0.75 hp motor car, 1895

Knight 0.75 hp motor car. The car, originally constructed as a three-wheeler, was completed and ran in July 1895. It was altered to a four-wheeler in April 1896. It has a one cylinder engine with hot-tube ignition, later converted to electric ignition (by battery, coil and plug). The car is fitted with a direct-acting hand brake. Transmission is by belts.

This one-of-a-kind car was built in 1895 by John Henry Knight, a keen inventor, with the assistance of George Parfitt, an engineer. Knight used the car to experiment both with ways of improving motoring technology, and with British motoring law.

The car was originally built as a three-wheeler, but a year later Knight and Parfitt adapted it to have four wheels to make it more stable on the road. They tried different types of fuel: at various times, its engine ran on benzoline, petrol and even paraffin. They also adapted various components to make it work better. The car eventually reached speeds of 8 miles per hour.

In 1895, Knight and his assistant James Pullinger also led the way by driving the car in the first incident to be prosecuted under Britain’s motoring laws. Pullinger drove the car in central Farnham, Surrey, without a locomotive licence. Knight appears to have provoked the prosecution to highlight the fact that existing laws classed cars alongside steam engines. While Knight and Pullinger were both fined, public opinion was behind them and the law was swiftly changed, raising the speed limit and removing the need for a pedestrian to walk in front of moving vehicles with a red flag.