The Los Angeles Auto Show wrapped up this week after the great and the good from the car world descended on the event to show off their new electric cars and other ground-breaking tech that’s meant to change the way we travel. While there were some cool concepts on display, a lot of the designs that were meant to showcase the future of the industry harked back to ideas that have been talked about since the very first auto show.
Motor shows aren’t a new idea and their history can actually be traced back more than 100 years, to a time when steam trains and horse-drawn carriages still ruled global travel. Back then, a few pioneers in France thought there should be a platform to show off the latest transport tech, and the auto show was born.
The year was 1898, and the global automotive industry descended on France to take over a pavilion on the lawns of Le Jardin des Tuileries in the center of Paris. The event was regarded as the world’s first car show and formed the basis of the Paris Auto Show that still runs to this day.
Officially called the Exposition Internationale d’Automobiles, the event caused quite the stir when it showed off new creations like buses, bikes and even cars, as Autocar reports. In total, 77 manufacturers were in attendance to showcase more than 200 different models to the more than 140,000 attendees who turned up over the event’s 18 days, as the site explains:
“A run through the exhibition afforded striking proof of the validity of the new industry, and the resource in the way of invention, as displayed in the many new systems of vehicle propulsion, was sufficient evidence of the considerable development that is bound to take place in the early future,” we said.
“It was in these new systems of [cars] that the interest of the show chiefly lay. Some were no doubt of indifferent merit, and others were utterly impracticable, but among them there were many ingenious and interesting devices that might be turned to excellent account.”
The cars that thousands of Parisians were flocking to see sound as though they wouldn’t have been out of place at this year’s LA show either. There was a new public transport system from French manufacturer De Dion-Bouton, which was a 20-seat bus that ran on steam, as well as luxurious creations designed for people that want to travel in style.
Even more akin to the kind of innovation you’ll find at a 21st century auto show was a fleet of battery powered taxis, as Autocar adds:
The public roads trial of battery-fed taxis – which proved to have ranges of up to 100km – had also included those made by local EV specialists Jeantaud and Kriéger, the former of which won the prize of 1000 francs (about £8000 today) for the best two-seater.
Battery power and space for two, now what could that be reminding me of? After walking away with the big prize from the Exposition Internationale d’Automobiles, Kriéger did then become a mildly successful EV manufacturer off the back of the show.
The French company marketed three different battery-powered models from 1898 to 1909, with the Electrolette packing a 3 hp motor that was sufficient to power it on to a top speed of around 20mph, reports Cars Forgotten. See, pioneering electric car makers can show off concepts and bring them to market.
