April was a season of flowers in full bloom and trees casting deep shade. While Ferdinand was out enjoying the spring, he received some good news.
"Your Majesty, we've developed the low-cost automobile you asked for. Come take a look!" Allen-Heidelberg ran over like a child presenting a treasured prize.
By the start of the twentieth century, automobiles were no longer anything novel. Both their practicality and safety had improved dramatically over the nineteenth century, and they were beginning to replace horse-drawn carriages, becoming the new toys of wealthy nobles.
As early as 1769, the Frenchman Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the world's first steam-powered three-wheeled automobile, thus ushering humanity into the age of the automobile.
Yet steam automobiles were hopelessly poor in every aspect and had no chance of widespread adoption. It was not until 1897, when the German Rudolf Diesel successfully produced the first diesel engine, that things changed.
The arrival of the diesel engine was a great breakthrough in power engineering. It not only found a use for diesel fuel, but was also more fuel-efficient than gasoline, more powerful, and relatively less polluting—one of the finest automotive power systems of its time.
On August 15, 1883, Daimler and Maybach invented the gasoline internal-combustion engine. In 1885, the German Gottlieb Daimler invented the first four-wheeled automobile, opening a new era for cars.
Before 1900, following Germany and France, numerous workshop-style automobile manufacturers had emerged in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy. In 1900, Europe and the United States produced a combined total of 9,504 automobiles.
Ferdinand, who understood the importance of automobiles, naturally followed suit. In 1901, Bulgaria independently developed its first automobile—the Bol!
By the standards of the time, the Bol's performance was world-class. It could travel continuously for three and a half hours at a speed