Alphonse Eugène Beau de Rochas was a French engineer who originated the principle of the four-stroke internal-combustion engine. His achievement lay partly in his emphasizing the previously unappreciated importance of compressing the fuel–a...

Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir was a Belgian engineer who developed the internal combustion engine in 1859. Prior designs for such engines were patented as early as 1807, but none were commercially successful. Lenoir's engine was commercialized...

Nikolaus August Otto was the German inventor of the first internal-combustion engine to efficiently burn fuel directly in a piston chamber. Although other internal combustion engines had been invented (e.g. by Étienne Lenoir) these were not...

Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler was a German engineer, industrial designer and industrialist. He was a pioneer of internal-combustion engines and automobile development. He invented the high-speed petrol engine. Daimler and his lifelong busines...

Karl Friedrich Benz was a German engine designer and automobile engineer, generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile. Other German contemporaries, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, also worked independently on...

Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine. Diesel engines are most often found in applications where a high torque requirement and low RPM requirement exist....

Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet was a pioneering car manufacturer, who with Charles Stewart Rolls founded the Rolls-Royce company. With his fascination for all things mechanical he became interested in motor cars and bought first, in...

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. Although Ford did not invent the automobile or the assembly line, he deve...

Prof. Dr. Ing h.c. Ferdinand Porsche was an Austrian automotive engineer. He is best known for creating the Volkswagen (Beetle) as well as the first of many Porsche automobiles, and for his contributions to advanced German tank designs: Tig...

The Honourable Charles Stewart Rolls was, together with Frederick Henry Royce, a co-founder of the Rolls-Royce car manufacturing firm. Rolls started one of Britain's first car dealerships when he started importing and selling French made ve...