10 Inventions That Changed Cars Forever Posted July 02, 2014 by Ken KupchikinShare0 A car "shovel" meant to reduce the number of casualties among pedestrians (Paris 1924) Cars have revolutionized transportation and allowed mobility on an unprecedented scale. Without cars, we would be at the mercy of public transportation, horses, or our own two feet. The cars that we drive today, however, are a far cry from the original automobiles, which had few safety features, relatively simple engineering, and weren't very fast. Over the years, innovation has brought dynamic changes to the automobile, one breakthrough at a time. Here are the most pivotal inventions for the automobile: 1) Combustion Engine - The most important part of an automobile is the engine, powering the rest of the vehicle. Internal combustion engines power cars with the combustion of fuel and oxygen which occurs in a combustion chamber. Without this invention, we wouldn ... read more