This Day in Automotive History

[Landrover]

9th June

June 9th 1903
Stanley Steamer received a patent for a "Steam Motor-Vehicle"; arrangement of engine on axle and housing.

June 9th 1909
Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife and mother from Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States. With three female companions, none of whom could drive a car, for fifty-nine days she drove a Maxwell automobile the 3,800 miles from Manhattan, New York to San Francisco, California.
In later years, she lived in Covina, California, where in 1961 she wrote and published the story of her journey 'Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron'. Between 1909 and 1975, Ramsey drove across the country more than 30 times. On October 17, 2000, she became the first woman inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.


June 9th 1909
On this day in 2006, the animated feature film "Cars," produced by Pixar Animation Studios, roars into theaters across the United States.
For "Cars," which won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Pixar's animators created an alternate America inhabited by vehicles instead of humans. The film's hero is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a Corvette-like race car enjoying a sensational debut on the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) circuit. Arrogant and foolish, with talent to burn, McQueen thinks of himself as a one-man show. After he refuses a tire change during the prestigious Piston Cup race, McQueen blows a huge lead, setting up a three-way tie-breaking race with The King, a longtime champion, and Chick Hicks, an intimidating competitor with a chip on his shoulder. On the way to the race site in California, however, McQueen goes off course (and off the interstate) and ends up in Radiator Springs, a forgotten town on the now-defunct Route 66.
At first desperate to escape, McQueen learns to appreciate Radiator Springs, especially after finding a best friend (the rusting tow-truck Mater, as in Tow-Mater), a love interest (Sally Carrera, a fetching Porsche) and a mentor (it turns out the town's gruff doctor-mechanic, Doc Hudson, is actually the Hudson Hornet, a real-life NASCAR legend). Among the other memorable inhabitants of Radiator Springs are an aging hippie VW van; a military Jeep named Sarge; Flo, a glamorous show car and proprietress of the V-8 Café (a gas station); Ramon, a Chevy Impala low rider; and Guido, a Fiat who owns a tire shop and is obsessed with Ferraris.
As director John Lasseter told The New York Times, he was inspired to make "Cars" by a cross-country road trip he took with his wife and five sons, as well as by a general love of automobiles. While researching the movie, the team of animators traveled along the historic Route 66, once the iconic route to the American West and now bypassed by interstate highways. (The "Mother Road" was decertified in 1985 and has been reborn as a tourist attraction.) In addition to the painstaking depictions of both classic and modern cars and their distinctive personalities, "Cars" features the voices of some of the leading figures in auto racing, beginning with the late Paul Newman, the legendary actor-turned-race car driver, as Doc Hudson. Racing legends Mario Andretti (as himself), Richard Petty (as The King) and Michael Schumacher (as a Ferrari) can also be heard, along with sports announcers Darrell Waltrip and Bob Costas.

A Stanley Steamer in 1903 setting a record mile at the Daytona Beach Road Course


Alice Huyler Ramsey





Cars Movie Poster

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

June 10th 1947
Saab introduced its first car, the model 92001, the Ursaab prototype. Saab had been primarily a supplier of military aircraft before and during World War II. With the end of the war, company executives realized the need to diversify the company's production capabilities. After an exhaustive planning campaign that at one point led to the suggestion that Saab manufacture toasters, But company executives decided to start building motor cars. Saab director Sven Otterbeck placed aircraft engineer Gunnar Ljungstrom in charge of creating the company's first car.

June 10th 1954
General Motors announced its research staff had built the GM Turbocruiser, a modifed GMC coach powered by a gas turbine; engine consisted of a single burner with two turbine wheels (one used to drive the centrifugal compressor, second delivered power for the transmission to the rear wheels of the vehicle).

June 10th 1954
Paul Newman, the blue-eyed movie star-turned-race car driver, accomplishes the greatest feat of his racing career on this day in 1979, roaring into second place in the 47th 24 Hours of Le Mans, the famous endurance race held annually in Le Mans, France.
Newman emerged as one of Hollywood's top leading men in the 1960s, with acclaimed performances in such films as "The Hustler" (1961), "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969). Also in 1969, he starred in "Winning" as a struggling race car driver who must redeem his career and win the heart of the woman he loves--played by Newman's real-life wife, Joanne Woodward--at the Indianapolis 500. To prepare for the movie, Newman attended racing school, and he performed many of the high-speed racing scenes in the movie himself, without a stunt double. In 1972, Newman began his own racing career, winning his first Sports Club Car of America (SCCA) race driving a Lotus Elan. He soon moved up to a series of Datsun racing sedans and won four SCCA national championships from 1979 to 1986.
Newman's high point at the track came in June 1979 at Le Mans, where he raced a Porsche 935 twin-turbo coupe on a three-man team with Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen. His team finished second; first place went to two brothers from Florida, Don and Bill Whittington, and their teammate, Klaus Ludwig. Drama ensued during the last two hours of the race, when the Whittingtons' car--also a Porsche 935--was sidelined with fuel-injection problems and it looked like Newman's team could overtake them to grab the win. In the end, however, they had trouble even clinching second due to a dying engine. The Whittington team covered 2,592.1 miles at an average speed of 107.99 mph, finishing 59 miles ahead of Newman, Barbour and Stommelen.
After the race, The New York Times quoted the 54-year-old Newman as saying he might not race at Le Mans again: "I'm getting a bit long in the tooth for this. And my racing here places an unfortunate emphasis on the team. It takes it away from the people who really do the work." In fact, he continued racing into his eighties, making his last start at the Rolex 24 at Daytona International Speedway in 2006. He also found success as a race car owner, forming a team with Carl Haas that became one of the most enduring in Indy car racing. Newman died in September 2008 at the age of 83.

Saab 92001, The Ursaab

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

10th June

June 11th 1895
Charles E. Duryea received a patent for a "Road Vehicle", first US patent granted to an American inventor for a gasoline-driven automobile.

June 11th 1939
Racer Jackie Stewart, popularly know as the Flying Scotsman was born in Dumbarton, Scotland.

June 11th 1994
TOYOTA Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology was Established on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kiichiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation.

Sir Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill, Monza,September 10, 1967


TOYOTA Commemorative Museum

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

June 12th 1940
On this day in 1940, Edsel Ford telephones William Knudsen of the U.S. Office of Production Management (OPM) to confirm Ford Motor Company's acceptance of Knudsen's proposal to manufacture 9,000 Rolls-Royce-designed engines to be used in British and U.S. airplanes.
By the spring of 1940, Nazi Germany had conquered Poland, Norway and Denmark and pushed France to the brink of defeat. An increasingly nervous General George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the United States needed to rearm in order to prepare for the possibility of a German attack on American shores. That May, Roosevelt called on Knudsen, a former Ford executive who became president of General Motors in 1937, to serve as director general of the OPM, the agency responsible for coordinating government purchases and wartime production. Knudsen had barely settled in Washington when he received an urgent appeal from the British government: The Royal Air Force (RAF) was in desperate need of new airplanes to defend Britain against an expected German offensive.
Unlike other automakers, Ford had already built a successful airplane, the Tri-Motor, in the 1920s. In two meetings in late May and early June 1940, Knudsen and Edsel Ford agreed that Ford would manufacture a new fleet of aircraft for the RAF on an expedited basis. One significant obstacle remained, however: Edsel's father Henry, who still retained complete control over the company he founded, was known for his opposition to the possible U.S. entry into World War II. Edsel and Charles Sorensen, Ford's production chief, had apparently gotten the go-ahead from Henry Ford by June 12, when Edsel telephoned Knudsen to confirm that Ford would produce 9,000 Rolls-Royce Merlin airplane engines (6,000 for the RAF and 3,000 for the U.S. Army). However, as soon as the British press announced the deal, Henry Ford personally and publicly canceled it, telling a reporter: "We are not doing business with the British government or any other government."
In fact, according to Douglas Brinkley's biography of Ford, "Wheels for the World," Ford had in effect already accepted a contract from the German government. The Ford subsidiary Ford-Werke in Cologne was doing business with the Third Reich at the time, which Ford's critics took as proof that he was concealing a pro-German bias behind his claims to be a man of peace. As U.S. entry into the war looked ever more certain, Ford reversed his earlier position, and in May of 1941 the company opened a large new government-sponsored facility at Willow Run, Michigan, for the purposes of manufacturing B-24E Liberator bombers for the Allied war effort. In addition to aircraft, Ford Motor plants produced a great deal of other war materiel during World War II, including a variety of engines, trucks, jeeps, tanks and tank destroyers.


June 12th 1952
Maurice Olley, Chevrolet's chief engineer, completed chassis, code-named Opel, for eventual use in 1953 Corvette.
Maurice Olley was the ultimate engineer. He had a passion for understanding engineering fundamentals and was committed to creating solutions to solve mechanical engineering problems related to automobiles. His entire career, from his time at Rolls-Royce to his 25 years at General Motors and Chevrolet, prepared him for the important role he was asked to play with the Corvette. But his contribution would have been just as passionate whether it had been applied to a Buick Roadmaster or to the Corvette. To Maurice Olley, it wasn’t the specific product that motivated him; it was how he could improve the function of the product while furthering the understanding of the engineering principle behind it.
Working along side Harley Earl and Bob McLean, Olley developed the chassis and suspension of the first-generation Corvette. Acting as head of Chevrolet Research and Development, he headed the engineering team that worked to perfect the early Corvettes and hired Zora Arkus-Duntov to continue the improvements.
Olley had a passion for making an automobile as good as it can be, along with an unmistakable influence on the development of the first Corvette.

Maurice Olley


The book Chassis Design: Principles and Analysis is based on Olley's technical writings, and is the first complete presentation of his life and work.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

June 13th 1978
On this day in 1895, Emile Levassor drives a Panhard et Levassor car with a two-cylinder, 750-rpm, four-horsepower Daimler Phoenix engine over the finish line in the world's first real automobile race. Levassor completed the 732-mile course, from Paris to Bordeaux and back, in just under 49 hours, at a then-impressive speed of about 15 miles per hour.
Levassor and his partner Rene Panhard operated one of the largest machine shops in Paris in 1887, when a Belgian engineer named Edouard Sarazin convinced Levassor to manufacture a new high-speed engine for the German automaker Daimler, for which Sarazin had obtained the French patent rights. When Sarazin died later that year, the rights passed to his widow, Louise. In 1889, visitors to the Paris exposition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution were able to admire not only Gustave Eiffel's now-famous tower, but also a Daimler-produced automobile with one of the new Panhard et Levassor-constructed engines. The following year, Levassor married Louise Sarazin.

By 1891, Levassor had built a drastically different automobile, placing the engine vertically in front of the chassis rather than underneath or behind the driver--a radical departure from the carriage-influenced design of earlier vehicles--and put in a mechanical transmission that the driver engaged with a clutch, allowing him to travel at different speeds. In the years to come, this arrangement, known as the Systeme Panhard, would become the model for all automobiles. In 1895, a committee of journalists and automotive pioneers, including Levassor and Armand Peugeot, France's leading manufacturer of bicycles, spearheaded the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race in order to capitalize on public enthusiasm for the automobile. Out of 46 entries, Levassor finished first but was later disqualified on a technicality; first place went to a Peugeot that finished 11 hours behind him.
The Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race highlighted France's superiority in automotive technology at the time, and established Panhard et Levassor as a major force in the fledgling industry. Its success spurred the creation of the Automobile Club de France in order to foster the development of the motor vehicle and regulate future motor sports events. Over the next century, these events would grow into the Grand Prix motor racing circuit, and eventually into its current incarnation: Formula One.

June 13th 1978
Ford Motor Company Chairman, Henry Ford II, fired Lee Iaccoca, the mustang designer, from the position of president, ending a bitter personal struggle between the two men.

June 13th 1980
Markus Winkelhock (born June 13, 1980 in Stuttgart Germany was a German Formula One driver. Winkelhock is the only driver in Formula One history to start last on the grid and lead the race in his first Grand Prix, and due to the red flag and restart, is also the only driver in Formula One history to start both last and first on the grid in the same Grand Prix.

Emile Levassor in a Panhard-Levassor, c1890


Lee Iaccoca with his iconic creation.


Markus Winkelhock

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

14th June

June 14th 1928
Leon Duray drove his Miller 91 Packard Cable Special to a world close-coursed speed record, recording an astonishing top speed of 148.173mph, at the Packard Proving Ground in Utica, Michigan. Two weeks earlier, Duray had posted a record lap of 124mph at the Indy 500, a record that stood for 10 years until the track was banked.

June 14th 2002
In one of the most memorable scenes in the film "The Bourne Identity," released on this day in 2002, the amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) drives a vintage Austin Mini Cooper through the traffic-heavy streets of Paris to evade his police and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pursuers.

Leon Duray at Culver City, California racetrack, circa 1927

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

15th June

June 15th 1924
Ford Motor Company manufactured its 10 millionth Model T automobile.

June 15th 1937
Harold T. Ames, of Chicago, IL, chief executive of Duesenberg, received a patent for a "Headlight Structure"; retractable headlamps (defining detail on Cord 810).

June 15th 1966
On this day in 1986, driving legend Richard Petty makes the 1,000th start of his National Association for Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) career, in the Miller American 400 in Brooklyn, Michigan. He became the first driver in NASCAR history to log 1,000 career starts.

Ten millionth Model T



Dr. Alan Hathaway of Davenport, IA, currently owns the Ten Millionth Ford Model T.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

16th June

June 16th 1903
At 9:30 in the morning on this day in 1903, Henry Ford and other prospective stockholders in the Ford Motor Company meet in Detroit to sign the official paperwork required to create a new corporation. Twelve stockholders were listed on the forms, which were signed, notarized and sent to the office of Michigan's secretary of state. The company was officially incorporated the following day, when the secretary of state's office received the articles of association.

June 16th 1917
Harry Miller completed the Golden Submarine, the first of his expensive custom-made race cars that would change the shape of things to come in American auto racing. The Golden Submarine carried an unimaginable ticket price of $15,000 at its completion. Its gold color was the result of a combination of lacquer and bronze dust. Built for Barney Oldfield, America's most brash race-car driver, the Golden Submarine had an enclosed cockpit. Oldfield, who helped design the car, thought the closed cockpit would make the car safer if it rolled; he'd lost his close friend, Bob Burman, in a crash the year before. The Golden Submarine was the first American race car to possess an all electrically welded steel chassis. Also unique to the sub was the liberal use of aluminum in engine and body components. The engine--the component that would later define Miller's career--contained four cylinders and a single overhead cam. It put out 130hp at 290 cubic inches of piston displacement, and, most remarkable for its time, it only weighed 410 pounds. Consider that the car's competition carried engines that produced around 300hp at over 400 cubic inches of piston displacement.

Harry Miller's Golden Submarine

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[type-r]

that submarine looks cool! i hope they make a remake of this!

 

[Landrover]

17th June

June 17th 1903
Ford Motor Company was officially incorporated with capital of $28,000 and Ford's patents, knowledge and engine, John S. Gray was elected as President and Henry Ford as Vice President. Primary stockholders were Henry Ford, Alexander Malcomson, John W. Anderson, C.H. Bennett, James Couzens, Horace E. Dodge, John F. Dodge, Vernon C. Fry, John S. Gray, Horace H. Rackham, Albert Strelow and Charles J. Woodall.

June 17th 1923
On this day, Enzo Ferrari, who would go on to an historic career as a driver for Alpha Romeo before being put in charge of their racing division, won his first race, a 166-mile event at the Circuito del Savio in Ravenna, Italy.

June 17th 1962
Scotch racer Jim Clark won his first Formula One Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. Clark would go on to one of the most storied careers in F1 history. His 1965 season is his crowning achievement as the sport's most dominant racer. Clark led every lap of every race he competed in, and he became the first Briton to win the Indy 500. Clark died in a tragic accident in a Formula Two race in Germany.

June 17th 1990
"Handsome" Harry Gant became the oldest driver to win a Winston Cup race when he won the Miller Genuine Draft 500 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, at the age of 50 years, 158 days.


June 17th 1994
Viewers across the nation are glued to their television screens on this day in 1994, watching as a fleet of black-and-white police cars pursues a white Ford Bronco along Interstate-405 in Los Angeles, California. Inside the Bronco is Orenthal James "O.J." Simpson, a former professional football player, actor and sports commentator whom police suspected of involvement in the recent murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
The bodies of Brown Simpson and Goldman were found outside her home in the exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood shortly after midnight on June 13, 1994. Bloodstains matching Simpson's blood type were found at the crime scene, and the star had become the focus of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) investigation by the morning of June 17. When police arrived to arrest Simpson at the home of his friend and lawyer, Robert Kardashian, they found that Simpson had slipped out the back door with his former college and Buffalo Bills teammate Al Cowlings. The two men had then driven off in Cowlings' white Ford Bronco.
After a news conference--in which his lawyer, Howard Shapiro, announced that Simpson was distraught and might attempt suicide--the LAPD officially declared the former football star a fugitive. Around 7 p.m. PST, police located the white Bronco by tracing calls made from Simpson's cellular phone. Simpson was reported to be in the back seat of the vehicle, holding a gun to his head. With news helicopters following the chase from above and cameras broadcasting the dramatic events live to millions of astonished viewers, vehicles from the LAPD and California Highway Patrol pursued the Bronco for about an hour as it traveled at some 35 miles per hour along I-405. Finally, after about an hour, the Bronco pulled into the driveway of Simpson's Brentwood home. He emerged from the car close to 9 pm and was immediately arrested and booked on double murder charges.
The trial that followed gripped the nation, inspiring unprecedented media scrutiny along with heated debates about racial discrimination on the part of the police. Though a jury acquitted Simpson of the murder charges in October 1995, a separate civil trial in 1997 found him liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages to the Brown and Goldman families.

O.J. Simpsons being chased by Police.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[RSM]

Keep them coming Lanrover, we are reading.

17-June-2009 - Fiat Launched Grande Punto in India

 

[Landrover]

18th June

June 18th 1923
On June 18, 1923, the first Checker Cab rolls off the line at the Checker Cab Manufacturing Company in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Morris Markin, founder of Checker Cab, was born in Smolensk, Russia, and began working when he was only 12 years old. At 19, he immigrated to the United States and moved to Chicago, where two uncles lived. After opening his own tailor's shop, Markin also began running a fleet of cabs and an auto body shop, the Markin Auto Body Corporation, in Joliet, Illinois. In 1921, after loaning $15,000 to help a friend's struggling car manufacturing business, the Commonwealth Motor Company, Markin absorbed Commonwealth into his own enterprise and completely halted the production of regular passenger cars in favor of taxis. The result was the Checker Cab Manufacturing Company, which took its name from a Chicago cab company that had hired Commonwealth to produce its vehicles.
By the end of 1922, Checker was producing more than 100 units per month in Joliet, and some 600 of the company's cabs were on the streets of New York City. Markin went looking for a bigger factory and settled on Kalamazoo, where the company took over buildings previously used by the Handley-Knight Company and Dort Body Plant car manufacturers. The first shipment of a Checker from Kalamazoo on June 18, 1923 stood out as a major landmark in the history of the company, which by then employed some 700 people.
During the Great Depression, Markin briefly sold Checker, but he bought it back in 1936 and began diversifying his business by making auto parts for other car companies. After converting its factories to produce war materiel during World War II, Checker entered the passenger car market in the late 1950s, with models dubbed the Superba and the Marathon. In its peak production year of 1962, Checker rolled out some 8,173 cars; the great majority of those were taxis. Over the course of the 1970s, however, as economic conditions led taxi companies to convert smaller, more fuel-efficient standard passenger cars into cabs, the 4,000-pound gas-guzzling Checker came to seem more and more outdated. Markin had died in 1970, and in April 1982 his son David announced that Checker would halt production of its famous cab that summer. Though the company still owns the Yellow and Checker cab fleets in Chicago and continued to make parts for other auto manufacturers, including General Motors, the last Checker Cab rolled off the line in Kalamazoo on July 12, 1982.


18 June 1936
Denis Clive "Denny" Hulme, New Zealand car racer and the 1967 Formula One World Champion for the Brabham team was born in Moteuka, New Zealand.

1982 Checker Cab



Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia

 

[350Z]

Though this thread is based on Global happenings, but today is Chevy's 7th Anniversary in Indian Market. Any updates on this?

Drive Safe,
350Z

 

[Landrover]

June 19th 1949
NASCAR staged its first Grand National event at the Charlotte Fairgrounds, the event marked the birth of NASCAR racing as we know it today.

June 19, 1940
Shirley Muldowney, the "First Lady of Drag Racing" was born in Schenectady, New York. She was the first woman to receive a licence to drive a top fuel dragster by the NHRA. She won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1977, 1980 and 1982.

June 19th 1965
Luc Donckerwolke, famous Belgian car designer was born in Lima, Peru. He started his design career in 1990 with Peugeot. He also worked for Skoda (1994-98 where he helped design Octavia and Fabia. After that he shifted to Audi where he helped design Audi A4 and R8. He was head of design at Lamborghini from 1998, where he was responsible for the 2001 Lamborghini Diablo VT 6.0, 2002 Lamborghini Murciélago and 2003 Lamborghini Gallardo, winning the 'Red Dot Award' in 2003 in recognition for his work on them. He also worked with Walter de'Silva to produce the 2006 Lamborghini Miura concept. In September 2005, Donckerwolke was appointed SEAT Design Director overseeing the design of future SEAT models.


June 19th 2005
After 14 Formula One race car drivers withdraw due to safety concerns over the Michelin-made tires on their vehicles, German driver Michael Schumacher wins a less-than-satisfying victory at the United States Grand Prix on this day in 2005. The race, held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana, will go down one of the most controversial Formula One racing events in history.
Two days before the race, driver Ralf Schumacher (Michael's brother) crashed in practice while negotiating the speedway's banked right-hand 13th turn. Michelin, makers of Schumacher's tires, determined that the tires they had supplied for the Grand Prix could not withstand the high speed on the turn, and asked the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the sanctioning body for Formula One races, for permission to send another batch of tires. The FIA refused, citing its mandate that only one set of tires be used in a weekend. The organization also refused Michelin's petition to build a chicane, or series of turns, designed to slow down cars before the 13th turn--despite the fact that the speedway's chief executive and 9 out of the 10 teams in the race agreed that the track could be altered. The only team that didn't was Ferrari, the team of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello (who ended up finishing second) and one of three teams in the race that used Bridgestone tires instead of Michelin.
In the end, 14 cars stayed in the garage for the Grand Prix; the six remaining cars were from the Bridgestone-outfitted Ferrari, Minardi and Jordan teams. The race itself featured one moment of excitement, when Michael Schumacher almost collided with Barrichello after a pit stop, forcing Barrichello off the track briefly and onto the grass before he regained his bearings. Many disgruntled fans left early, while others threw beer bottles and other debris from the stands and booed the victory ceremony, during which a subdued Schumacher declined to spray the customary bottle of champagne into the crowd.
The teams that used Michelin tires issued a joint apology to fans and sponsors, while Michelin later reimbursed some ticket holders for the event. Though many faulted Michelin for not providing adequate tires and agreed that the FIA and Ferrari team had the right to insist that the race course not be changed, many felt a compromise would have benefited Formula One racing as a whole, especially in the United States, where it was still seeking to build a solid fan base. The 2005 Grand Prix had drawn a crowd of some 100,000 fans--far less than that attracted by the Indianapolis 500 or a regular NASCAR Nextel Cup event.

Luc Donckerwolke


Shirley Muldowney

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

20th July

June 20th 1941
After a long and bitter struggle on the part of Henry Ford against cooperation with organized labor unions, Ford Motor Company signs its first contract with the United Automobile Workers of America and Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO) on this day in 1941.

June 20th 1945
Shekhar Mehta, the only five-time winner of the Safari Rally, was born in Uganda. The most grueling rally race in the world, the Safari originated in 1953 at the behest of the Royal East African Automobile Association. He was born in 1945 to an Indian family of plantation owners in Uganda, and began rallying behind the wheel of a BMW aged 21. In 1972 he and his family fled Idi Amin's regime to Kenya.
Through the most successful period of his career he drove Nissan/Datsun 240Z car.

June 20th 1987
First Junior Go-Kart race was run at the three-quarter-mile cross-country course outside of Easton, Maryland. Racer William Smith won this event in his 50cc Yamaha Green Dragon.

Shekhar Mehta




Nissan 240Z, which is still in the exact state in nissan warehouse in Japan

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​