---
title: "Which came first, the car or the Eiffel Tower?"
description: "the car vs the Eiffel Tower: the car came first, by 3 years — 1886 against 1889. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/car-vs-eiffel-tower/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the car or the Eiffel Tower?

**Which came first, the car or the Eiffel Tower?: the car**

1886 — 3 years before the Eiffel Tower

the car came first, by 3 years. Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen.

## Side by side

|  | the car | the Eiffel Tower |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1889 |
| Date | 1886-01-29 | 1889-03-31 |
| Category | invention | landmark |
| What happened | Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen. | The tower opened for the Paris Exposition Universelle. |

## the car

Benz's patent of 29 January 1886 is the usual date for the first practical petrol car. The vehicle's commercial breakthrough came from his wife: in 1888 Bertha Benz drove 106 km to Pforzheim without telling him, fixing the fuel line with a hatpin and the ignition with a garter on the way, and the resulting publicity sold the machine. Ford did not exist until 1903 and the Model T not until 1908.

## the Eiffel Tower

Built for the 1889 World's Fair and intended to be dismantled after twenty years, the Eiffel Tower survived because it turned out to be useful as a radio antenna. It was the tallest structure in the world until the Chrysler Building in 1930. It opened in the same year Nintendo was founded, and two and a half years after the Statue of Liberty it is often assumed to predate.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the car or the Eiffel Tower?

the car, by 3 years — 1886 against 1889.

### When did the car start?

1886. Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen.

### When did the Eiffel Tower start?

1889. The tower opened for the Paris Exposition Universelle.

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## Sources

- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]