Internal -CombutionEngine

      A compatriot of Carl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler , independently arrived at his own verson of the internal-combustion engine that Benz had developed, Althought the two never met, the firm which succeeded their enterprises merged and formed the present Mercedes-Benz Company.

   Perhaps the first truly practical gasoline-powered automobile was the pan hard, designed, in 1894, by a Frenchman named Krebs, The French had begun to produce autos a few years earlier, after Levassor purchased the French rights to Daimer's engine of 1887. In the U.S. several inventors got high marks for pioneering efforts in the field. Among them were the Duryea brothers,who won the first  automobile race in America in 1895.