Not elder law: world’s oldest car up for sale

A steam-powered car, billed as the oldest car in the world that stillruns, will be sold in a Pebble Beach, Calif., auction in August.  Thecar was built in France in 1884, about a year before Gottlieb Daimlerand Karl Benz of Germany built their first experimentalgasoline-powered cars. (The two were working independently of oneanother.) Henry Ford, the man many Americans mistakenly believeinvented the automobile, built his first car 12 years after this one.  Thefour-wheeled De Dion-Bouton et Trepardoux, nicknamed “La Marquise,” wasoriginally built for the French Count De Dion, one of the founders ofthe company. The car has had only two other owners since, according toauction house Gooding & Company, which is handling the sale.  Inan 1887 demonstration drive, the car covered a 19 mile course at anaverage speed of 26 miles per hour. The following year, it won theworld’s first car race, according to Gooding, beating a three-wheeledsteam-powered De Dion-Bouton.  Fueled by coal, wood and bits ofpaper, the car takes about a half-hour to work up enough steam todrive. Top speed is 38 miles per hour.

More at CNN Auto, http://www.cnn.com/2007/AUTOS/06/25/worlds_oldest_car/index.html