You probably think of a car when you hear the phrase "internal combustion engine." Or maybe you think of Karl Benz. Perhaps your mind goes to Henry Ford, though he was more of a production genius than a fundamental inventor. But the truth about the inventor of the first internal combustion engine is a messy, multi-generational drama involving gunpowder, hydrogen, and a few French guys who never quite got the credit they deserved.
Most people just want a single name. They want a "Eureka!" moment. History doesn't work that way. It’s a slow burn.
If you’re looking for the absolute spark, we have to talk about Christiaan Huygens. Back in 1673, he wasn't thinking about a commute to work. He was playing with gunpowder. He actually designed a primitive engine that used gunpowder explosions to create a vacuum, which then pulled a piston down. It worked. Sort of. It didn't exactly lead to a Toyota Corolla, but it proved the concept: you could use an explosion inside a cylinder to do work.
The Niépce Brothers and the Pyréolophore
Wait, who?
Nicéphore Niépce is famous for taking the world's first photograph. You’ve probably seen that blurry, grain-heavy image of a courtyard. But before he was messing around with light-sensitive chemicals, he and his brother Claude were obsessed with propulsion. In 1807, they patented the Pyréolophore.
This thing was wild. It ran on a mixture of Lycopodium powder—basically highly flammable moss spores—and coal dust. They didn't put it in a carriage; they put it in a boat on the Saône river in France. It actually moved. Napoleon Bonaparte himself signed the patent.
But here’s the kicker: they spent their entire family fortune trying to commercialize it. Claude eventually went to England, lost his mind, and spent all their money on "improvements" that didn't work. It’s a tragic story. While we often point to German engineering as the birthplace of the engine, the French were arguably there first, just with less business savvy and a lot more moss spores.
Why Isaac de Rivaz Matters
Around the same time the Niépce brothers were blowing up moss, a Swiss inventor named Isaac de Rivaz was taking a different approach. He didn’t use coal dust. He used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.
His 1807 design is often cited as the first "real" internal combustion engine because it was actually fitted into a vehicle. It was a clunky, hand-triggered machine. You had to manually open and close the valves. It wasn't "automatic" in the way we think of engines today. But it moved a cart a few meters.
Think about that. 1807. We were still decades away from the American Civil War, and a guy in Switzerland was already driving a hydrogen-powered vehicle. It didn't catch on because the energy density was terrible and the infrastructure didn't exist. Imagine trying to find a hydrogen refill station in the Napoleonic era.
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The Breakthrough: Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir
For about fifty years after de Rivaz, things went quiet. Then came Étienne Lenoir in 1859. If you had to pick the inventor of the first internal combustion engine that actually functioned like a modern tool, Lenoir is your guy.
He didn't use gunpowder. He didn't use moss. He used coal gas.
His engine was double-acting, meaning the gas exploded on both sides of the piston. It was essentially a converted steam engine. He sold hundreds of them. They were used for printing presses and small factory tasks. He even drove a "Hippomobile" from Paris to Joinville-le-Pont in 1863.
But it was horribly inefficient. It wasted about 95% of its fuel. It ran hot, it was loud, and it lacked compression. Without compression, you just don't have power. You have a glorified gas-burner that nudges a metal rod.
Nikolaus Otto and the Four-Stroke Miracle
This is where the story gets "modern." In 1876, Nikolaus Otto, a German traveling salesman turned engineer, perfected the four-stroke cycle. We still call it the "Otto Cycle" today.
- Intake.
- Compression.
- Power.
- Exhaust.
By compressing the fuel-air mixture before igniting it, Otto unlocked an astronomical jump in efficiency. Suddenly, the engine wasn't just a novelty. It was a beast. He partnered with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. If those names sound familiar, it's because they basically founded the entire German automotive industry.
There was a legal battle, of course. A Frenchman named Alphonse Beau de Rochas had actually patented the idea of the four-stroke cycle back in 1862, but he never built it. Otto did. The courts eventually stripped Otto of some of his patent rights, but the world didn't care. The "Otto Engine" was the blueprint.
The Missing Link: Liquid Fuel
Up until this point, these engines were mostly stationary. They were hooked up to gas lines in buildings. You couldn't exactly drag a gas line behind a moving carriage.
The transition to gasoline (petrol) was the final piece of the puzzle. Gasoline was actually a byproduct of kerosene production that people used to just throw away. It was dangerous and highly volatile. But for an internal combustion engine, that volatility was exactly what was needed.
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Daimler and Maybach created the "Grandfather Clock" engine in 1885. It was small, light, and ran on gasoline. They put it on a bike (the first motorcycle) and then a carriage.
Karl Benz and the Final Leap
While Daimler was putting engines on everything that moved, Karl Benz was approaching the problem from a different angle. He didn't just want to put an engine on a carriage. He wanted to build an integrated machine where the chassis and the engine were one.
In 1886, he patented the Benz Patent-Motorwagen.
This is the point where the inventor of the first internal combustion engine narrative usually starts in history books. But as you've seen, Benz was standing on the shoulders of about a dozen guys who had been blowing things up in their sheds for a century.
Benz’s engine had one cylinder, 954cc displacement, and produced about 0.75 horsepower. To put that in perspective, a modern lawnmower has about 4 or 5 horsepower. You could literally walk faster than the first car. But it was the start of everything.
What Most People Get Wrong
We like to think of inventors as lone geniuses. They aren't.
If you look at the timeline, the internal combustion engine was a collective effort.
- Huygens (1673): The spark/gunpowder.
- Niépce (1807): The first boat/dust fuel.
- De Rivaz (1807): The first carriage/hydrogen.
- Lenoir (1859): The first commercial success.
- Otto (1876): The four-stroke logic.
- Benz/Daimler (1886): The modern car.
There’s also the "forgotten" inventor, Samuel Morey. In 1826, an American—yes, an American—patented an internal combustion engine that ran on ethanol and turpentine. He even put it in a boat on the Connecticut River. Why didn't he become the "father of the car"? He couldn't find investors. The market wasn't ready. Technology is nothing without timing.
The Engineering Reality: Why It Took So Long
You might wonder why it took from 1673 to 1886 to get a working car.
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It wasn't just the engine. It was the "supporting cast." You needed the spark plug (Lenoir helped with this). You needed a carburetor to mix air and fuel (Maybach perfected this). You needed lubrication so the whole thing didn't melt in ten minutes.
Early engines were basically "external" combustion mindset applied "internally." They didn't understand fluid dynamics or the chemistry of combustion. They were just trying to survive the explosions they were creating.
Actionable Insights for History and Tech Buffs
If you’re researching the inventor of the first internal combustion engine for a project, or just because you’re a nerd for mechanical history, keep these three things in mind:
Don't ignore the fuel. The history of the engine is actually the history of fuel. We went from gunpowder to coal dust to hydrogen to coal gas to liquid gasoline. Each jump in fuel technology allowed the engine to shrink and become more portable.
Look at the patents, not just the machines. Many inventors, like Beau de Rochas, understood the physics perfectly but lacked the metallurgy to build the parts. If you're looking for the "intellectual" inventor, it's often someone different from the "mechanical" inventor.
The "first" is always a debate. Depending on how you define "engine" (Is it mobile? Does it use compression? Does it use liquid fuel?), you will get a different answer.
If you want to see this history in person, skip the local car show. You need to head to the Deutsches Museum in Munich. They have Otto’s original atmospheric engine and Benz’s first motorwagen. Seeing them in the flesh makes you realize how fragile and miraculous these early machines were. They look like they should fall apart if you sneeze on them.
The story of the engine isn't a straight line. It’s a messy, exploded diagram of human ambition. It took a hundred years of failures to finally get us a machine that could outrun a horse.
To truly understand where we're going with electric vehicles and hydrogen cells today, you have to look back at 1807. We’re basically repeating the same cycle: searching for a better fuel, fighting over patents, and trying to build an infrastructure that doesn't exist yet. History doesn't repeat, but it definitely rumbles like a cold start on a January morning.
Recommended Next Steps for Research
- Primary Source Check: Look up the 1807 Niépce patent. It’s a fascinating look at how people thought about "explosive power" before the concept of "thermodynamics" was fully codified.
- Technical Deep Dive: Research the "Atmospheric Engine" vs. the "Compression Engine." This distinction is the single most important factor in why Nikolaus Otto succeeded where others failed.
- Museum Archives: Check the Smithsonian's online records for Samuel Morey. His 1826 engine is a hidden gem of American engineering that predates the European "boom" by decades.