In 1863, a strange vehicle is tested on a short stretch of road from the city of Paris to the suburb of Joinville-le-Pont. The ‘Hippomobile’ resembles a three-wheeled cart, but it has no horses. Instead, the vehicle is equipped with a single-cylinder internal combustion engine, designed by Etienne Lenoir of France.
The 11km test ride takes three hours, but it is long enough to mark a turning point in the history of engineering and transport. Lenoir is the first person to have designed an internal combustion engine that is a real product, not just a prototype design. The engine ushers in a revolution in transport and industry throughout the world.
From that metre-high structure with an output of just a few handfuls of horsepower, the internal combustion engine has been developed for endless tasks, sometimes compact and efficient, sometimes huge and super-powerful. Today they are the driving force for cars and trains, boats and ships, aeroplanes and helicopters.
The development history of engines has culminated, so far, with the Wärtsilä RTflex96C ship engine. With its 2300 tonnes and 114,800 horsepower, it powers huge ocean-going container ships. The journey from Paris to the Wärtsilä was a long one. But even before the Hippomobile, countless earlier
