I Think This May Be The First Mass-Produced Car With A Frunk And It Helps Expose The Mercedes-Benz First Car Lies

I alluded to this in passing yesterday, but I kept thinking about it, and I think this car, the 1891-1894 Peugeot Type deserves a mention for two reasons: one, I do believe it was actually the first mass-produced car one could buy with (optionally, I think) a front mounted trunk (also known by the portmanteau “frunk”, which in this case, was sometimes a literal portmanteau) and two, the fact that this car was produced in some numbers between 1891 and 1894 supports the argument that Mercedes-Benz really shouldn’t claim their 1886 Patent-Motorwagen as the “first automobile,” which I’ll explain in a bit here.

First, let’s just talk about the Peugeot Type 3 a bit: Peugeot started building cars in 1889, four steam-powered ones, but in 1890 the company realized that gasoline-powered engines were smaller and simpler to deal with, and entered an agreement with both Gottlieb Daimler and Émile Levassor to license Diamler’s engine, which was built by Levassor, and then bought by Peugeot to use in cars. The first car to use this V-twin four-stroke engine, the Type 2, arrived in 1890 and only four were built, but the design was then refined into the Type 3 in 1891.

The 1891 car was much more successful, with 64 examples built, and Peugeot likes to claim this as the “first mass-produced car,” which I wouldn’t agree with – the 1875 Bollée La Mancelle steam car had 50 examples built, after all.

But, and here’s the important part, I think the fact that this was most likely the first gasoline, internal-combustion engine car to be built in real quantity is very important, because I think it absolutely weakens the Mercedes-Benz claim of inventing “the first automobile.”

Here’s why: aside from the fact that there were many, many practical steam (and gas, and electric) vehicles that preceded it, the 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen is often claimed to be the first practical car to be available to the public and claimed to have been the template for the modern era of cars to follow. But if you really look at the timeline, I don’t think this makes sense.

Benz claims 25 Patent-Motorwagens were built between 1886 and 1894. That’s a big chunk of time, first of all, and if you actually look at the cars they’re talking about, things fall apart. That first 1886 car had no actual fuel tank (just 1.5 liters of fuel stored in the very simple surface carburetor-like device) and really wasn’t “practical” to drive. Here’s the 1886 car:

The second car was built the next year, in 1887, and was substantially different than the original:

…and that one wasn’t especially practical, either. These were still experimental cars, like the Siegfried Marcus gasoline internal-combustion cars that long preceded the Benz from 1870 and 1875. Then, in 1888, there was another very different Patent-Motorwagen, the 1888 car that was famous for Bertha Benz’ 60-mile trip:

…and this car still had issues getting up hills and required Bertha Benz’ clever en-route repairs and modifications to work. It was not a production-ready vehicle by any means, yet.

Siegfried Marcus’ 1888 car was actually as or more advanced than the Benz 1888 car, too, with a real carburetor and spark ignition:

…so when Benz finally did get around to building more cars, a process that really didn’t even start in any numbers until 1891, the four-wheeled vehicles being built then were substantially different than the 1886 car that’s always tagged as being the “first.”

And that brings us to the car I’m talking about now, the 1891 Peugeot Type 3, which managed to start to build and sell 64 copies three years before Benz managed to crank out 25 cars total, and the first handful of those 25 Benz cars were really just developmental prototypes, anyway.

All of this is to say that if Mercedes-Benz wants to claim the 1886 Patent-Motorwagen as the first practical gasoline car built and sold, they really can’t because that 1886 car was not the car they finally started to build in quantity, and once they did start, other companies, like Peugeot, were already building and selling many more cars.

See what I mean? Okay, now let’s look at this first frunk I mentioned. Normally, the Type 3 had another seat up front, facing backwards, for what the French call a vis-à-vis (face to face) seating arrangement, as you can see here (the front seat is unoccupied), with Louis Rigoulot and workshop foreman Auguste Doriot driving it in September 1891 in a Paris-Brest cycle race as a demonstration:

They managed to drive that car an astounding total of over 1,200 miles, from the factory to the race course and back, which was vastly farther than any other gas-powered car had managed to go up until that time.

But the frunk! Right. That front seat could have a little trunk mounted in front of it, like this wicker one:

…or this leather one, as you can see in this annoyingly AI-narrated video:

I think this little trunk-holding bracket that could be fitted counts as the first official frunk!

Pretty amazing, right? I suppose I should note that the reason for me talking about this at all is I’m working on a larger video to refute the Benz “first car” claims, so stay tuned!