Road transport

Motor vehicles of all kinds, including cars, buses, lorries and motorcycles, all have the same basic features. Wheels and suspension allow the vehicle to roll smoothly along the...

Internal combustion engine

A car is usually powered by a piston engine, a kind of internal combustion engine. It is so-called because fuel, usually petrol or diesel oil, but sometimes hydrogen or liquefied...

Cars

Most cars are powered by an internal combustion engine fuelled by petrol, diesel oil, hydrogen or biofuels. An increasing number are powered by electric motors or are hybrids...

Parts of a car A-Z

Early history of cars

People used carts pulled by horses or other animals for more than 5000 years before the first self-propelled vehicles, steam-powered carriages, were built. The age of the car...

Story of road transport A-Z

Formula 1 racing car

Formula 1 is an annual competition in which drivers race on different circuits around the world such as Monte Carlo, Monza, Silverstone and Nürburgring. The cars they drive use...

Land speed record

Only a few years after the motor car was invented, people wanted to drive them as fast as possible. The land speed racers of the early 1900s were the fastest vehicles on...

Bicycles

A bicycle is a human-powered vehicle with two wheels. The first bicycle, described by its inventor, Baron von Drais as a "running machine", appeared in 1817. The draisienne...

Fire engines and firefighters

Firefighting is the job of extinguishing (putting out) fires. People who fight fires are called firefighters. The first thing firefighters do is to look for the origin of the fire...