---
title: "Which came first, the car or the fax machine?"
description: "the car vs the fax machine: the fax machine came first, by 43 years — 1843 against 1886. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/car-vs-fax-machine/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the car or the fax machine?

**Which came first, the car or the fax machine?: the fax machine**

1843 — 43 years before the car

the fax machine came first, by 43 years. Alexander Bain patented an electric printing telegraph that sent images.

## Side by side

|  | the car | the fax machine |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1843 |
| Date | 1886-01-29 | — |
| Category | invention | invention |
| What happened | Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen. | Alexander Bain patented an electric printing telegraph that sent images. |

## 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 fax machine

Bain's 1843 patent covered a device that scanned a raised metal image with a stylus and reproduced it at the far end of a wire — a fax machine in principle. Giovanni Caselli ran a commercial pantelegraph service between Paris and Lyon from 1865, sending signatures and handwriting eleven years before Bell patented the telephone. The fax is not merely older than the telephone; it is older than the American Civil War.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the car or the fax machine?

the fax machine, by 43 years — 1843 against 1886.

### When did the car start?

1886. Karl Benz patented the Motorwagen.

### When did the fax machine start?

1843. Alexander Bain patented an electric printing telegraph that sent images.

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## Sources

- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)