The pattern is for first cars to be bought by young rich men. You had to be a mechanic and daredevil to drive a car before 1900. They were slow, uncomfortable, unreliable, and often dangerous. They were luxury toys unless you built one for yourself.
Mr. Toad.
I don’t remember where I read this, but town doctors were usually the first. They had the money to afford one, and unlike local bankers or lawyers they often had to travel to visit their clients.
Yes, sorry, I forget to account for the pedantic-ness of people on the web. Since the topic is about motor cars, and the Wikipedia link I provided is about motor cabs, I did indeed mean motor cabs.
I was going to say this, too, although I don’t really have a cite. My impression was that the convenience and time savings of being able to quickly make a house call without hitchin’ up the buggy was a big win, if you’re gonna hurry across town to deliver a baby already on the way.
It depends on what your definition of “first” is. No doubt doctors as a profession had good reason to be early adopters of cars. But I don’t think there’s much evidence that they rushed to cars in the 19th century. Getting stuck in a rut halfway there wouldn’t have been of much use to them, nor would flat tires or broken crankshafts or the myriad other problems early cars were afflicted with. Doctors wouldn’t have gotten cars until they became somewhat reliable and that took at least a decade.