Top 10 firsts in motoring history

Photo / APN

* Frenchman Edouard Delamare-Deboutteville built the first petrol-driven automobile in 1883. But it was notoriously unreliable. Mercedes-Benz is officially credited with the invention of the car.

* The Oldsmobile was the first car to be produced in quantities greater than 10 a week, in 1901.

* The first car radio was fitted to the passenger door of a Ford Model T by George Frost, president of the Lane High School Radio Club in Chicago, in 1922.

* The first reported car theft was that of Baron de Zuylen's Peugeot in 1896. It was nicked by his mechanic.

* The first licence plates appeared in France in 1893.

* The first recorded motoring death happened in 1896 at Crystal Palace, London.

* The first traffic light was installed on a 6.6m cast iron pillar at the corner of Bridge St and New Palace Yard, in London, December 10, 1868.

* The first traffic signs were erected in Britain in 1879. They consisted of a wooden post with an enameled iron plate bearing the warning: "To cyclists - this hill is dangerous". The first parking meter was devised by Carlton Magee, editor of the Oklahoma City newspaper.

* The first bulk-storage petrol station was operated by the Automobile petrol Co. in 1905. Petrol was dispensed through a garden hose connected to a gravity-feed tank. The first station with a forecourt was opened by Standard Oil of California, in Seattle, Washington, in 1907.