteen identical cars in 1896	The Smithsonian calls it mass production, The Henry Ford says series-produced
1901	Olds Motor Works, Curved Dash	First mass-produced car in the US, “if not the world”	The Henry Ford: more than 19,000 built from 1901 to 1907	The same museum also hedges with “arguably”
1908	Ford Model T	Most famous mass-produced car	Detroit Historical Society: introduced October 1, 1908	Not the first; the moving assembly line came in 1913

Early Innovations: Steam Before Gasoline

Self-propelled road vehicles existed in America about 90 years before the Duryea carriage, but they ran on steam. In 1805 Oliver Evans of Philadelphia built a flat-bottomed scow with a steam engine for the city’s Board of Health. Wikipedia reports that he mounted it on wheels and that it was driven through Philadelphia streets on July 13, 1805. It was about 30 feet long and roughly 17 tons, and the board scrapped it for parts in 1808.

Treat the claim with care. Evans himself was the source for most accounts of what the machine did, and Wikipedia says historians consider overland travel improbable given its weight and jury-rigged power train. That is why a careful answer to “first car” splits into steam, gasoline and production, rather than awarding one winner.

The Duryea Brothers

Charles Duryea was born in 1861 near Canton, Illinois, trained as a mechanic and turned to bicycle repair, according to the Smithsonian’s research paper on the car. His brother Frank was eight years younger. The Henry Ford says the pair read a Scientific American article on Karl Benz’s work in 1889 and that their first prototype in 1892 failed. Frank later said they leaned heavily on the Benz patents, and the Smithsonian paper notes Benz influence in their later engine and transmission.

Credit between the brothers is itself unsettled. Charles began planning the first machine, while Frank did the building and testing in Springfield. When the Springfield Morning Union described a trial on November 9, 1893, it named Erwin Markham and J. F. Duryea as the inventors. Markham followed the experiments closely but, according to the Smithsonian, was reluctant to ride in the brakeless car himself.

The 1893 Duryea Motor Wagon

Frank bought a well-used ladies’ phaeton for $70 and fitted a gasoline engine to it. The Smithsonian’s account says the first engine was unsatisfactory, with a light flywheel, no governor and poor ignition, so Frank built a second, water-cooled engine over the spring and summer of 1893. The completed carriage weighed 750 pounds.

The first road trial came on September 21, 1893. After dark, a horse pulled the carriage to a barn on Spruce Street, and the first tests were made on Spruce and Florence Streets. Frank wrote to Charles the next day that the belt transmission was very bad but the engine was all right. The Springfield Evening Union of September 22 called the motor a two-horsepower unit, a figure the Smithsonian notes is somewhat below the rating Frank gave it. A trial on November 9 with a leather friction surface was watched by residents along Florence Street.

The first real trip came on the night of January 18, 1894, when the car ran roughly six miles through Springfield, including Worthington Street hill. The Smithsonian quotes Frank recalling that the water in the cooling system was boiling when they stopped to refill it. He later reported speeds of about 3 mph in low gear and 8 mph in high gear. The carriage had no brakes, relied on engine drag on hills, and probably covered less than a hundred miles in total before being stored in a barn.

The Smithsonian says Frank began a second, two-cylinder car in April 1894. That second vehicle, not the 1893 carriage, is the one the company entered in the 1895 race. The 1893-94 carriage is preserved by the Smithsonian and is the car many people mean by the first American automobile.

Corrected Record: What the Old Story Gets Wrong

Several details that circulate widely do not match the sources we read. This table compares common statements with what the Smithsonian, The Henry Ford and the Detroit Historical Society say.

Common statement	What the sources say	Source
The Duryea car reached 7.5 mph on its first test	Frank later reported about 3 mph in low gear and 8 mph in high gear, and the first trials in September 1893 were limited by a poor belt transmission	Smithsonian
It was first tested on Taylor Street on September 21, 1893	The first tests were on Spruce and Florence Streets after a horse pulled the carriage out at night. Frank recalled a run from the shop area down Taylor Street on the January 1894 trip	Smithsonian
The first ten production cars were sold in 1896	Thirteen identical cars were built in 1896	Smithsonian, The Henry Ford
Henry Ford invented the car	The Model T arrived on October 1, 1908, years after the Duryea carriage, the Haynes car and the Olds Curved Dash	Detroit Historical Society, The Henry Ford
The Model T was the first mass-produced car	The Henry Ford calls the 1901 Curved Dash Oldsmobile the first mass-produced car in the US, if not the world, and the Duryeas built the first series-produced cars in 1896	The Henry Ford
The Duryea was the first car in the world	The Duryeas leaned on Karl Benz’s patents, and three imported Benz cars raced against Frank in Chicago in 1895	Smithsonian

If you are researching the broader question, our guide to the first car in the world covers the German side of the story, and we cover who built the first car in America as a separate piece.

Pioneers Of American Automotive: Haynes and Rival Claims

Elwood Haynes tested his self-propelled buggy, the Pioneer, on Pumpkinvine Pike near Kokomo, Indiana, on July 4, 1894, according to Indiana Landmarks. He was then the superintendent of the Kokomo gas company, and the car was built with Elmer and Edgar Apperson. Indiana Landmarks says the Pioneer was not the first gasoline car tested in the US, and that the “America’s First Car” label came from Haynes’s advertising.

The dispute turns on definitions. The Duryea carriage was an existing phaeton fitted with an engine, while Indiana Landmarks says the Pioneer was built from the ground up as an automobile. Neither definition changes the dates: the Duryea road trial of September 1893 came about nine months before the Pioneer’s July 1894 test. Indiana Landmarks also names John William Lambert and Charles Black as builders of earlier horseless carriages, which is why serious histories avoid a single “first.”

1896: The First Production Cars

Capital arrived after Frank’s second car won. On Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1895, he won the Chicago Times-Herald race over five other entries, two electric cars and three Benz cars imported from Germany, per the Smithsonian. The Henry Ford describes the course as a 54-mile round trip between Chicago and Evanston.

In 1896 the Duryea Motor Wagon Company built thirteen identical cars. The Henry Ford calls the Runabout the first series-produced automobile made in the US and says it had a horizontally mounted two-cylinder engine producing six horsepower and a top speed near 20 mph. The museum owns the only known surviving 1896 Duryea. The Smithsonian describes the same output as the first example of mass production in American automotive history, which shows how two museums use different words for the same thirteen cars.

Mass Production: Olds, Ford and the Model T

The Curved Dash Oldsmobile was the first American car built in large numbers. The Henry Ford says it sold for $650, that Oldsmobile built more than 19,000 from 1901 to 1907 and reached 5,000 a year by 1904, and that it was the bestselling car in America from 1902 to 1905. Its single-cylinder engine was rated at four horsepower, though a 1902 caption in the same collection gives 4.5.

The Model T arrived on October 1, 1908, according to the Detroit Historical Society, and was assembled by hand at the Piquette Avenue plant, with only 11 cars built in the first month. The Highland Park plant opened on January 1, 1910. The moving assembly line for the chassis arrived in 1913 and cut chassis assembly from 12 hours 8 minutes to 93 minutes by 1914. The Detroit Historical Society gives the price as $850 in 1909 (History.com says 1908) and $260 by 1924, and says production passed 15 million cars before ending in May 1927. History.com dates the last Model T to May 26, 1927.

The Selden Patent: A Claim That Was Not a Car

George Selden of Rochester, New York, received US patent 549,160, titled “Road-engine,” on November 5, 1895. Wikipedia says he applied on May 8, 1879, while a printed copy held by The Henry Ford lists May 9, 1879, so even the filing date is recorded two ways. The patent describes a road vehicle powered by a compression-type liquid-hydrocarbon engine under the body, and it disclaims earlier steam carriages.

Selden and the Electric Vehicle Company sued carmakers, and the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers paid royalties. Ford contested the patent and, per Wikipedia, won on appeal on January 10, 1911, arguing that automobile engines derive from the Otto engine, not the Brayton engine Selden had improved. The point for this guide: a patent filed in 1879 shows an idea, not the first running American car.

Keep reading

• Where Was The First Car Invented? The Real Origin Story
• When Did Cars Come to America Historical Overview
• When Was the First Ford Car Made? The 1903 Model A Explained

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the first car made in the US?

It depends on the definition. The first gasoline car to make a documented road trial was Frank Duryea’s carriage in Springfield, Massachusetts, on September 21, 1893, per the Smithsonian. A steam-powered machine built by Oliver Evans was driven in Philadelphia in 1805, and the first series-produced American cars were the thirteen Duryea Motor Wagons of 1896.

Who made the first car in America?

Charles and Frank Duryea of Springfield, Massachusetts, are the most widely credited makers of the first successful American gasoline car. Oliver Evans (steam, 1805), Elwood Haynes (gasoline, 1894) and others hold competing claims. The Smithsonian notes that several American engineers were working on similar vehicles in the early 1890s.

What was the first American car?

The most-cited answer is the Duryea carriage of 1893-94, which the Smithsonian preserves. If you mean the first American car built in a series, it is the 1896 Duryea Motor Wagon, of which thirteen identical cars were made. If you mean the first American self-propelled road vehicle, the claim goes to Oliver Evans’s steam machine of 1805.

Where was the first American car built?

The Duryea carriage was built in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Smithsonian says its first road trials in September 1893 took place on Spruce and Florence Streets after the car was moved there at night, and that its first longer run, about six miles, came on January 18, 1894.

Did the Duryea brothers race their car?

Yes. Frank Duryea won the Chicago Times-Herald race on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1895, beating five other entries: two electric cars and three Benz cars imported from Germany, per the Smithsonian. The Henry Ford describes the course as a 54-mile round trip between Chicago and Evanston.

Was the Duryea car the first car ever made?

No. Karl Benz’s work in Germany came earlier, and the Duryeas leaned on his patents, according to the Smithsonian. Our guide to the first car in the world covers that story. The Duryea carriage was the first successful American gasoline vehicle in the Smithsonian’s account, not the first automobile anywhere.

Conclusion

For most readers the clean answer is 1893: the Duryea carriage ran on Springfield streets that September and made its first longer trip in January 1894. The fuller answer is that steam came first in 1805, Haynes followed in 1894, production began in 1896 with thirteen cars, and Olds and Ford made cars common. Where museums disagree, the sources are named above so you can check them.