Charles Duryea entered the rapidly growing bicycle business and displayed a marked inventive talent. In 1886 at the Ohio state fair, he saw a stationary gasoline engine that seemed to him to be sufficiently compact to power a carriage or wagon. By 1891 he had completed a design, and with his brother Frank he then constructed a car and engine in a rented loft in Springfield, Mass. In later years a controversy marred relations between the brothers; Charles claimed that the model was completed to an operable state under his guidance, while Frank asserted that he perfected the engine and transmission while Charles was in Illinois. In any case the car made a successful run in the streets of Springfield on Sept. 22, 1893.

An improved version, largely the work of Frank Duryea, appeared in 1895 and won several races. Thirteen copies of it were manufactured and sold, but the company failed, and the brothers went separate ways. Charles made a number of vehicles, some three-wheeled, and Frank developed the Stevens-Duryea, one of the best known of the early standard makes, a high-priced limousine that continued in production into the 1920s.