What is the oldest car maker?

Answer 1

The four-wheeled De Dion-Bouton et Trepardoux, nicknamed "La Marquise," was originally built 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, who put it up for auction in August, 2007 at Pebble Beach (California, USA). 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.

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. The car runs on thin tires of solid rubber wrapped around metal wheels.

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.

Bob Casey, curator of transportation for the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, agreed that the De Dion-Bouton is, quite possibly, the oldest running automobile. (The definition of "automobile," in this case, excludes large steam-powered carriages that were, essentially, rail cars without rails.) Casey's museum has an American-made steamer dating from the 1860s but it's no longer safe to drive and probably wasn't even when Henry Ford bought it in 1930.

Answer 2

Mercedes Benz