This Day in Automotive History

[Landrover]

18th July

July 18th 1911
James D. Robertson, of Toledo, OH, received a patent for a "terminal Clamp"; assigned to Champion Spark Plug Company. It was company's first patent.

July 18th 1948
Juan Manuel Fangio, a.k.a. "the Maestro," made his Formula One debut finishing 12th at the Grand Prix de l'ACF in France. Fangio was 37 years old at the start of his first Formula One race, but his late appearance onto the racing scene did not diminish his impact. Born to an Italian immigrant family outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Fangio learned to race on the death-trap tracks of Argentina for little reward. Finally, his excellence was recognized by Argentine dictator Juan Peron, who agreed to sponsor Fangio's racing career. Formula One Grand Prix racing began in 1950, and Fangio took second place in the World Driver's Championship driving for Alpha Romeo. The next year he won. A crash kept him out of the circuit for the next two years, but in 1954, he switched to the Mercedes team and won his first of four consecutive World Driver's Championships. He is the only man to ever have won five titles.

Juan Manuel Fangio


Juan Manuel Fangio driving a Mercedes-Benz W196 in the 1986 Oldtimer Grand Prix at the Nürburgring

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

19th July

July 19th 1934
Harold T. Ames filed a patent application for his retractable headlamps. The design would later become one of the defining details on Ames' most triumphant project, the Cord 810. Ames, then the chief executive at Duesenberg, asked Cord designer Gordon Buehrig to make a "baby version" of the Duesenberg car. Buehrig's response, the Cord 810, is widely held to be one of the most influential cars in American automotive history. It was the last great offering of the Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg triumvirate, as the company became insolvent at the end of the Depression. In 1952, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) chose the 1937 Cord as one of eight automotive works of art for a year-long exhibition.

July 19th 1935
The first automatic parking meter in the U.S., the Park-O-Meter invented by Carlton Magee, was installed in Oklahoma City by the Dual Parking Meter Company. Twenty-foot spaces were painted on the pavement, and a parking meter that accepted nickels was planted in the concrete at the head of each space. The city paid for the meters with funds collected from them. Today parking meters are big business. Companies offer digital parking meters, smart parking meters, and, even more remarkably, user-friendly parking meters. The user-friendly parking meters are an attempt to stem the tide of "violent confrontations" between users and their meters.

1936 Cord 810 Phaeton


Parking Meter

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

20th July

July 20th 1894
Errett Lobban Cord was born in Warrensburg, Missouri, on this day in 1894. Cord moved to Los Angeles while he was in high school and remained there after his graduation, starting a number of car dealerships. His prowess as a salesman led him to pursue bigger goals and to look for a way to invest the $100,000 he had managed to save in a few years of work. "Then I started looking around," he said, "I wanted to do something with that $100,000."

Errett Lobban Cord on the cover of TIME magazine (January 18, 1932 Edition)

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia
time.com​

 

[Landrover]

21st July

July 21st 1904
On this day in 1904 Louis Rigolly, driving a 15-liter Gobron-Brillie on the Ostend-Newport road in Belgium, became the first man to break the 100mph barrier in a car by raising the land-speed record to 103.55mph. On the same day in 1925, Sir Malcolm Campbell was first to best the 150mph mark when he drove his Sunbeam to a two-way average of 150.33mph at the Pendine Sands in Wales.

July 21st 1917
Rapp-Motorenwerke renamed Bayerische Motoren Werke GmbH (Bavarian Motor Works or BMW) Rapp Motorenwerke GmbH was one of the first aircraft engine manufacturers in Germany founded by Karl Rapp and Julius Auspitzer with a capital stock of Reich Mark 200,000 on 28 October 1913 on the site of Flugwerke Deutschland.


July 21st 1960
On this day in 1960, the German government passes the "Law Concerning the Transfer of the Share Rights in Volkswagenwerk Limited Liability Company into Private Hands," known informally as the "Volkswagen Law."
Founded in 1937 and originally under the control of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, Volkswagen would eventually grow into Europe's largest car manufacturer and a symbol of Germany's economic recovery after the devastation of World War II. The Volkswagen Law, passed in July 1960, changed the company to a joint stock corporation, with 20 percent held each by Germany and Lower Saxony, the region in which Volkswagen is still headquartered. By limiting the share of any other stockholder to 20 percent, regardless of how many shares owned, the law effectively protected the company from any attempt at a hostile takeover.
By 2007, the controversial legislation had come under full-blown attack from the European Commission as part of a campaign against protectionist measures in several European capitals. The commission objected not only to the 20 percent voting rights cap but to the law's stipulation that measures taken at the annual stockholders' meeting must be passed by more than four-fifths of VW shareholders--a requirement that gave Lower Saxony the ability to block any such measures as it saw fit.
In March of that year, fellow German automaker Porsche announced that it had raised its stake in Volkswagen to 30.9 percent, triggering a takeover bid under a German law requiring a company to bid for the entirety of any other company after acquiring more than 30 percent of its stock. Porsche announced it did not intend to take over VW, but was buying the stock as a way of protecting it from being dismantled by hedge funds. Porsche's history was already entwined with Volkswagen, as the Austrian-born engineer Ferdinand Porsche designed the original "people's car" for Volkswagen in 1938.
On October 23, 2007, the European Court of Justice formally struck down the Volkswagen Law, ruling that its protectionism illegally restricted the free movement of capital in European markets. The decision cleared the way for Porsche to move forward with its takeover, which it did, maintaining that it will still preserve the Volkswagen corporate structure. By early 2009, Porsche owned more than 50 percent of Volkswagen shares.


July 21st 1987
Enzo Ferrari (89), in ceremony commemorating his company's 40th year, unveiled Ferrari F40 at factory in Maranello, It had 2.9litre twin turbo v8 under the hood and Italy's first production sports car to top 200mph barrier and capable of 0-60mph in 3.5 seconds, could hold top speed of 201mph.

Ferrari F40 at Auto Salon Singen, Germany.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

22nd July

July 22 1908
Albert Fisher and his nephews, Frederic and Charles Fisher, established the Fisher Body Company to manufacture carriage and automobile bodies. Albert Fisher personally supplied $30,000 of the company's total of $50,000 in initial capital. Charles and Frederic had been trained in their father's carriage building shop and supplied the technical know-how required at the company's inception. Fisher Body quickly abandoned carriage building to concentrate on car frames. By 1910, Fisher supplied some car bodies for General Motors (GM), and in 1919 GM purchased controlling interest in the company to shore up a supplier for its car bodies. At that time, Fisher was the largest supplier of car bodies in the world. The Fisher brothers were early advocates of closed-body, steel and wood frames, and they pre-empted their competition by creating more closed-bodied cars than open-bodied. They were also early in their adoption of aluminum and steel frames.

July 22nd 1911
General Motors organized General Motors Truck Company (later GMC) to handle sales of GM's Rapid and Reliance products.
In 1901, Max Grabowski established a company called the "Rapid Motor Vehicle Company", which developed some of the earliest commercial trucks ever designed. The trucks utilized one-cylinder engines. In 1909, the company was purchased by General Motors to form the basis for the General Motors Truck Company, from which GMC Truck was derived.
Another independent manufacturer purchased by GM that same year was Reliance Motor Car Company. Rapid & Reliance were merged in 1911 by GM, and in 1912 the marque "GMC Truck" was first shown at the New York International Auto Show.

July 22nd 1912
Edward G. Budd formed Edward G. Budd Mfg. Co., at 121 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, with $75,000 of his own savings. He borrowed $15,000 from family friend named A. Robinson McIlvaine, $10,000 from another friend, J.S. Williams. Budd became president and appointed McIlvaine as secretary. Their first product was an all-metal truck body for Philadelphia coal distributor.


July 22nd 2005
MG Rover Group acquired by Nanjing Automobile for $97 million.

Fisher Logo


GMC Truck, from a 1919 advertisement


The famous Budd company logo on the builder's plate in a Metro North M-3 railcar.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

23rd July

July 23rd 1903
The first two-cylinder Ford Model A was delivered to its owner, Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago, on this day in 1903 (a week after the Dr. Ernst booked the car). The Model A was the result of a partnership between Henry Ford and Detroit coal merchant Alexander Malcomson. Ford had met Malcomson while working at Edison Illuminating Company: Malcomson sold him coal. The Model A, designed primarily by Ford's assistant C. Harold Wills, was the affordable runabout that Ford needed to begin marketing his company's stock. In the next year Ford raised enough stock to release a line of cars and to incorporate as the Ford Motor Company. Ford's company grew quickly, but it wasn't until the release of the Model T that Ford took the position of our nation's largest carmaker. The Model T kept Ford number one in the industry until production was stopped in 1927, and Ford relinquished its place to Chevrolet. The second Model A, released in November of 1927, was a great success. Between 1927 and 1931, 4.3 million Model A Fords were made. The stylish, dependable, and affordable Model A reaffirmed Ford's position as a premier automaker at the time. Sales for the Model A would never approach those of its forerunner the Model T, due to the onset of the Depression. As sales slumped, Henry Ford decided to release a new car model in 1932. He introduced the speedy Ford V-8, known as the fastest car in the land at the time.

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


1928 Ford Model A Business Coupe at the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland, Ohio

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

24th July

24th July 1938
Dick Seaman, driving a Mercedes-Benz 154 to victory at the German Grand Prix at Nurburgring, Germany, became the first Briton to win a major Grand Prix since Malcolm Campbell did it 15 years earlier. The race turned out to be a showdown between Mercedes--with their driving team of Seaman, Caracciola, von Brauchitsch and Lang; Auto Union--with newly acquired Italian great Tazio Nuvolari; and Alpha--with their team of Tartuffi and Farina. Mercedes qualified all three first row positions with Seaman in his British green helmet on the outside. After the typical lengthy Nazi parading, the race got underway in front of over 400,000 spectators. Midway through the race, in spite of Nuvolari's noble efforts, it was clear the race would be decided among the Mercedes drivers and that von Brauchtitsch and Seaman were the men to beat. Von Brauchtitsch led the race until he came into pit for tires and fuel. The crowd buzzed to see how fast the crew could change him, but in their rush the fuel tank was overfilled. The portable starter ignited the engine, the tank sucked in air and then shot a massive flame into the sky, igniting the back half of the car. Seaman pulled away unscathed, taking the lead for the first time. Von Brauchtitsch eventually returned to the race only to let his foul mood get the best of him as he took a corner too fast and crashed into a ditch. He is said to have walked back to the pits, black in the face, holding his detachable steering wheel that he claimed came off in the turn. His mechanic denied the possibility. Meanwhile, Seaman steamed to a comfortable victory ahead of Lang, Stuck, and Nuvolari.


24th July 1998
On this day in 1998, South Korea's government opens the bidding for the Kia Motors Corporation, the country's third-largest car company, which went bankrupt during an economic crisis that gripped much of Asia.
Founded on the outskirts of Seoul in 1944, Kia began as a small manufacturer of steel tubing and bicycle parts. The name of the company was derived from the Chinese characters "ki" (meaning "to arise" or "to come out of") and "a" (which stood for Asia). By the late 1950s, Kia had branched out from bicycles to motor scooters, and in the early 1970s the company launched into automobile production. Kia's Sohari plant, completed by 1973, was Korea's first fully integrated automobile production facility; it rolled out the Brisa, the country's first passenger car, in 1974.
Kia's lineup by the late 1980s included the Concord, Capital, Potentia and Pride. Ford Motor Company brought the Pride to the United States, calling it the Ford Festiva; the company later sold the Kia Avella as the Ford Aspire. In the 1990s, Kia began selling cars in the United States under its own name, beginning with the Sephia. At first available in only a few states, Kia gradually rolled out across the country, jumping on the success of the sport-utility-vehicle (SUV) category in the mid-1990s with its Sportage, released in 1995.
By 1997, Kia was struggling financially, and that July it collapsed under $10 billion worth of debt. The automaker's failure marked the beginning of a full-blown economic crisis that eventually led South Korea to seek a record international bailout of some $57 billion. Auto sales plummeted nationwide, and by the time bidding for Kia opened in late July 1998, both Hyundai Motor and Daewoo Motor, South Korea's largest and second-largest automakers respectively, had suffered heavy losses as well. The two companies placed bids for Kia and its commercial-vehicle subsidiary, Asia Motors; the other bidders included another local company, Samsung, and Ford Motor, which along with its subsidiary Mazda already owned nearly 17 percent of Kia.
Hyundai managed to win the auction that October, having offered the highest bid; Daewoo was the runner-up. As a subsidiary of Hyundai, Kia made improvements in its cars' quality as well as their reliability, including the introduction of a new warranty program in 2001. It also began concentrating intently on the European market, building a sleek new $109 million design center in Frankfurt, Germany, in early 2008. At the Paris Motor Show that fall, Kia unveiled its new Soul, a subcompact mini multi-purpose-vehicle (MPV). Designed jointly by studios in California and South Korea, the Soul debuted on the global marketplace in early 2009.

Dick Seaman

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[350Z]

Thanks for keeping up the spirit of this thread, Landrover. Your efforts are remarkable.

Drive Safe,
350Z

 

[Landrover]

25th July

July 25th 1941
On this day in 1941, the American automaker Henry Ford sits down at his desk in Dearborn, Michigan and writes a letter to the Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The letter effusively praises Gandhi and his campaign of civil disobedience aimed at forcing the British colonial government out of India.
By July of 1941, Ford's pacifist views led him to despair at the current global situation: Nazi Germany had invaded Poland, causing Britain and France to declare war against it. The United States, led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was firmly on the side of the Allies, but Ford was convinced that the country should remain neutral, despite mounting pressure from the government for his company to start mass-producing airplanes to help defeat the Nazis. The previous May, Ford had reluctantly bowed to this pressure, opening a massive production facility for airplane production at Willow Run, near Dearborn, to manufacture B-24E Liberator bombers for the Allied war effort.
As Douglas Brinkley writes in "Wheels for the World," his history of Ford Motor Company, the automaker disliked imperialism and was hopeful that Gandhi's campaign would succeed in pushing the British out of India and establishing Indian home rule. In addition, Ford Motor Company had long enjoyed healthy sales in the cities of Bombay (now Mumbai) and Calcutta. Ford's letter to Gandhi, now included in the Henry Ford Museum and Library, read: "I want to take this opportunity of sending you a message…to tell you how deeply I admire your life and message. You are one of the greatest men the world has ever known."
The letter was sent to the Mahatma (as Gandhi was known) via T.A. Raman, the London editor of the United Press of India. According to Raman, Brinkley recounts, Gandhi didn't receive the letter until December 8, 1941--the day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Greatly pleased, he sent in response a portable spinning wheel, one of the old-fashioned devices that Gandhi famously used to produce his own cloth. The wheel, autographed in Hindi and English, was shipped some 12,000 miles and personally delivered to Ford by Raman in Greenfield Village, Michigan. Ford kept it as a good luck charm, as well as a symbol of the principles of simplicity and economic independence that both he and Gandhi championed.

July 25th 1945
Henry Kaiser and Joseph Frazer announced plans to form a corporation to manufacture automobiles on this day in 1945. The two men formed an unlikely pair. Frazer had great contacts in the auto industry and Kaiser had initial capital and experience with huge government contracts.

1954 Kaiser Darrin convertible at the 2008 Greenwich Concours d'Elegance in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

26th July

July 26th 1932
Frederick S. Duesenberg died in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, of complications from injuries suffered in an automobile accident on July 2, 1932. Frederick and his brother Augie created the Duesenberg Automobile and Motors Company. Born in Lippe, Germany, Frederick moved to the U.S. in 1885. In 1897 he started a bicycle business, and in 1899 he built a highly efficient gasoline engine to be used for motorcycles. This was the beginning of his automotive career. He took a job with the Rambler Motor Company and worked there, learning the business, until 1905, when he convinced his brother Augie to go into business selling engines. The two brothers designed the Mason engine, with its famous "walking beam" overhead valve design, and started the Mason Motor Car Company. When they sold the business in 1913, they were mature players in the automotive industry.


July 26th 1998
The U.S. 500, the most prestigious race in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series, dissolves into tragedy on this day in 1998, when three fans are killed and six others wounded by flying debris from a car at Michigan Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan.
CART (later known as Champ Car) was an open-wheel racing circuit created in the late 1970s by racing team owners frustrated with the direction of the existing United States Automobile Club (USAC). Open-wheel cars, built specifically for racing, are sophisticated vehicles built for speed, with small, open cockpits and wheels located outside the car's main body. In CART races, as well as those of its rival open-wheel circuit, the Indy Racing League, drivers often achieved speeds of up to 230 mph in the straightaways. (In comparison, drivers in National Association for Stock Car Racing--better known as NASCAR--events reach some 200 mph.)
While rounding the fourth turn at Michigan Speedway (a two-mile oval) in the 1998 U.S. 500, driver Adrian Fernandez lost control of his car and crashed into one of the raceway's retaining walls. The car broke apart, and the right front tire and part of the suspension flew over the 15-foot-high wall and into the stands. Traveling nearly 200 mph, the debris hit fans in the eighth and 10th rows. Two people were killed instantly; another died moments later, and six others received minor injuries. To the outrage of Sports Illustrated reporter Rick Reilly, who wrote a scathing editorial about the incident in the magazine, race officials didn't stop the event, which was won by the young Canadian driver Greg Moore. (In a tragic twist of fate, Moore died in October 1999, after a fatal crash in the CART season finale, the Marlboro 500, in California.) In August 1998, Michigan Speedway announced that it would extend the protective fencing around all of its grandstand sections to a total of around 17 feet in an effort to prevent further accidents.
The CART circuit changed its name to Champ Car in 2004. Four years later, plagued by financial troubles, the Champ Car World Series declared bankruptcy and merged with the Indy Racing League.

Dusenberg Brothers (Fred Duesenberg, left)

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

27th July

July 27th 1888
Philip W. Pratt demonstrated first electric automobile in Boston, a tricycle powered by six Electrical Accumulator Company cells. It weighed 90 pounds (about 41 kilograms).

July 27th 1904
On this day in 1904, Dr. Herbert Hills of Flint, Michigan, purchased the first Buick automobile ever to be sold. Founder David Buick initially made his mark as an inventor and mechanic in the plumbing industry, but had sold out of his business in order to pursue building motor cars. Buick was a man with an innate gift for inventing and tinkering, but who cared little for financial matters. He reputedly was unable to sit still unless he was concentrating on some kind of mechanical problem. None of his contemporaries would have been surprised that his company eventually became more successful than he did. In 1902, after years of fiddling with an automobile design, Buick agreed to a partnership with the Briscoe Manufacturing Company, wherein Briscoe would write off Buick's debts while in turn establishing a $100,000 capitalization for Buick's car company. Buick ceded $99,700 of the company's stock to Briscoe until he repaid his standing debt of $3,500, at which point he could buy controlling interest in the stock. Still, Buick had yet to complete an automobile. When it became clear to Briscoe that Buick would neither be able to pay his debts nor complete his vehicle soon, they sold their interest in the company to the Flint Wagon Works for $10,000. Buick and his son were given stock, but their managerial roles shrunk. Finally, in July of 1904, the first Buick made its initial test run. During the test run, the Buick averaged 30mph on a trip around Flint, going so fast at one point that the driver "couldn't see the village six-mile-an-hour sign." Sixteen Buicks were sold in the next few months, but Flint Wagon Works remained troubled by the Buick venture. They had purchased the company in order to help the city of Flint adjust to a new economy of automobile production, but Buick was already heavily in debt to a number of Flint banks. At this point, David Buick owned only a small share of stock and held none of the business responsibilities, and the Wagon Works decided to bring in Flint whiz kid William Durant to turn the business around. Durant kept Buick on as a manager, a position he held with little impact until 1908. Durant turned Buick into a major player in the automotive industry before incorporating it into his General Motors project.


July 27th 1990
The last Citroen 2CV, known as the "Tin Snail" for its distinctive shape, rolls off the production line at the company's plant in Mangualde, Portugal at four o'clock on the afternoon of July 27, 1990. Since its debut in 1948, a total of 5,114,959 2CVs had been produced worldwide.
The French engineer and industrialist Andre Citroen converted his munitions plant into an automobile company after World War I; beginning in 1919, it was the first automaker to mass-produce cars outside of the United States. As in Germany (the Volkswagen Beetle), Italy (the Fiat 500) and Britain (Austin Mini), the rise of mass car ownership in France in the 1930s led to a demand for a light, economical "people's car," which Citroen answered in the post-World War II years with the 2CV. The company actually began testing the 2CV before the war but kept the project under wraps when war broke out; the original production model was only discovered by chance in the late 1960s. When Citroen finally unveiled the car at the 1948 Paris Motor Show, it was an immediate success: At one point, the waiting time to buy one was five years.
The 2CV ("Deux Chevaux Vapeur" in French, or "two steam horses," a reference to France's policy of taxing cars based on their engine output) was a trailblazer among other small cars of its era. Its innovations included a sophisticated suspension system, front-wheel drive, inboard front brakes, a lightweight, air-cooled engine and a four-speed manual transmission. Its front and rear wings, doors, bonnet, fabric sunroof and trunk lid were all detachable. The 2CV's endearingly unfashionable form joined the Eiffel Tower as a quintessential symbol of France in popular culture. Citroen released a 2CV van in 1951 and a luxury version, the 2CV AZL, in 1956. New models came out over the years, including the 2CV4 and 2CV 6, capable of reaching speeds above 100 kilometers per hour, in 1970; and the popular "Charleston" model in 1981. That same year, Roger Moore--playing the superspy James Bond in "For Your Eyes Only"--drove a bright yellow, high-performance version of the 2CV, evading his pursuers (in Peugeots) in the requisite Bond movie high-speed car chase.
By the late 1980s, however, consumers were no longer wild about the 2CV's quirky, antiquated design. This fact, combined with poor performance according to crash-testing and anti-pollution standards, led to the Tin Snail's demise. In 1988, production moved from France to Portugal, and the last 2CV was produced two years later.

Dr. Herbert Hills with his first Buick

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

28th July

July 28th 1935
The Italian race car driver Tazio Nuvolari wins the greatest victory of his career in the Grosser Preis von Deutschland (German Grand Prix) held on the Nurburgring racetrack in Nurburg, Germany on this day in 1935.
Known to his fans as "Il Montavano Volante," or the Flying Mantuan, for his home city of Mantua, Nuvolari served as a driver in the Italian army before beginning his career racing motorcycles at the age of 28; he won the Italian championship in that sport in 1924 and 1928. His first major victory in a four-wheeled vehicle came in the 1930 Mille Miglia (Thousand Miles), Italy's most famous automobile road race. Over the course of his career, in addition to racing as part of the Alfa Romeo team (and later the German Auto Union teams), Nuvolari raced as an independent driver in cars constructed by Bugatti, Maserati and MG.
The German Grand Prix of 1935 is remembered as Nuvolari's greatest victory, and arguably one of the most impressive auto racing victories of all time. At the time, German automakers reigned supreme in the world of race car construction, and the "home team" at the Nurburgring that July day consisted of five Mercedes and four German Auto Union vehicles, all of which overpowered Nuvolari's older 330 bhp (brake horsepower is a unit used to measure the power of an engine by the energy needed to brake it) Alfa Romeo. An estimated 250,000 to 300,000 spectators turned up to watch the race on that rainy, foggy July day, and drama broke out from the beginning, when Nuvolari's longtime rival, Achille Varzi, driving for the German Auto Union, hit an auto mechanic working the race.
With one lap left to go, the German driver Manfred von Brauchitsch in his 445 bhp W25 Mercedes Benz--the most powerful car of the day--took a 35-second lead over Nuvolari; the rest of the field, competitive throughout, had fallen behind. Von Brauchitsch's left rear tire was fraying, however, and with Nuvolari in hot pursuit behind him he declined a pit stop: The tire blew, and von Brauchitsch was forced to slow to 40 mph and guide it to the rim of the track. Nuvolari blew past him for the win, to the great chagrin of the Nazi Party officials at the finish line who had already started to raise the flag of the Reich and prepare the celebration.
Though Nuvolari would later race for the German Auto Union himself, that day he broke German hearts in his little red Alfa Romeo, beating the most powerful cars on the planet on one of the world's most demanding tracks.


July 28th 1973
Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-riddled 1934 Ford V-8 sedan was sold at auction for $175,000 to Peter Simon of Jean, Nevada. The Ford V-8 model succeeded the new Model A, and it was well received due to its speed and power, perhaps this is why it seemed most popular among the criminal element. Henry Ford first received a personal letter congratulating him on the car's performance from famed outlaw gunman John Dillinger.

Tazio Nuvolari


Tazio Nuvolari in a Bugatti T51 at Brooklands, ca. 1933


Bonnie Parker with 1932 Ford V-8 B-400


More details about Ford V8
http://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/32318-post116.html

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

29th July

July 29th 1904
Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (J.R.D.) Tata was born in Paris, France to Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata and his French wife Suzanne Briere. Ratanji Tata was a first cousin of Jamsetji Tata.
He was a pioneer aviator and important businessman of India. He was one of the few people who were awarded Bharat Ratna during their life time.
J.R.D.Tata was inspired early by French aviation pioneer Louis Bleriot, and took to flying. In 1929 Tata got the first pilot licence issued in India. He later came to be known as the father of Indian civil aviation. He founded India's first commercial airline, 'Tata Airlines', in 1932, which in 1946 became Air India, now India's national airline.


July 29th 1904
On July 29, 1909, the newly formed General Motors Corporation (GM) acquires the country's leading luxury automaker, the Cadillac Automobile Company, for $4.5 million.
Cadillac was founded out of the ruins of automotive pioneer Henry Ford's second failed company (his third effort, the Ford Motor Company, finally succeeded). When the shareholders of the defunct Henry Ford Company called in Detroit machinist Henry Leland to assess the company's assets for their planned sale, Leland convinced them to stay in business. His idea was to combine Ford's latest chassis (frame) with a single-cylinder engine developed by Oldsmobile, another early automaker. To that end, the Cadillac Car Company (named for the French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac, who founded the city of Detroit in 1701) was founded in August 1902. Leland introduced the first Cadillac--priced at $850--at the New York Auto Show the following year.
In its first year of production, Cadillac put out nearly 2500 cars, a huge number at the time. Leland, who was reportedly motivated by an intense competition with Henry Ford, assumed full leadership of Cadillac in 1904, and with his son Wilfred by his side he firmly established the brand's reputation for quality. Among the excellent luxury cars being produced in America at the time--including Packard, Lozier, McFarland and Pierce-Arrow--Cadillac led the field, making the top 10 in overall U.S. auto sales every year from 1904 to 1915.
By 1909, William C. Durant had assembled Buick and Oldsmobile as cornerstones of his new General Motors Corporation, founded the year before. By the end of July, he had persuaded Wilfred Leland to sell Cadillac for $4.5 million in GM stock. Durant kept the Lelands on in their management position, however, giving them full responsibility for automotive production. Three years later, Cadillac introduced the world's first successful electric self-starter, developed by Charles F. Kettering; its pioneering V-8 engine was installed in all Cadillac models in 1915.
Over the years, Cadillac maintained its reputation for luxury and innovation: In 1954, for example, it was the first automaker to provide power steering and automatic windshield washers as standard equipment on all its vehicles. Though the brand was knocked out of its top-of-the-market position in the 1980s by the German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz.

J.R.D. Tata


Rs.2 Stamp commemorating JRD.


JRD along with Ratan Tata during the launch of TATA Estate.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

30th July

July 30th 1898
Scientific American magazine carried the very first automobile advertisement for Winton Motor Car Company of Cleveland, OH; invited readers to "dispense with a horse".


July 30th 2003
On this day in 2003, the last of 21,529,464 Volkswagen Beetles built since World War II rolls off the production line at Volkswagen's plant in Puebla, Mexico. One of a 3,000-unit final edition, the baby-blue vehicle was sent to a museum in Wolfsburg, Germany, where Volkswagen is headquartered.
The car produced in Puebla that day was the last so-called "classic" VW Beetle, which is not to be confused with the redesigned new Beetle that Volkswagen introduced in 1998. (The new Beetle resembles the classic version but is based on the VW Golf.) The roots of the classic Beetle stretch back to the mid-1930s, when the famed Austrian automotive engineer Dr. Ferdinand Porsche met German leader Adolf Hitler's request for a small, affordable passenger car to satisfy the transportation needs of the German people Hitler called the result the KdF (Kraft-durch-Freude)-Wagen (or "Strength-Through-Joy" car) after a Nazi-led movement ostensibly aimed at helping the working people of Germany; it would later be known by the name Porsche preferred: Volkswagen, or "people's car."
The first production-ready Kdf-Wagen debuted at the Berlin Motor Show in 1939; the international press soon dubbed it the "Beetle" for its distinctive rounded shape. During World War II, the factory in Kdf-stat (later renamed Wolfsburg) continued to make Beetles, though it was largely dedicated to production of war vehicles. Production was halted under threat of Allied bombing in August 1944 and did not resume until after the war, under British control. Though VW sales were initially slower in the United States compared with the rest of the world, by 1960 the Beetle was the top-selling import in America, thanks to an iconic ad campaign by the firm Doyle Dane Bernbach. In 1972, the Beetle surpassed the longstanding worldwide production record of 15 million vehicles, set by Ford Motor Company's legendary Model T between 1908 and 1927. It also became a worldwide cultural icon, featuring prominently in the hit 1969 movie "The Love Bug" (which starred a Beetle named Herbie) and on the cover of the Beatles album "Abbey Road."
In 1977, however, the Beetle, with its rear-mounted, air-cooled-engine, was banned in America for failing to meet safety and emission standards. Worldwide sales of the car shrank by the late 1970s and by 1988, the classic Beetle was sold only in Mexico. Due to increased competition from other manufacturers of inexpensive compact cars, and a Mexican decision to phase out two-door taxis, Volkswagen decided to discontinue production of the classic bug in 2003. The final count of 21,529,464, incidentally, did not include the original 600 cars built by the Nazis prior to World War II.

The very first Ad. for Automobile


The final original beetle (No. 21,529,464) at VW Museum, Wolfsburg


The Farewell Ceremony

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

31st July

July 31st 1916
On this day in 1916, the future racing legend Louise Smith, who will become the first woman inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, is born in Barnesville, Georgia.
In the mid-1940s, the racing promoter Bill France was looking for a female driver as a way to attract spectators to some of the earliest events in what would become the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) circuit. Before a race near Greenville, South Carolina, in 1946, he heard of Louise Smith, a local resident who was famous for outrunning law enforcement on the roads. With France's encouragement, Smith entered the race at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in a 1939 Ford and finished third. Unaware that a checkered flag meant the finish line, she kept going beyond the end of the race until someone threw out a red flag.
Though her husband Noah, the owner of a junkyard, didn't approve of her new speed-demon career, Smith was hooked. In 1947, she famously "borrowed" Noah's new car, a Ford coupe, and drove it to watch races in Daytona Beach, Florida. She ended up entering the race herself and wrecking the car, a fact she tried to conceal from him, not knowing that the news had made the front page of the Greenville paper before she returned home. Smith subsequently became a regular on France's new circuit, appearing in NASCAR events throughout the United States and Canada for the next decade. She won 38 races and had some spectacular crashes, including one in which her car overturned, earning her 48 stitches and four pins in her left knee. Dubbed the "Good Ol' Gal" by her fellow drivers, Smith nonetheless struggled in the masculine world of NASCAR.
Smith retired in 1956 but remained active in the racing world: She sponsored various drivers, and was involved in the Miss Southern 500 Scholarship Pageant at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. In 1999, she was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Alabama. Smith died in April 2006, at the age of 89.


July 31st 1928
The Chrysler Corporation acquired Dodge Brothers, Inc. from Dillon Read for $170 million.

Louise Smith


Louise Smith smiles after her spectacular tumble out of the Occoneechee Speedway during a practice run.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​