Brown also demonstrated a boat using his engine on the Thames in 1827, and an engine-driven carriage in 1828.

In 1823, Samuel Brown patented the first internal combustion engine to be applied industrially in the United States. Fitted to a crude four-wheeled wagon, François Isaac de Rivaz first drove it 100 meters in 1813, thus making history as the first car-like vehicle known to have been powered by an internal-combustion engine. The same year, the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built and patented a hydrogen and oxygen-powered internal-combustion engine. This engine powered a boat on the river in France. In 1807, French engineers Nicéphore and Claude Niépce ran a prototype internal combustion engine, using controlled dust explosions, the Pyréolophore. In 1798, John Stevens designed the first American internal combustion engine. Also in 1794, Robert Street patented an internal-combustion engine, which was also the first to use liquid fuel (petroleum) and built an engine around that time. In 1794, Thomas Mead patented a gas engine. In 1791, the English inventor John Barber patented a gas turbine. Following the first commercial steam engine (a type of external combustion engine) in 1698, various efforts were made during the 18th century to develop equivalent internal combustion engines. Internal combustion engines date back to between the 10th and 13th centuries, when the first rocket engines were invented in China.

4 cycle internal combustion engine