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What's the earliest era in which people could reverse engineer a car? (https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=293577)

Quote:

Originally Posted by GloucesterChief (Post 11620175)

The mechanical parts can actually be manufactured relatively early in Northern Europe. Probably the 1300s. Mechanical clocks were mentioned in writings as far back as 1280. The Northern Europeans had a very good grasp of mechanization based off of water mills, partly why they industrialized so quickly they had all the components figured out just need to hook up to a different power source.

The problem is something to power the engine. The earliest possible would be with steam and you would be looking at more locomotive than car at that point.

considering the task is to make something that can go 13 mph, I'm with you on figuring out the mechanics early. Again within the scope of the challenge, clearances and requiring all iron/steel shouldn't be too big a deal. Replace critical rubber with cork for gaskets, tires could be wood too like wagon wheels (mythbusters used log slices semi-successfully). Also does vulcanized rubber smell like rubber trees? maybe that would lead people to discover the process quicker.

Same thing for fuel, maybe the gas would clue people onto the untapped potential of crude oil earlier. Otherwise, nat gas was discovered in the 1600's in the US, there was a wood burning car prototyped at some point I heard about on Car Talk once.

I think once they got down the idea of compressed combustion they would be up and running pretty quick somewhere around 1750.

The fact that the most powerful person in the world is trying to figure it out would have something to do with it too. If they got to see the Bandit's TA in action they would figure it out, knowing it would be a key to military/
industrial dominance. I bet the english would get it first, but what the hell do I know. This was a fun question.

WTF are they going to find blinker fluid in 1750?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Detoxing (Post 11622411)

Is the car still running? Fresh gas and oil in it?

If people saw it in action, working, then i'd guess they'd figure it out mechanically kinda quick. If the car isn't operative, then i'd imagine it'd take much longer.

I have no idea what it takes to make Gas & oil, so i'd imagine that would be the biggest limiting factor. Mechanically, i doubt it would take long to figure out at all.

The car is definitely still running, though you only have one tank of gas and probably not much windshield washer fluid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdcox (Post 11622915)

WTF are they going to find blinker fluid in 1750?

That's surprisingly hard to get even in the modern world. It seems like I'm always going to two or three auto parts stores before someone will sell it to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AustinChief (Post 11618335)

Since we aren't worried about mass production or reliability, machining parts shouldn't be too difficult. Fuel is going to be the main issue along with the battery. The A/C could use a number of other gases instead of CFCs so that isn't a major problem.

I'd say anytime before the mid 1600s and they wouldn't even know where to begin on many of the materials. If you started in 1650 I would think the process would still take 50-100 years before they could complete a working car.

Your most likely refrigerant that they could synthesize during your time period would be ammonia, but it wouldn't be anywhere near refrigerant grade.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdcox (Post 11620008)

When the US developed the atomic bomb, I'm not sure the science of the device was even the rate limiting step. I'd lean more to figuring out how to separate Uranium 235, building the factories to do it, and then the inherent time it took to do the separations were rate limiting.
.

This is true. It required the production of the largest industrial buildings ever known to man, using more power than the city of Los Angeles running for years, producing little more than a handful of U-235, for a crude gun device that slammed two subcritical masses together.

Reading your post in many ways undercuts the feasible importance of Cyberdyne in Terminator 2