This Day in Automotive History

[Landrover]

31st August

August 31st 1899
A Stanley Steamer, driven by F.O. Stanley, became the first car to reach the summit of Mount Washington, New Hampshire. F.O. Stanley was one of the Stanley twins, founders of the Stanley Motor Company, which specialized in steam-driven automobiles. The steamers not only climbed mountains, but often beat larger, gasoline-powered cars in races. In 1906, a Stanley Steamer would break the world record for the fastest mile when it reached 127mph.

August 31st 1903
Packard automobile completed a 52-day journey from San Francisco to New York, became first car to cross U.S. under its own power.


August 31st 1951
James E. Lynch, the stunt driver, died in Texarkana, Arkansas, at age 50. He was founder of the "Jimmie Lynch Daredevils" stunt drivers show.


August 31st 1955
On this day in 1955, William G. Cobb of the General Motors Corp. (GM) demonstrates his 15-inch-long "Sunmobile," the world's first solar-powered automobile, at the General Motors Powerama auto show held in Chicago, Illinois.
Cobb's Sunmobile introduced, however briefly, the field of photovoltaics--the process by which the sun's rays are converted into electricity when exposed to certain surfaces--into the gasoline-drenched automotive industry. When sunlight hit 12 photoelectric cells made of selenium (a nonmetal substance with conducting properties) built into the Sunmobile, an electric current was produced that in turn powered a tiny motor. The motor turned the vehicle's driveshaft, which was connected to its rear axle by a pulley. Visitors to the month-long, $7 million Powerama marveled at some 250 free exhibits spread over 1 million square feet of space on the shores of Lake Michigan. In addition to Cobb's futuristic mini-automobile, Powerama visitors were treated to an impressive display of GM's diesel-fueled empire, from oil wells and cotton gins to submarines and other military equipment.
Today, more than a half-century after Cobb debuted the Sunmobile, a mass-produced solar car has yet to hit the market anywhere in the world. Solar-car competitions are held worldwide, however, in which design teams pit their sun-powered creations (also known as photovoltaic or PV cars) against each other in road races such as the 2008 North American Solar Challenge, a 2,400-mile drive from Dallas, Texas, to Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
In early 2009, The Nikkei, a Japanese business daily, reported that Toyota Motor Corp. was secretly developing a vehicle that would be powered totally by solar energy. Hurt by a growing global financial crisis and a surge in the Japanese yen relative to other currencies, Toyota had announced in late 2008 that it was expecting its first operating loss in 70 years. Despite hard economic times, Toyota (which in 1997 launched the Prius, the world's first mass-produced hybrid vehicle) has no plans to relinquish its reputation as an automotive industry leader in green technology. The company uses solar panels to produce some of its own electricity at its Tsutsumi plant in central Japan, and in mid-2008 announced that it would install solar panels on the roof of the next generation of its groundbreaking electric-gasoline hybrid Prius cars. The panels would supply part of the 2 to 5 kilowatts needed to power the car's air conditioning system.
According to The Nikkei, Toyota's planned solar car is not expected to hit the market for years. The electric vehicle will get some of its power from solar cells on the vehicle, and will be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of car owners' homes.


August 31st 2003
Harley-Davidson 100th Anniversary Party held in Milwaukee's Veterans Park.

Harley Davidson's 100th Anniversary Celebrations.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia
2003 Harley-Davidson 100 Year Anniversary Photo Gallery - Motorcycle USA​

 

[Landrover]

1st September

September 1st 1950
A new chapter in Porsche history began today, with the company's return to Zuffenhausen, Germany, and the completion of the first Porsche. The first car to bear the Porsche name had actually been built two years earlier by Ferry Porsche and his design team, but this Porsche was the first car to boast a Porsche-made engine. Porsche became an independent automobile manufacturer during this year and soon sealed its success with a stunning victory at Le Mans in 1951.

September 1st 1989
The federal government passed new car safety legislation on this day, requiring all newly manufactured cars to install an air bag on the driver's side. While air bags have proven to be life-saving devices in most cases, concern over the safety of the air bags themselves arose during the 1990s. Several instances in which small children were seriously injured or killed by an air bag caused a public clamor for further investigation of the devices, which can explode out of the dashboard at up to 200mph. Air bags are still installed in all newly manufactured models.

September 1st 1989
The first Lexus was sold on this day, launching Toyota's new luxury division. However, Lexus' story had begun six years earlier in a top secret meeting of Toyota's elite. Surrounded by the company's top-level management, Chairman Eiji Toyota proposed the company's next challenge - a luxury car that could compete with the world's best. The project was given the code name "F1," with F for "flagship," and the numeral 1 recalling the high performance of Formula 1 race cars. Designed by chief engineers Shoiji Jimbo and Ichiro Suzuki, the F1 prototype was completed just two years later. The top secret project was finally unveiled after extensive testing in 1987, and officially launched in 1989.

An early Lexus LS design sketch dubbed "F1" project


1st Lexus LS400


Lexus LS400, the first production Lexus

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

2nd September

September 2nd 1959
On September 2, 1959, at a news conference broadcast to viewers in 21 cities on closed-circuit television, Henry Ford II introduces his company’s newest car--the 90-horsepower, 30 miles-per-gallon Falcon. The Falcon, dubbed “the small car with the big car feel,” was an overnight success. It went on sale that October 8 and by October 9, dealers had snapped up every one of the 97,000 cars in the first production run.
In 1959, each one of Detroit’s Big Three automakers began to sell a smaller, zippier, lower-priced car: Ford had the Falcon, while General Motors had the Corvair and Chevrolet had the Valiant. After years of building huge, gas-guzzling, lavishly be-finned cars, American companies entered the small-car market because European carmakers like Volkswagen, Fiat, and Renault were selling their little cars to American buyers by the thousands. (Foreign-car sales in the United States had jumped 1,060 percent since 1954 and accounted for about 10 percent of the nation’s new-car sales.) Executives in Detroit hoped that cars like the Falcon would “drive the imports back to their shores.”
Mostly, people liked these smaller cars because they were inexpensive. The Falcon cost about $1,900 (about $14,029 in today’s dollars)--still much more expensive than even the priciest of the European imports (the Triumph and the Simca sold for about $1,600, while a Fiat, the cheapest car you could buy, cost about $1,000), but more affordable than any other American car. In addition, more fuel-efficient cars like the Falcon also saved their drivers money on gas.
Many people believed that the introduction of American compact cars would permanently transform the automobile industry. The “desire of American car buyers for sensible automobiles,” one industry executive told a reporter, would soon make big, inefficient cars obsolete. Unfortunately, though the Falcon was an immediate sensation--Ford sold more than a million of them in the car’s first two years on the market, and its design went on to inspire the iconic Ford Mustang--this did not prove to be the case. Today, small cars account for less than 20 percent of new-car sales.


September 2nd 1969
Willy Mairesse, race-car driver for the Ferrari team, died in Ostend, Belgium, from an overdose of sleeping pills. His career had been a continuing disappointment, with zero wins from 12 grand prix starts and only seven points. He left the Ferrari team in 1963 and was only 40 years old at the time of his death.

September 2nd 1992
The Southern California Gas Company purchased the first motor vehicles powered by natural gas on this day. Spurred on by a new California law promoting the commercialization of alternative fuel vehicles, the company put 50 of the new vehicles into service and began promoting the natural gas vehicles (NGVs) as a viable option for the future. Compressed natural gas costs 25-30 percent less than gasoline and has an octane rating of 130 - meaning it burns much cleaner than even premium unleaded gasoline. The NGVs can also go 10,000 miles between oil changes, 40,000 miles between tune-ups, and 75,000 miles between spark plugs. However, the most compelling argument for natural gas is its environmental advantages. NGVs reduce NOX emissions and reactive hydrocarbons by as much as 95 percent. The new vehicles also reduce carbon monoxide by 85 percent and carcinogenic particulate emissions by 99 percent.

1963 Ford Falcon

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

3rd September

September 3rd 1875
Ferdinand Porsche, engineer and patriarch of Porsche cars, was born on this day in Maffersdorf, Austria. He began his career at the Daimler Company, rising to general director, but he eventually left in 1931 to design his own sports and racing cars. Perhaps his most famous project was Hitler's "car for the people," the Volkswagen. Together with his son, Porsche was responsible for the initial Volkswagen plans, but his involvement with Hitler was to cost him dearly. He was arrested by the French after World War II and held for several years before finally being released.

September 3rd 1900
On September 3, 1900, the first car ever made in Flint, Michigan makes its debut in the town’s Labor Day parade. Designed and built by a county judge and weekend tinkerer named Charles H. Wisner, the car was one of the only cars built in Flint that did not end up being produced by General Motors. In the end, only three of the Wisner machines were ever built.
Wisner’s car, nicknamed the “Buzz-Wagon,” was a somewhat ridiculous contraption: it was “very noisy,” according to The Flint Journal; its only door was in the rear; and it had no brakes. In order to stop, Wisner had to collide with something sturdy, usually the side wall of his machine shop. At the Labor Day parade, however, he didn’t have a problem with the brakes; instead, in front of 10,000 spectators, the car stalled and had to be pushed off the parade route.
Wisner’s lemon notwithstanding, Flint soon became the cradle of the American auto industry. GM was formed there in 1908, and the city quickly became known for all the Chevrolets and Buicks--not to mention the engine parts and electronics--produced and assembled there. The sit-down strikes at Flint’s GM plants in 1936 and 1937 won union recognition for autoworkers along with a 30-hour workweek and a 6-hour day, overtime pay, seniority rights, and “a minimum rate of pay commensurate with an American standard of living.” These victories guaranteed a middle-class existence for generations of autoworkers. In fact, for a long time, Flint had the highest average per-household income of any city in the United States.
But GM has been declining painfully since the 1970s, and Flint has suffered along with it. The 1988 film Roger & Me, which told the story of 30,000 layoffs at one of Flint’s GM plants, made the city’s woes famous. In July 1999, GM closed its Buick City complex, the last assembly plant in the city. And in the beginning of 2009, as a financial crisis enveloped the auto industry and the nation as a whole, Michigan’s Genesee County (which includes Flint) had an unemployment rate of nearly 15 percent--higher than it had been in 18 years and almost twice the national average.


September 3rd 1939
The first and only Yugoslavian Grand Prix was held today at Kalemagdan Park in Belgrade. Won by Tazio Nuvolari, this race marked yet another victory for the great Italian champion, and was the last Grand Prix event before World War II. Nuvolari's win was particularly stunning in light of the German domination of Formula 1 racing during the late 1930s, backed by massive funding from the Third Reich.

Ferdinand Porsche

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

September 4th 1891
Fritz Todt, the head designer of the German autobahn, was born in Pforzheim, Germany, on this day. Todt's creation was the first true system of national superhighways, and was held up by Germany as a proud symbol of the modernity of their engineering. However, the autobahn system emerged from World War II as a battered version of its earlier self. The newly formed nations of East and West Germany set about repairing the old system, though at different rates. Booming increases in motor traffic propelled extensions and enhancements in West Germany, while improvements were more gradual in East Germany. Over the years, the autobahn regained its status as a model expressway and became famous for its nonexistent speed limit.

September 4th 1922
William Lyons (21) and William Walmsley (9) launched Swallow Sidecar Company in Blackpool, UK, to produce sidecars for motorcycles; financed with bank overdraft of £1000 guaranteed by their respective fathers.

September 4th 1957
On September 4, 1957--“E-Day,” according to its advertising campaign--the Ford Motor Company unveils the Edsel, the first new automobile brand produced by one of the Big Three car companies since 1938. (Although many people call it the “Ford Edsel,” in fact Edsel was a division all its own, like Lincoln or Mercury.) Thirteen hundred independent Edsel dealers offered four models for sale: the smaller Pacer and Ranger and the larger Citation and Corsair.
To many people, the Edsel serves as a symbol of corporate hubris at its worst: it was an over-hyped, over-sized, over-designed monstrosity. Other people believe the car was simply a victim of bad timing. When Ford executives began planning for the company’s new brand, the economy was booming and people were snapping up enormous gas-guzzlers as fast as automakers could build them. By the time the Edsel hit showrooms, however, the economic outlook was bad and getting worse. People didn’t want big, glitzy fin cars anymore; they wanted small, efficient ones instead. The Edsel was just ostentatious and expensive enough to give buyers pause.
At the same time, there is probably no car in the world that could have lived up to the Edsel’s hype. For months, the company had been running ads that simply pictured the car's hood ornament and the line “The Edsel Is Coming.” Everything else about the car was top-secret: If dealers failed to keep their Edsels hidden, they’d lose their franchise. For the great E-Day unveiling, promotions and prizes--like a giveaway of 1,000 ponies--lured shoppers to showrooms.
When they got there, they found a car that had a distinctive look indeed--but not necessarily in a good way. Thanks to the big impact ring or “horse collar” in the middle of its front grille, it looked (one reporter said) like “a Pontiac pushing a toilet seat.” (Another called it “an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon.”) And its problems were more than cosmetic. Drivers changed gears by pushing buttons on the steering wheel, a system that was not easy to figure out. In addition, at highway speeds that famous hood ornament had a tendency to fly off and into the windshield.
In its first year, Edsel sold just 64,000 cars and lost $250 million ($2.5 billion today). After the 1960 model year, the company folded.


September 4th 1997
The very last Ford Thunderbird rolled off the assembly line in Lorain, Ohio, leaving many of the car's fans disappointed. One Ford dealer even held a wake for the beloved Thunderbird, complete with flowers and a RIP plaque. Originally conceived as Ford's answer to the Corvette, the Thunderbird has enjoyed an illustrious place among American cars. It was promoted as a "personal" car, rather than a sports car, so it never had to compete against the imports that dominated the sports car market. The name of the enormously successful car was eventually shortened to "T-Bird".

Fritz Todt with the Fuhrer

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

September 5th 1930
Cross-country trips were no longer considered big news in 1930, but Charles Creighton and Jam Hargises ' unique journey managed to make headlines. The two men from Maplewood, New Jersey, arrived back in New York City on this day, having completed a 42-day round trip to Los Angeles - driving their 1929 Ford Model A the entire 7,180 miles in reverse gear.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

September 6th 1900
Andrew L. Riker set a new speed record on this day, driving an electric car. His time of 10 minutes, 20 seconds established a new low for the five-mile track in Newport, Rhode Island, proving that the electric car could compete with its noisier petroleum-fueled cousins. In fact, the electric car remained competitive until 1920, often preferred for its low maintenance cost and quiet engine. However, developments in gasoline engine technology, along with the advent of cheaper, mass-produced non-electrics like the Model T, proved to be the death knell of the electric car. However, rising fuel costs in the late 1960s and 1970s renewed interest in the electric car, and several working models have recently been sold in small numbers.

September 6th 1915
The first tank prototype was completed and given its first test drive on this day, developed by William Foster & Company for the British army. Several European nations had been working on the development of a shielded, tracked vehicle that could cross the uneven terrain of World War I trenches, but Great Britain was the first to succeed. Lightly armed with machine guns, the tanks made their first authoritative appearance at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917, when 474 British tanks managed to break through the German lines. The Allies began using the vehicles in increasing numbers throughout the rest of the war. After World War I, European nations on all sides continued to build tanks at a frantic pace, arming them with even heavier artillery and plating. This competitive stockpiling came to a lethal head on the battlefields of World War II.

September 6th 1949
By the end of World War II, Germany's Volkswagen factory was in shambles, along with much of Europe. The machines stood silent, the assembly lines lay still, and rubble littered the hallways. It was in this state that the British occupation forces took control of the Volkswagen factory and the town of Wolfsburg. The next four years were spent in an attempt to return to normal life, and the wheels of industry eventually began to turn in the old Volkswagen factory. With Heinrich Nordhoff as managing director and the German economy rejuvenated by currency reform, Volkswagen had become the largest car producer in Europe by 1949. On this day, the Allied military authorities relinquished control of the former Nazi regime's assets, including the Volkswagen factory - marking the final transition back to everyday life.

September 6th 1995
Chrysler Corporation received permission from Vietnamese government to assemble vehicles in Vietnam, allowed Chrysler to construct production facility in Dong Nai Province, Southern Vietnam, with aim of manufacturing 500 to 1,000 Dodge Dakota pick-up trucks for Vietnamese market annually.

Andrew L. Riker


Riker electric automobile, built about 1900

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia
America on the Move | Riker electric automobile​

 

[Landrover]

September 7th 1899
Over a dozen motorcars, decorated with hydrangeas, streamers, lights, and Japanese lanterns, lined up to take part in America's first automobile parade. A throng of spectators showed up in Newport, Rhode Island, to witness the event, arriving in cabs, private carriages, bicycles, and even by foot to witness the spectacle, attracted by the novelty and rumors surrounding the event. The nature of the motorcar decorations had been shrouded in mystery prior to the parade, for each participant had wished to surprise and outdo the others.

September 7th 1993
The Chrysler Corporation introduced its new Neon at the Frankfurt Auto Show on this day. The sporty compact indicated a new direction for Chrysler and quickly gained fame through its multi-million dollar "Hi" campaign. The slick ads emphasized friendliness - friendly handling, comfortable seats, reliable safety features - punctuated with a simple "Hi. I'm Neon."

Chrysler Neon

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[jalex]

September 2nd 1959
On September 2, 1959, at a news conference broadcast to viewers in 21 cities on closed-circuit television, Henry Ford II introduces his company’s newest car--the 90-horsepower, 30 miles-per-gallon Falcon. The Falcon, dubbed “the small car with the big car feel,” was an overnight success. It went on sale that October 8 and by October 9, dealers had snapped up every one of the 97,000 cars in the first production run.
In 1959, each one of Detroit’s Big Three automakers began to sell a smaller, zippier, lower-priced car: Ford had the Falcon, while General Motors had the Corvair and Chevrolet had the Valiant.

1963 Ford Falcon
View attachment 9763

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

I love the Ford Falcon,it looks nice and modest.

Is this the 1959 Corvair?

 

[Landrover]

September 8, 1953
Continental Trailways offered the first transcontinental express bus service in the U.S. The 3,154-mile ride from New York City to San Francisco lasted 88 hours and 50 minutes, of which only 77 hours was riding time. The cost was $56.70. Today Greyhound charges $183 for the same trip.

September 8, 1960
Aguri Suzuki, Japanese racing phenomenon, was born on this day. He is one of the most successful Japanese race car drivers in history, a favorite of fans around the world. He began his winning career in the Japanese Kart Championship, but eventually moved on to Formula 1 racing--achieving 1 podium, and scoring a total of 8 championship points. He is married with one son and enjoys ultra-light flying, golf, and water sports.

September 8, 1986
On September 8, 1986, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Yutaka Kume, the president of the Nissan Motor Company, officially open Nissan’s first European manufacturing plant in Sunderland, Britain. Sunderland is situated in the northeastern part of England, a region that was hit especially hard by the deindustrialization and economic strain of the 1970s and 80s. Many of its coal pits, shipyards, steel mills, and chemical factories had closed or were closing, and the Japanese company’s arrival gave many of the town’s residents hope for the future. Twenty-five thousand people applied for the first 450 jobs advertised at the plant.
Nissan brought a new kind of shop-floor culture to a place where labor-management relationships typically ranged from frosty to belligerent. The Sunderland factory was a different, more cooperative kind of workplace: Instead of enmity and strikes, it had kaizen, a Japanese philosophy of continual improvement that applied to workers and their bosses alike. Meanwhile, everyone wore the same blue coveralls and ate in the same lunchroom, and plant foreman received the same pay as design and manufacturing engineers. Likely as a result of this egalitarianism, at least in part, the factory soon became the most efficient and productive auto plant in Europe, and it exported 75 percent of the cars it made. (Some were even sent back to Japan.) It was also the largest car factory in England, building one of every five British-made cars.
With all this good will and productivity, it seemed like the plant would be successful forever. In June 2008, Sunderland’s 5 millionth Nissan rolled off the assembly line, and at the beginning of 2008 the factory was hiring hundreds more workers to keep up with increased demand for Nissan’s new hatchback, the Qashqai. Just one year later, however, the economic downturn had resulted in almost 1,500 layoffs at the Sunderland plant--25 percent of its workforce. This was a disaster for those workers, of course, but also for Sunderland itself: Five thousand people had worked at the plant, but 10,000 more--parts suppliers, service and support workers, supermarket operators--depended directly on Nissan for their livelihood.
At the same time it announced the Sunderland job cuts, Nissan unveiled a new product: a deluxe sports car that will, when it goes on sale, cost 107,000 pounds. It seems likely enough that no one in Sunderland will be buying.

Continental Trailways




Aguri Suzuki


Areal View of Nissan's UK factory

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

9th September

September 9, 1982
On this day, Henry Ford II retired once and for all, swearing off all involvement with the Ford Motor Company.
When Henry Ford II, grandson and namesake of Henry Ford, succeeded his father as president of the Ford Motor Company in 1945, the firm, still recovering from the unexpected death of its president Edsel Ford, was losing money at the rate of several million dollars a month. The automotive giant was crumbling. Fortunately for the company, Henry Ford II turned out to be a genius of industrial management. He quickly set about reorganizing and modernizing the company, firing the powerful Personnel Chief Harry Bennett, whose strong-arm tactics and anti-union stance had made Ford notorious for its bad labor relations. He also brought in new talent, including a group of former U.S. Air Force intelligence officers, among them Robert McNamara, who quickly became known as the "Whiz Kids." During his tenure as president, Henry Ford II nursed the Ford Motor Company back to health, greatly expanding its international operations and introducing two classic models, the Mustang and the Thunderbird. Still, even an industrial management genius could grow tired of a president's demanding schedule.

Henry Ford II

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

September 10, 1897
On September 10, 1897, a London cabdriver named George Smith slams his taxi into a building and is the first person to be arrested for drunk driving. He pled guilty and was fined 25 shillings.
Police officers knew that Smith was drunk because he acted drunk (he had driven that cab into a wall, after all) and because he said he was, but what they lacked was a scientific way to prove someone was too intoxicated to drive, even if he or she wouldn’t admit it. Blood tests were soon introduced, but those were messy and needed to be performed by a doctor; there were urine tests, but those were even messier, not to mention unreliable and expensive. In 1931, a toxicologist at Indiana University named Rolla Harger came up with a solution--a device he called the Drunkometer. It was simple: all the suspected drinker had to do was blow into a balloon. The tester then attached the balloon to a tube filled with a purple fluid (potassium permanganate and sulfuric acid) and released its air into the tube. Alcohol on a person's breath changed the color of the fluid from purple to yellow; the quicker the change, the drunker the person.
The Drunkometer was effective but cumbersome, and it required a certain amount of scientific calculation to determine just how much alcohol a person had consumed. In 1954, another Indianan named Robert Borkenstein invented a device that was more portable and easier to use. Borkenstein’s machine, the Breathalyzer, worked much like Harger’s did--it measured the amount of alcohol in a person's breath--but it did the necessary calculations automatically and thus could not be foiled or tampered with. (One tipsy Canadian famously ate his underwear while waiting to take a Breathalyzer test because he believed that the cotton would somehow absorb the alcohol in his system. It did not.) The Breathalyzer soon became standard equipment in every police car in the nation.
Even in the age of the Breathalyzer, drunk driving remained a problem. In 2007, more than 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving while intoxicated, and a Centers for Disease Control survey found that Americans drove drunk 159 million times. That same year, about 13,000 people--more than 30 percent of all traffic fatalities--died in accidents involving a drunk driver.


September 10, 1921
The Ayus Autobahn, the world's first controlled-access highway and part of Germany's Bundesautobahn system, opened near Berlin on this day. Once regarded as a symbol of modernity and a model of German engineering, the autobahn system was nearly destroyed during World War II. At the start of the postwar era, the newly formed nations of East and West Germany set about repairing the superhighway network. The system was greatly extended and improved in West Germany, which had a higher growth rate of motor traffic than its Eastern neighbor, although repairs and extensions were also made to the system in East Germany. Over the years, the autobahn has regained its status as a model expressway, famed for its nonexistent speed limit.

September 10, 1942
Following the example of several European nations, President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandated gasoline rationing in the U.S. as part of the country's wartime efforts. Gasoline rationing was just one of the many measures taken during these years, as the entire nation was transformed into a unified war machine: women took to the factories, households tried to conserve energy, and American automobile manufacturers began producing tanks and planes. The gasoline ration was lifted in 1945, at the end of World War II.

George Smith being questioned by a traffic policeman.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

September 11, 1903
The oldest major speedway in the world, the Milwaukee Mile, opened today as a permanent fixture in the Wisconsin State Fair Park. The circuit had actually been around since the 1870s as a horseracing track, but the proliferation of the automobile brought a new era to the Milwaukee Mile. However, the horses stuck around until 1954, sharing the track with the automobiles until the mile oval was finally paved. At one point, the horses and autos also had to make room for professional football. The Green Bay Packers played in the track's infield for almost 10 years during the 1930s, winning the National Football League Championship there in 1939.

September 11, 1918
Often called the "war of the machines," World War I marked the beginning of a new kind of warfare, fought with steel and shrapnel. Automotive manufacturers led the way in this new technology of war, producing engines for planes, building tanks, and manufacturing military vehicles. Packard was at the forefront of these efforts, being among the first American companies to completely cease civilian car production. Packard had already been the largest producer of trucks for the Allies, but the company began devoting all of its facilities to war production on this day, just a few months before the end of the war. Even after Packard resumed production of civilian vehicles, its wartime engines appeared in a number of vehicles, from racing cars and boats to British tanks in the next world war.

September 11, 1970
The Ford Pinto was introduced on this day at a cost of less than $2,000, designed to compete with an influx of compact imports. But it was not the Pinto's low cost that grabbed headlines. Ford's new best-selling compact contained a fatal design flaw: because of the placement of the gas tank, the tank was likely to rupture and explode when the car was involved in a rear end collision of over 20mph. In addition, it was eventually revealed that Ford knew about the design flaw before the Pinto was released. An internal cost-benefit analysis prepared by Ford calculated that it would take $11 per car to correct the flaw at a total cost of $137 million for the company. When compared to the lowly estimate of $49.5 million in potential lawsuits from the mistake, the report deemed it "inefficient" to go ahead with the correction. The infamous report assigned a value of $200,000 for each death predicted to result from the flaw. Ford's irresponsibility caused a public uproar, and it 1978, a California jury awarded a record-breaking $128 million to a claimant in the Ford Pinto case.

September 11, 2001
Coordinated attacks result in the collapse of the World Trade Center in New York City, destruction of the western portion of The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and an unplanned passenger airliner crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, which happened after airplane passengers fought back on the plane. In total, 2,974 people are killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Milwaukee Mile Panaroma with new alumunium stand.


Ford Pinto

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

September 12, 1918
Cannonball Baker, born Erwin G. Baker, discovered his special talent soon after buying his first motorcycle--he was capable of exceptional stamina and endurance on the road. His lean frame sat naturally atop his Indian V-twin, and his toughened stance and leather riding trousers seemed to announce to the world that he was ready to outride all challengers. Made a celebrity by his 3,379-mile cross-country motorcycle trek, "Cannonball" became a symbol of the American motorcycle rider, synonymous with wild cross-country journeys. His fame led to other tours and promotional trips, and he completed his most extensive tour on this day--a 17,000 mile, 77-day trip to all 48 state capitals--yet another testament to his legendary endurance.

September 12, 1988
Ford and Nissan announced plans to design and build a new minivan together in the hope of cashing in on an expanding market. The announcement came during the heyday of the minivan craze, when Dodge Caravans dotted the highways and station wagons became a thing of the past. Instantly popular, the spacious minivan replaced the wagon as the family car of choice, putting the old wood-paneled Country Squires to shame. But with the rise of the sport utility vehicle in the '90s, the minivan also began to fade.

Erwin Cannonball Baker on his Indian

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

September 13, 1899
The first recorded fatality from an automobile accident occurred on this day, after an oncoming vehicle fatally struck Henry Bliss on the streets of New York. Bliss, a 68-year-old real estate broker, was debarking from a southbound streetcar at the corner of Central Park West and 74th Street when driver Arthur Smith ran him over. Smith was arrested and held on $1,000 bail while Henry Bliss was taken to Roosevelt hospital, where he died.

September 13, 1916
The Hudson Motor Car Company's first engine, the "Super Six," was an astounding success. It was the auto industry's first balanced, high-compression L-head motor, and it became so popular that the name "Super Six" became the unofficial brand name of Hudson. Initially, Hudson launched a series of publicity stunts to promote its new engine, including a "Twice Across America" run from San Francisco to New York and back, which began on this day.

September 13, 1977
General Motors (GM) introduced the first diesel automobiles in America on this day, the Oldsmobile 88 and 98 models. A major selling point of the two models was their fuel efficiency, which GM claimed to be 40 percent better than gasoline-powered cars. By compressing air, rather than an air-fuel mixture, the diesel engine achieves higher compression ratios, and consequently higher theoretical cycle efficiencies. In addition, the idling and reduced power efficiency of the diesel engine is much greater than that of its spark engine cousin. However, the diesel engine's greater efficiency is balanced by its higher emission of soot, odor, and air pollutants.


September 13, 2004
On this day in 2004, TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey gives a brand-new Pontiac G-6 sedan, worth $28,500, to everyone in her studio audience: a total of 276 cars in all.) Oprah had told her producers to fill the crowd with people who “desperately needed” the cars, and when she announced the prize (by jumping up and down, waving a giant keyring and yelling “Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!”), mayhem--crying, screaming, delirium, fainting--broke out all around her. It was, as one media expert told a reporter, “one of the great promotional stunts in the history of television.”
Alas, scandal wasn't far behind. For one thing, the gift wasn't really from Oprah at all. Pontiac had donated the cars, paying the hefty price tag out of its advertising budget, because the company hoped that that the giveaway would drum up some enthusiasm for its new G-6 line. (To this end, during the segment, Winfrey herself took a tour of a Pontiac plant, gushing over the cars' satellite radios and fancy navigation systems.) The car company also paid the state sales tax on each of the automobiles it donated. However, that still left the new-car recipients with a large bill for their supposedly free vehicles: Federal and state income taxes added up to about $6,000 for most winners. Some people paid the taxes by taking out car loans; others traded their new Pontiacs for cheaper, less souped-up cars. “It's not really a free car,” one winner said. “It's more of a 75 percent-off car. Of course, that's still not such a bad deal.”
Two months later, Oprah hosted another giveaway episode, this one for teachers from around the country. Their gifts were worth about $13,000 and included a $2,249 TV set, a $2,000 laptop, a $2,189 washer/dryer, sets of $38 champagne glasses and a $495 leather duffel bag. This time, the show’s producers had learned their lesson: they also gave each audience member a check for $2,500, which they hoped would cover the tax bill for all the loot. Unfortunately, it didn't quite--most people in the audience owed the Internal Revenue Service between $4,500 and $6,000--but the PR gimmick worked: Oprah’s giveaways have earned some of the highest ratings in the program’s history.

Henry Bliss, the first person to die in auto accident.


A plaque laid on the exact site on September 13th, 1999 commemorating his 100th death anniversary.



Hudson Super Six Engine


Oldsmobile 88 delta with diesel V8 engine.


Oldsmobile V8 diesel



Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia