Siegfried MarcusBorn 18 Sep 1831; died 30 Jun 1898 at age 66.German-Austrian inventor who built four of the world's earliest gasoline-powered automobiles. Marcus held about 76 patents (though none on his automobiles) in about a dozen countries, including an electric lamp (1877), various other electrical devices, a carburetor and an igniter for explosives. He installed the first electric bell in the bedroom of Empress Elisabeth, and he became an instructor in physics to the ill-fated Crown Prince Rudolf. He built and marketed internal combustion engines. Marcus first started working on a self-propelled vehicle about 1860, making significant contributions in the course of further development. Photographs of his first car, built about 1864, were taken in 1870. The second car - the landmark - was built about 1875 in his Vienna factory. It was first equipped with a two-cycle engine, and later, a four-cycle engine. |
