subject: The Background Of The Toronto Limousine [print this page] Its commonly believed that the wheel was invented before 3500BC and in about that year the first wheeled vehicles began to be developed. Until about 2000BC these wheeled vehicles for transporting goods were human propelled and it is unlikely that anyone except the very young or the very old or infirm were regularly transported in them. Slaves carried chairs or litters for rulers but there seems to be no record or legend of wheeled vehicles in that age for transporting important people. The wheel barrow is believed to have been invented in ancient Greece about 4 centuries BC. This grew from the one wheeled barrow, that still survives today, to two and four wheeled barrows that came in all sizes to carry all kinds of goods.
In about 2000BC horses were domesticated. Then everything changed. Horses, donkeys and oxen were used for riding, as beasts of burden and for drawing wheeled vehicles. Ways were found to harness two or more horses into one vehicle, which allowed for very fast travelling. At first these vehicles were small and held only one or two men and were used mainly in warfare. Examples are the Assyrian, Greek, Egyptian and Roman chariots. Much later the horse drawn vehicle was enlarged, first for transporting large loads and farm use, and then later for public use.
In the 16th century public transport began in England with the stage coach, the mail coach, and in France, the diligence with fares, and set routes and timetables. These vehicles soon became an important part of the transportation scene in America. In 1662, the year of his death, Blaise Pascal, the famous philosopher and brilliant mathematician, initiated the first horse drawn bus. These were landmark times for travel. After this, transportation divided into public and private. In the public sector people paid a fare and were transported on unvarying routes at set departure and arrival times.
In the private sector, the wealthy kept vehicles for their own personal use, and other owners, including many inn keepers, kept vehicles that were available for hire. The hired vehicles were typically rented out with postillions, who looked after the welbeing of the horses, and returned the vehicle to the owner later. These hired vehicles had no set routes and the time frames of the hire were flexible and arranged beforehand. So in fact these were the true forerunners of todays rental limousines.
By the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth Henry Ford and other engineers and inventors were hard at work on their inventions and the horseless carriage evolved into what were the forerunners of todays automobiles, cars and limousines.
Canadian Colonel John Moodie, a bicycle manufacturer, bought a plant that manufactured the first gasoline fuelled Winton Phaeton from the inventor, Alexander Winton in the 1890s. His car put in its first appearance in Canada, in Hamilton, Ontario, to the amazement of the residents. Moodie was a founding member of the Hamilton Automobile Club, the Ontario Motor League, and the Toronto Automobile Club.
