This Day in Automotive History

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4th July

July 4th 1894
Elwood Haynes successfully tested one-horsepower, one-cylinder vehicle at 6 or 7 mph at Kokomo, IN. It was one of the first automobiles built and oldest American-made automobile in existence. Currently it is on exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.

July 4th 1957
Fiat launched "Nuova 500", cinquecento in Turin. It was designed by Dante Giacosa. it was marketed as a cheap and practical town car. Measuring only 2.97 m (9 ft 9 in) long, and originally powered by a tiny 479 cc two-cylinder, air-cooled engine, the 500 redefined the term "small car" and is considered one of the first city cars.
During the filming of Italian Job (original), the boss of Fiat Motors offered to donate huge number of Fiat 500s in place of the Minis. The director however decided that as it was a very British film, it should be British Minis.

July 4th 2007
Fiat 500 Nuova was launched officially at Murazzi del Po, Turin lexactly 50 year after the launch of the original Fiat 500. With 250,000 in attendance it was the largest launch party held in the last ten years, a testament to the 500's huge popularity. The show was coordinated by Marco Balich, who was also responsible for Turin's 2006 Winter Olympic Games. Several artists performed during the show, including Lauryn Hill, Israeli dancing group Mayumana and others followed by huge firework spectacle. The car was also displayed in the squares of 30 cities in Italy for the launch.

Elwood Haynes


Dante Giacosa with original 500


New retro Fiat 500 Nuova

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

5th July

July 5th 1933
Fritz Todt was appointed general inspector for German highways on this day in 1933. His primary assignment was to build a comprehensive autobahn system. Todt, a civil engineer who was a proponent of a national highway system as a means of economic development, was handpicked for the position in 1932 by Adolf Hitler. The two men were close friends, and Todt remained a Nazi party member throughout World War II. By 1936, 100,000 kilometers of divided highways had been completed, leaving Germany with the most advanced transportation system in the world.
The autobahn inspired U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to foster a similar American interstate highway system. Having been in Germany during the war, he returned to the United States deeply convinced that good highways were directly linked to economic prosperity.

July 5th 1937
Henry Ford initiated 32 hour work week for his factory workers.

July 5th 1951
Gordon M. Buehrig, of South Bend, Indiana, received a patent for "Vehicle Top Construction" ("to provide a vehicle top construction which is essentially the type providing an enclosed passenger compartment with the attendant advantages but which may be opened to a substantial degree to simulate an open passenger compartment"); vehicle top with removable panels; appeared as "T-top" on 1968 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.

July 5th 1998
Strike at General Motors parts factory near Detroit closed five assembly plants which idled workers nationwide. This standoff lasted seven weeks

Fritz Todt with Hitler


Hitler begins the Autobahn digging in 1933


The Autobahn with Inscription "Fanget An! 21/3/1934" meaning Getting Started


Autobahn complexity


Autobahn today

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

6th July

July 6th 1955
Federal Air Pollution Control Act was implemented and federal funds were allocated for research into causal analysis and control of car-emission pollution.

July 6th 1958
The great Argentine race car driver Juan Manuel Fangio, winner of five Formula One driver's world championships, competes in his last Grand Prix race--the French Grand Prix held outside Reims, France--on this day in 1958.
Fangio left school at the age of 11 and worked as an automobile mechanic in his hometown of San Jose de Balcarce, Argentina before beginning his driving career. He won his first major victory in the Gran Premio Internacional del Norte of 1940, racing a Chevrolet along the often-unpaved roads from Buenos Aires to Lima, Peru. In 1948, Fangio was invited to race a Simca-Gordini in the French Grand Prix, also at Reims, which marked his European racing debut. After a crash during a road race in Peru that fall killed his co-driver and friend Daniel Urrutia, Fangio considered retiring from racing, but in the end returned to Europe for his first full Formula One season the following year.
In Formula One, the top level of racing as sanctioned by the Fédération International de l'Automobile (FIA), drivers compete in single-seat, open-wheel vehicles typically built by large automakers (or "constructors," in racing world parlance) and capable of achieving speeds of more than 230 mph. Individual Formula One events are known as Grands Prix. Fangio signed on in 1948 with Alfa Romeo, and won his first Formula One championship title with that team in 1951. Over the course of his racing career, he would drive some of the best cars Alfa-Romeo, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari and Maserati ever produced. Capturing four more Formula One titles by 1957, Fangio won an impressive 24 of 51 total Grand Prix races.
Reims, famous for its 13th-century cathedral, hosted the oldest Grand Prix race, the French Grand Prix, at its Reims-Gueux course a total of 14 times (the last time in 1966). In the race on July 6, 1958, the British driver Mike Hawthorn--who would win the driver's world championship that season, but die tragically in a (non-racing) car accident the following January, at the age of 29--took the lead from the start in his 2.4-liter Ferrari Dino 246 and held on for the win. Fangio, driving a Maserati, finished fourth, in what would be the last race before announcing his retirement at the age of 47. The 1958 French Grand Prix also marked the Formula One debut of Phil Hill, who in 1960 would become the first American driver to win the world championship.

Pollution Test


Juan Manuel Fangio

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

July 7th 1928
The Chrysler Corporation introduced the Plymouth as its newest car on this day in 1928. The Plymouth project had taken three years to complete, as Chrysler engineers worked to build a reliable and affordable car to compete with the cheaper offerings of Ford and General Motors. The Plymouth debuted with great fanfare in July of 1928, with renowned aviator Amelia Earhart behind the wheel. The publicity blitz brought 30,000 people to the Chicago Coliseum for a glimpse of the new car. With a delivery price of $670, the Plymouth was an attractive buy, selling over 80,000 units in its first year and forcing Chrysler to expand its production facilities drastically.

July 7th 2000
On this day in 2000--eight weeks to the day after the fourth-generation NASCAR driver Adam Petty was killed during practice at the New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, New Hampshire--the driver Kenny Irwin Jr. dies at the same speedway, near the exact same spot, after his car slams into the wall at 150 mph during a practice run.

The Plymouth Logo featured a rear view of the Mayflower ship which landed at Plymouth Rock.


Ethel Miller with her # 1 Plymouth as she prepared to leave for Chicago to pickup the One Millionth Plymouth at the Century of Progress Exhibition


#1, Million & 2 Million. Left to right, Harry G. Moock, Plymouth Sales Manager, Verne Orr, California Sales Manager and Mrs. Ethel Miller.


Kenny Irwin Jr.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

8th July

July 8, 1907
George Wilcken Romney was born in Colonia Dublán, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. He was chairman of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962. He then served as the 43rd governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969 and then the 3rd United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1969 to 1973. Romney was a candidate for President in 1968, ultimately losing the Republican nomination to Richard Nixon.
He entered the car industry as a salesman and eventually became one of the most powerful men in the business, leading AMC in becoming the largest independent car company in the country.

July 8, 2004
On July 8, 2004, Suzuki Motor Corporation and Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, agree to a settlement in an eight-year-long lawsuit in which the automaker accused Consumer Reports of damaging its reputation with claims that its Samurai sport utility vehicle (SUV) was prone to rolling over.
In July 1988, a Consumer Reports product review judged the Samurai as unacceptable because of its propensity to tip during sharp turns. (The magazine based this conclusion on the car's performance in avoidance-maneuver tests.) Suzuki stopped making the Samurai in 1995. The following year, the company filed the lawsuit, accusing Consumer Union of rigging the test and perpetrating consumer fraud. The automaker sought $60 million in compensation and unspecified punitive damages. Suzuki's case included testimony from a former Consumers Union employee who served for 10 years as a technician in the company's auto testing group, as well as videotapes and records of automobile testing that date back to 1988. The videos showed, among other things, that the testing personnel had driven the Samurai through the course no fewer than 46 times before getting it to tip up on two wheels on the 47th, a result that was met by laughing and cheering from the group.
A federal judge dismissed Suzuki's lawsuit without a trial, but in September 2002 an appeals court ruled that a jury should hear the case. In April 2000, Consumers Union had won a jury trial over a lawsuit filed by Isuzu Motor, which claimed that Consumer Reports magazine had rigged a test involving its Trooper SUV in order to make the vehicle tip over. In November 2003, U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Consumers Union appeal in the Suzuki case, and the case was headed for a jury trial in California before the settlement was reached the next July.
No money changed hands in the agreement. Though Consumers Union did not issue an apology--"We stand fully behind our testing and rating of the Samurai," David Pittle, vice president for technical policy at Consumers Union, said--it made a "clarification," stating that the magazine's statement that the Samurai "easily" rolls over during turns may have been "misconstrued or misunderstood." The agreement also stated that Consumers Reports "never intended to imply that the Samurai easily rolls over in routine driving conditions" and had spoken positively of other Suzuki models such as the Sidekick and the Vitara/XL-7. For its part, Suzuki claimed the settlement as a win for its side: Company officials said it would allow them to concentrate on growing Suzuki's business in the United States, including building national sales to 200,000 vehicles by 2007, compared with 58,438 in 2003.


George Wilcken Romney

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

9th July

July 9th 1919
The Ford Motor Company was reorganized as a Delaware corporation with Edsel Ford as company president on this day in 1919. The reorganization was the last step in Henry Ford's drive to gain 100% of the company's stock for his family. He borrowed heavily in order to buy out the minority shareholders. The extent to which the Ford family has maintained control over the company makes Ford unique in the annals of business history. Edsel Ford held the title of president until his death in 1943, but Henry effectively ran the company until 1945, when Henry Ford II took control of the company.

July 9th 1979
A car bomb destroys a Renault owned by famed "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. Individuals purporting to represent the pro-Nazi ODESSA secret international organization took credit for the attack and demanded that the Klarsfelds stop pursuing (former) Nazis.
The Klarsfelds were involved in finding Klaus Barbie, René Bousquet, Jean Leguay, Maurice Papon and Paul Touvier and seeking prosecution for their war crimes committed during WWII.


July 9th 2006
The Fiat 500 Club Italia, an organization formed in appreciation of the iconic 500--"Cinquecento" in Italian--car produced by the automaker Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino), holds what the Guinness Book of World Records will call the world's largest parade of Fiat cars on July 9, 2006, between Villanova d'Albenga and Garlenda, Italy.
Fiat, founded in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli, released a 500-cc car known as "Il Topolino" (the Italian name for Mickey Mouse) before World War II; at the time, it was the smallest mass-produced car on the market. In the postwar years, the company sought to capitalize on the need for affordable family-size cars by revamping their 500 model. To that end, the Nuova Cinquecento, a two-cylinder rear-engined four-seater, made its debut on July 4, 1957. Some 3.5 million new 500s were sold between 1957 and 1975, when Fiat halted production. Like the Volkswagen Beetle in Germany, the diminutive but efficient 500 became an iconic symbol of postwar Italy and its people.
In 1984, a group of enthusiasts calling themselves the "Amici della 500" (Friends of the 500) unofficially organized as the Fiat 500 Club Italia in Garlenda, in the province of Savona. Some 30 participants attended the club's first rally on that July 15: the crowd included Dante Giacosa, the designer of the 500. The club was officially established in 1990 and today boasts more than 200,000 members and holds as many as 100 rallies per year. In July 2006, during the club's international meeting in Garlenda, a record-high number of participants (754 teams) gathered to make up a parade of 500 Fiats, later recorded by Guinness as a world record.
After struggling financially in the face of stiff competition from Volkswagen and other automakers, Fiat turned its fortunes around beginning in 2004, with the arrival of Sergio Marchionne as the company's head. A key part of Fiat's resurgence was was the launch of a redesigned Cinquecento in 2007. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi was among the more than 100,000 spectators who gathered in Turin on July 4, 2007--50 years to the day after the original Nuova 500 made its debut--to celebrate the new version's arrival. In 2009, Fiat completed an alliance with Chrysler after the struggling American automaker was forced to file for federal bankruptcy protection. Under the terms of the partnership, Fiat owns a 20 percent share of Chrysler (which could eventually grow to at least 35 percent).


Serge and Beate Klarsfeld

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia
purepeople.com​

 

[Landrover]

10th July

July 10th 1958
The final production line of Trabant started at VEB Sachsenring factory in Zwickau, Saxony. It was considered to be East Germany's answer to Volkswagen. The Trabant was a steel monocoque design with roof, bootlid, bonnet, fenders and doors in Duroplast, a form of plastic containing resin strengthened by wool or cotton. This helped the GDR to avoid expensive steel imports, but in theory did not provide much crash protection, although in crash tests it has actually proven to be superior to some modern small hatchbacks. The duroplast was made of recycled material, cotton waste from Russia and phenol resins from the East German dye industry making the Trabant the first car with a body made of recycled material.
The engine for the Trabant was a small two-stroke engine with two cylinders, giving the vehicle modest performance of 25 horsepower from a 600 cc displacement. The car took 21 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h and the top speed was 112 km/h. There were two main problems with the engine: the smoky exhaust and the pollution it produced. The fuel consumption was a modest 7 liters/100 km. However later models of trabant did had bigger 1.1L VW engine until 1991 when its production ended.
The name Trabant means "fellow traveler" in German and was inspired by Soviet Sputnik. Since it could take years for a Trabant to be delivered from the time it was ordered, people who finally got one were very careful with it and usually became skillful in maintaining and repairing it. The lifespan of an average Trabant was 28 years.Used Trabants would often fetch a higher price than new ones, as the former were available immediately, while the latter had the aforementioned waiting period of several years.


July 10th 1962
The United States Patent Office issues the Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin a patent for his three-point automobile safety belt "for use in vehicles, especially road vehicles" on this day in 1962.
Four years earlier, Sweden's Volvo Car Corporation had hired Bohlin, who had previously worked in the Swedish aviation industry, as the company's first chief safety engineer. At the time, safety-belt use in automobiles was limited mostly to race car drivers; the traditional two-point belt, which fastened in a buckle over the abdomen, had been known to cause severe internal injuries in the event of a high-speed crash. Bohlin designed his three-point system in less than a year, and Volvo introduced it on its cars in 1959. Consisting of two straps that joined at the hip level and fastened into a single anchor point, the three-point belt significantly reduced injuries by effectively holding both the upper and lower body and reducing the impact of the swift deceleration that occurred in a crash.
On August 17, 1959, Bohlin filed for a patent in the United States for his safety belt design. The U.S. Patent Office issued Patent No. 3,043,625 to "Nils Ivar Bohlin, Goteborg, Sweden, assignor to Aktiebolaget Volvo" on July 10, 1962. In the patent, Bohlin explained his invention: "The object … is to provide a safety belt which independently of the strength of the seat and its connection with the vehicle in an effective and physiologically favorable manner retains the upper as well as the lower part of the body of the strapped person against the action of substantially forwardly directed forces and which is easy to fasten and unfasten and even in other respects satisfies rigid requirements."
Volvo released the new seat belt design to other car manufacturers, and it quickly became standard worldwide. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 made seat belts a required feature on all new American vehicles from the 1968 model year onward. Though engineers have improved on seat belt design over the years, the basic structure is still Bohlin's.
The use of seat belts has been estimated to reduce the risk of fatalities and serious injuries from collisions by about 50 percent.

Trabant P50


Nils Bohlin, three point seat-belt inventor

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

11th July

July 11th 1899
Company charter of Societa Anonima "Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino” (FIAT) signed at Palazzo Bricherasio by Giovanni Agnelli with several of his investors.
Giovanni Agnelli founded and led the company until his death in 1945, while Vittorio Valletta administered the day-to-day activities of the company. Its first car the 3 ½ CV (of which only eight copies were built, all bodied by Alessio of Turin) strongly resembled contemporary Benz and had a 697 cc boxer twin engine.

Giovanni Agnelli


Fiat, 3 ½ CV



Vittorio Valletta (right) along with Giovanni Agnelli & Alberto Pirelli

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia
fiat.com​

 

[Landrover]

12th July

July 12th 1904
Driver Harry Harkness won the first Mount Washington, New Hampshire, hill-climb race driving a 60hp Mercedes Benz on this day in 1904 and placed the record figures for the year at twenty-four minutes, thirty seconds in his $18000 imported Mercedes.

July 12th 1933
The first three-wheeled, multi-directional Dymaxion car--designed by the architect, engineer and philosopher Buckminster Fuller--is manufactured in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on this day in 1933.
Born in Massachusetts in 1895, Fuller set out to live his life as (in his own words) "an experiment to find what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity." After making up the world "Dymaxion" as a combination of the words "dynamic," "maximum" and "ion," he took the word as his own personal brand. Among his groundbreaking creations were the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion house, which was made of lightweight aluminum and could be shipped by air and assembled on site.
In 1927, Fuller first sketched the Dymaxion car under the name "4D transport." Part aircraft, part automobile, it had wings that inflated. Five years later, Fuller asked his friend, the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, to make more sketches of the car. The result was an elongated teardrop design, with a rear third wheel that lifted off the ground and a tail fin. Fuller set up production of the Dymaxion car in a former Locomobile factory in Bridgeport in March 1933. The first model rolled out of the Bridgeport factory on July 12, 1933--Fuller's 38th birthday. It had a steel chassis and a body made of ash wood, covered with an aluminum skin and topped with a painted canvas roof. It was designed to be able to reach a speed of 120 miles per hour and average 28 miles per gallon of gasoline.
Sold to Gulf Oil, the Dymaxion car went on display at the Century of Progress exposition in Chicago. That October, however, the professional driver Francis Turner was killed after the Dymaxion car turned over during a demonstration. An investigation cleared Dymaxion of responsibility, but investors became scarce, despite the enthusiasm of the press and of celebrities such as the novelist H.G. Wells and the painter Diego Rivera.
Along with the Nazi-built KdF-wagen (the forerunner of the Volkswagen Beetle), the Dymaxion was one of several futuristic, rear-engined cars developed during the 1930s. Though it was never mass-produced, the Dymaxion helped lead to public acceptance of new streamlined passenger cars, such as the 1936 Lincoln Zephyr. In 2008, the only surviving Dymaxion was featured in an exhibit dedicated to Fuller's work at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

July 12th 1946
Spicer Manufacturing Company was renamed Dana Holding Corporation recently emerged from Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
The company has 35,000 workers and is listed on the Fortune 500. Originally incorporated in New Jersey in 1904 as the 'Spicer Universal Joint Manufacturing Company', named after Clarence W. Spicer, engineer, inventor, and founder of the company. It was renamed the 'Spicer Manufacturing Company' in 1909. It relocated to Toledo, Ohio in 1928 and was renamed the Dana Corporation after Charles Dana, who joined the company in 1914 and became president and treasurer in 1916.
Its key products include axles, driveshafts, frames, and sealing and thermal-management products.

Harry Harkness


Richard Buckminster Fuller, c. 1917.


The Dymaxion Car

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

July 13th 1978
On this day in 1978, Ford Motor Company chairman Henry Ford II fires Lee Iacocca as Ford's president, ending years of tension between the two men.
Born to an immigrant family in Pennsylvania in 1924, Iacocca was hired by Ford as an engineer in 1946 but soon switched to sales, at which he clearly excelled. By 1960, Iaccoca had become a vice president and general manager of the Ford division, the company's largest marketing arm. He successfully championed the design and development of the sporty, affordable Ford Mustang, an achievement that landed him on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazines in the same week in 1964.
In December 1970, Henry Ford II named Iacocca president of Ford, but his brash, unorthodox style soon brought him into conflict with his boss. According to Douglas Brinkley's history of Ford "Wheels for the World," Henry authorized $1.5 million in company funds for an investigation of Iacocca's business and private life in 1975. Suffering from a heart condition and aware that the time for his retirement was approaching, Ford made it clear that he eventually wanted to turn the company over to his son Edsel, then just 28. In early 1978, Iacocca was told he would report to another Ford executive, Philip Caldwell, who was named deputy chief executive officer. In his increasingly public struggle with Ford, Iacocca made an attempt to find support among the company's board of directors, giving Ford the excuse he needed to fire him. As Iacocca later wrote in his bestselling autobiography, Ford called Iacocca into his office shortly before 3 pm on July 13, 1978 and let him go, telling him "Sometimes you just don't like somebody."
News of the firing shocked the industry, but it turned into a boon for Iacocca. The following year, he was hired as president of the Chrysler Corporation, which at the time was facing bankruptcy. Iacocca went to the federal government for aid, banking on his belief that the government would not let Chrysler fail for fear of weakening an already slumping economy. The gamble paid off, with Congress agreeing to bail out Chrysler to the tune of $1.5 billion. Iacocca streamlined the company's operations, focused on producing more fuel-efficient cars and pursued an aggressive marketing strategy based on his own powerful personality. After showing a small profit in 1981, Chrysler posted record profits of more than $2.4 billion in 1984. By then a national celebrity, Iacocca retired as chief executive of Chrysler in 1992.


July 13th 1995
On this day in 1995, the Chrysler Corporation opened a car dealership in downtown Hanoi, Vietnam. One week later, Chrysler opened another dealership in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, with the intention of marketing 200 import vehicles per year through the two dealerships. The openings were a part of Chrysler's long-term goal of implementing auto production in Vietnam--something that rivals Ford and Toyota were also pursuing at the time. On September 6, Chrysler received permission from the Vietnamese government to assemble vehicles in Vietnam, allowing Chrysler to construct a production facility in Dong Nai Province, Southern Vietnam, with the aim of manufacturing 500 to 1,000 Dodge Dakota pick-up trucks for the Vietnamese market annually.


July 13th 1998
General Motors announced recall of 800,000 vehicles due to malfunctioning airbags. A large number of Chevrolet and Pontiac cars displayed "an increased risk of airbag deployment in a low speed crash or when an object strikes the floor pan.

Chrysler Vietnam

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

July 14th 1955
Volkswagen introduced the Karmann-Ghia coupe at the Kasino Hotel in Westfalia, Germany. As the European car market finally recovered from the war, Volkswagen felt that it needed to release an "image car" to accompany its plain but reliable "Bugs and Buses." Volkswagen was not the only automotive company looking for a flagship car at the time. Chevrolet had released the Corvette, and Ford the Thunderbird. The Chrysler Corporation had contracted with the Italian design firm Ghia to create designs for a Chrysler dream car; however, none of the designs came to fruition. Meanwhile, Volkswagen had contracted with German coach-builder Karmann for their own image car, and Karmann, in turn, had sub-contracted to Ghia for design offerings. Eventually Ghia supplied Karmann with a version of their Chrysler design, modified for the floor plan of the Volkswagen Beetle. The Karmann-Ghia was released as a 1956 model by Volkswagen. The car's sleek lines and hand craftsmanship attracted the attention Volkswagen had hoped for. Nevertheless, as sporty as the Karmann-Ghia looked, it suffered from its 36hp flat four engine in the area of power. Still, the Karmann-Ghia sold 10,000 units in its first full production year ,and with the release of the convertible in 1958, production reached 18,000 units for one year. Sales climbed steadily through the 1960s, peaking at 33,000 cars per year. While General Motors and Ford focused on their Corvette and Thunderbird, respectively, Volkswagen found that the Bug had increased in popularity, especially in the U.S. market. Executives decided to focus their marketing attention on the Bug, abandoning the Karmann-Ghia, which was last produced in 1 974.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[RSM]

Awsome, you are consistent with your reports.

 

[Landrover]

15th July

July 15th 1903
On this day in 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company takes its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two-cylinder Model A (Not to be confused with Model A of 1927) automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The car, produced at Ford's plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later.
Henry Ford had built his first gasoline-powered vehicle--which he called the Quadricycle--in a workshop behind his home in 1896, while working as the chief engineer for the main plant of the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. After making two unsuccessful attempts to start a company to manufacture automobiles before 1903, Ford gathered a group of 12 stockholders, including himself, to sign the papers necessary to form the Ford Motor Company in mid-June 1903. As Douglas Brinkley writes in "Wheels for the World," his history of Ford, one of the new company's investors, Albert Strelow, owned a wooden factory building on Mack Avenue that he rented to Ford Motor. In an assembly room measuring 250 by 50 feet, the first Ford Model A went into production that summer.
Designed primarily by Ford's assistant C. Harold Wills, the Model A could accommodate two people side-by-side on a bench; it had no top, and was painted red. The car's biggest selling point was its engine, which at two cylinders and eight-horsepower was the most powerful to be found in a passenger car. It had relatively simple controls, including two forward gears that the driver operated with a foot pedal, and could reach speeds of up to 30 miles per hour (comparable to the car's biggest competition at the time, the curved-dash Oldsmobile).
Dr. Pfenning's order turned out to be the first of many, from around the country, launching Ford on its way to profitability. Within two months, the company had sold 215 Fords, and by the end of its first year the Mack Avenue plant had turned out some 1,000 cars. Though the company grew quickly in the next several years, it was the launch of the Model T in 1908 that catapulted Ford to the top of the automobile industry. The Lizzie's tremendous popularity kept Ford far ahead of the pack until dwindling sales led to the end of its production in 1927. That same year, Ford released the second Model A amid great fanfare; it enjoyed similar success, though the onset of the Great Depression kept its sales from equaling those of the Model T.

July 15th 1939
Carl Fisher, the founder of both the Indy 500 and Miami Beach, died in Miami at age 65. Born in Greensburg, Indiana, Fisher grew up racing cars and bicycles and aspired to be a successful inventor. He turned out to be a better businessman than an inventor, and left his first imprint on the business world when he partnered with Fred Avery, who held the patent for pressing carbide gas into tanks. Together, they manufactured car headlamps as the Presto-O-Lite Corporation. By 1910, six years after starting the business, Fisher was a multimillionaire. He bought land and built a track in Indianapolis, paving the track with local brick. By offering the largest single day purse in sport, Fisher guaranteed interest in his epic 500-mile race, and in less than five years "Indy" had become one of the premier car races in the world. In 1915, Fisher led the development effort for the Lincoln Highway, the nation's first continuous cross-continental highway from New York to California. Later, in the 1920s, Fisher developed the Dixie Highway, a road that ran from Michigan to Miami. Fisher fell in love with Miami, and in 1910 he bought a house there. It became his project to develop Miami Beach into a city. Fisher gave $50,000 of his own money to complete the longest wooden bridge in the state, stretching between Miami and Miami Beach. At that time Miami Beach was wild, and Fisher set about cleaning up the beach. He built lavish facilities near the water and invited the rich and famous to check out his creation. The Florida land bust of 1926 and the subsequent stock market crash of 1929 left Fisher penniless, and he lived in a small home on Miami Beach until his death.

1903 Ford Model A at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.


Carl Fisher


Fisher at the Harlem racetrack, near Chicago, Illinois (courtesy Library of Congress)

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

July 16th 1955
Stirling Moss won his first Grand Prix race, the British Grand Prix in Aintree, driving a Mercedes Benz W196. Moss is considered the greatest racer that never won a World Driving Championship, having finished second to Juan Manuel Fangio for four consecutive years. Most impressive is Moss' record of having won 16 of 66 Grand Prix starts and 194 of his 466 starts in major events.

Stirling Moss


Moss in a 300 SLR at the Nürburgring in 1977

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

July 17th 1920
Nils Bohlin, the Swedish engineer and inventor responsible for the three-point lap and shoulder seat belt was born in Härnösand, Sweden. Seat belt is considered one of the most important innovations in automobile safety.

July 17th 1964
Donald Campbell, the son of Britain's most prolific land-speed record holder, Sir Malcolm Campbell, drove the Proteus Bluebird CN7 to a four-wheel, gasoline-powered land-speed record with two identical runs of 403mph at Lake Eyre, South Australia.

Donald Campbell


Bluebird CN7 in July 1964 at Lake Eyre


Bluebird CN7, today at National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire. England

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​