What's the earliest era in which people could reverse engineer a car?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

I think it would be very difficult to reverse engineer a car without being able to machine the parts to a very precise tolerance. Hard to imagine a blacksmith being able to do that.

But more than the car itself, aren't you forgetting about two important things:

1) Said society needs to be able to refine gasoline/ethanol to a purity that isn't going to blow the engine

2) How is the air conditioning going to work without refrigerant? Chlorofluorocarbons weren't even synthetically feasible until the 1890s.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

I think it would be very difficult to reverse engineer a car without being able to machine the parts to a very precise tolerance. Hard to imagine a blacksmith being able to do that.

But more than the car itself, aren't you forgetting about two important things:

1) Said society needs to be able to refine gasoline/ethanol to a purity that isn't going to blow the engine

2) How is the air conditioning going to work without refrigerant? Chlorofluorocarbons weren't even synthetically feasible until the 1890s.

That is why I marked post 1850.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

I think it would be very difficult to reverse engineer a car without being able to machine the parts to a very precise tolerance. Hard to imagine a blacksmith being able to do that.

But more than the car itself, aren't you forgetting about two important things:

1) Said society needs to be able to refine gasoline/ethanol to a purity that isn't going to blow the engine

2) How is the air conditioning going to work without refrigerant? Chlorofluorocarbons weren't even synthetically feasible until the 1890s.

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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

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.