A modern day chauffeur is a person who is employed to drive a passenger, and they mainly drive luxury vehicles like a large Mercedes s class or limousine. In our case we offer luxury Mercedes s class cars, and Mercedes viano executive mini buses. Originally chauffeurs were always the personal servants of the vehicle owner. Now in modern times chauffeur companies, like us provide the driver and the vehicle for hire. The term ‘chauffeur’ found its beginning as the French word ‘chaufer’ in 1899 meaning ‘stoker’. Stokers were people who were employed to stoke the engines of the earliest automobiles which were steam powered like steam powered trains and sea vessels. Early automobiles required quite a bit of work to get started, they had a device which required pre heating an engine before it started. very early versions of petrol powered motor cars were ignited by ‘hot tubes’ in the cylinder head, these were preheated before the engine started. The chauffeur’s job would have involved priming the hot tubes at the beginning of a journey. After this job was done, the natural compression cycle of the engine would keep them at the correct temperature. Another job which was down to the chauffeur was the overall maintenance of the car which involved routine maintenance and especially cleaning of the vehicle. Chauffeurs were always required to be skilled mechanics in the olden days, they had to deal with breakdowns and tyre punctures which were a regular occurrence.The French applied the term ‘chauffeur’ to anyone who was a skilled automobilist in the late 19th century. Americans decided to use the French term ‘chauffeur’ instead of the English ‘driver’ because at the time the best cars came from France. In the early 1900s the term ‘chauffeur’ was more flexible, it could mean a wealthy automobile enthusiast and a privately employed delivery or taxi driver. The term could even refer to anyone who drove an automobile. By the mid 1910’s the term was settled, it was to mean a paid driver-mechanic or just a paid driver. In many places and in the past chauffeurs were expected to be presented smartly. Chauffeurs are expected to be well groomed, conservatively dressed in a clean and pressed black or dark suit or tuxedo, dress shirt, tie with polished shoes and black leather gloves. Some areas such as Japan require Chauffeurs to wear white gloves. at Executive Cars York all our drivers take pride in their work, they are smartly dressed and are licensed by York City Council and have been Enhanced CRB checked. If you do travel with us here at Executive Cars York we know you will enjoy your chauffeured journey.