Driving is simply better!
05/07/2025
I recently came across the very first car I ever drove again. Or rather: I found it again. Or at least I found one that is exactly the same as the one I had the pleasure of driving on the Gurten in Bern almost 50 years ago. Connoisseurs of the location will now object that you are not allowed to drive on the Gurten. That's right, only children are allowed on the local mountain of the federal city.
A simple mind even then: one steering wheel, one accelerator pedal - and all was right with the world!
And indeed, my first ride in a "thing" that moved under its own power was on a mini car scooter in Gurtenpark near Bern. Now I've found an original on the Swiss auction platform. I'll be picking it up soon.
A mini scooter from the Gurtenpark near Bern
Until then, I have given some thought to why this form of transportation is so important to certain people: riding! Perhaps for some it is actually the speed that attracts them. But for me, it's enough that it drives. I could probably also get excited about lawn tractors - the main thing is not to walk and even better with an engine!
I'm pretty sure that I knew this was my preferred mode of transportation even before I drove my first "car". I've always found walking rather tedious, so I see cycling as a reasonable compromise.
I can live with it for short distances: Swiss Ordonnanzvelo 06 (1941)
The good thing is that I'm definitely not the only one who feels this way, this whole little universe that we like to deal with so much lives from the fact that we simply don't like walking too much. OK, that sounds a bit casual. But since a visit to the Musée des Arts et des Metiers in Paris, I am convinced that this desire for a self-moving vehicle runs deep in some people. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot's Fardier may actually have been developed to pull cannons. You can believe that. I suspect, however, that the guy may have simply used this pretext to finance his madness. He just wanted to drive. What a sublime feeling! The steam car seems to be doing everything wrong at first glance, but it was driving! Not fast and not far - into a wall according to tradition - but still!
The world's first "auto-mobile", Cugnot's "Fardier à vapeur" in the museum in Paris
Last year, I was far less impressed by the performance of very early pioneering vehicles, with the addition: "but still". At last year's L to B Run, the Lucerne to Basel Run for vintage vehicles, I was impressed by the fact that even 125-year-old cars were able to transport people from the town on Lake Lucerne to the bend in the Rhine, slowly but steadily. Incidentally, this became even more impressive after the horse-drawn vehicles failed to make it even a fraction of the way. The cars arrived, as did the bicycles, because they drove. With the carriages, the horses had to walk after all. I admit, that's a bit of a quibble.
