The Ford Motor Company sold its first automobile, the Ford Model A. It featured a twin-cylinder internal combustion engine designed and manufactured by then little-known Michigan machinist, Henry Ford. It was assembled at the Mack Avenue plant in Detroit.

Gottlieb Daimler invented his first car. Daimler patented a high speed, petrol-fuelled, four stroke engine in 1885 which he installed in a crude wooden bicycle frame, and so invented the motorbike. In 1886 came a four wheel vehicle, fashioned from a four seat, horse-drawn carriage, with a steering column and a larger engine mounted below the back seat and projecting through the floor. The one-cylinder, 1.1 h.p. engine had a four speed gearbox that turned the back wheels by means of a belt-driven mechanism capable of a maximum speed of 16 km/h.