This Day in Automotive History

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February 4, 1913
On this day, Louis Henry Perlman of New York received a patent for the first demountable tire-carrying rim. Until Perlman's invention, changing a tire meant changing the wheel. Today, demountable tire-carrying rims are fashionable accessories that express their driver's individuality.

February 4, 1922
The Ford Motor accompany acquired the Lincoln Motor Company for $8 million on this day. Henry Ford's son, Edsel, was subsequently named president of Lincoln. The move signaled Henry Ford's first acknowledgement of diversification as a desirable marketing strategy. Throughout the 1920s, Ford Motors suffered from its unwillingness to match the diverse range of automobiles offered by General Motors. Ford regained some of its market share in 1927 when it released the new Model A, a car whose styling leaned heavily on the traditional sleek look of the Lincoln automobile.

February 4, 1941
On this day, 76-year-old Ransom Eli Olds received his last automobile patent for an internal combustion engine design. An innovator throughout his career, Olds built the first American steam-powered vehicle as early as 1894. In 1897, Olds received a patent for his "motor carriage," a gasoline-powered vehicle that he built the year before. He is also credited with having developed the first automobile production line. In an effort to meet the production demands for the Olds Runabout, Olds contracted with the likes of the Dodge brothers for the parts to his cars, which he then assembled in his own factory space. Olds' assembly line was able to produce a higher volume of automobiles in a shorter period of time than was possible using the traditional method of building each vehicle individually. Olds Motor Works sold 425 Runabouts in its first year of business, 2,500 the next year, 5,000 in 1904, and the rest is automobile history.

February 4, 1971
Rolls Royce declared itself bankrupt (state ownership) due to early problems with three-shaft turbofan concept of RB211 aero-engine for Lockheed L-1011 Tri-Star wide body airliners.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

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February 5, 1878
On this day in 1878, Andre Citroen, later referred to as the Henry Ford of France for developing his country's first mass-produced automobiles, is born in Paris. Citroen revolutionized the European auto industry by making vehicles that were affordable to average citizens.
Before entering the auto business, Citroen studied engineering and later operated a gear manufacturing company. During World War I, he ran a munitions factory where he successfully implemented mass-production technology. Following the war, Citroen, who was inspired by the assembly-line innovations at Henry Ford's American auto plants, converted his munitions factory into a facility to make low-cost vehicles. At the time, only the wealthy in Europe had been able to afford automobiles. Citroen's first car, the Type A, debuted in 1919. The four-door, 10-horsepower vehicle featured an electric starter, lights and a spare tire and was capable of speeds of 40 mph. The Type A was a success, due in part to Citroen's talent as an innovative marketer. He allowed potential customers to take his vehicles for a test drive—then a new concept—and also let people buy on credit. He put the Citroen name in lights on the Eiffel Tower, launched skywriting ads to promote his products and masterminded attention-getting expeditions to Africa and Asia using Citroen vehicles.
In 1934, Citroen launched the Traction Avant, the first mass-produced passenger car to feature front-wheel drive. The car proved enormously popular, and more than 750,000 were built during the 23-year production run. At the time of the Traction Avant's release, however, the Citroen company was on the verge of bankruptcy due to Andre Citroen's heavy investments in new concepts and technology, as well as his alleged gambling debts. In 1935, Citroen was taken over by its largest creditor, the Michelin Tire Company. Andre Citroen, who had been forced out of the business he founded, became ill and died on July 3, 1935.
Citroen remained part of Michelin until the 1970s, when it was sold to the French automaker Peugeot. Today, Peugeot Citroen is one of Europe's leading auto manufacturers.


February 5, 1918
Thomas A. Edison received a patent for a "Starting and Current-Supplying System for Automobiles".

February 5, 1947
On this day, NASCAR racer Darrell Waltrip was born in Owensboro, Kentucky. In 1986, Waltrip became the first stock-car driver to earn $7 million. Having gotten his start in the business racing go-carts at the tender age of 12, the 52-year-old Waltrip did not retire from the NASCAR circuit until 2000. Waltrip was Winston Cup champion three times and won 84 races in his career.

February 5, 1952
The first "Don't Walk" sign was installed in New York City on this day. The city erected the signs in response to the growing awareness of pedestrian fatalities in the increasingly crowded Manhattan streets. Pedestrian fatalities are essentially an urban problem, so city dwellers, next time you see a Don't Walk sign, please don't run. In 1997, 5,307 pedestrians died as a result of automobile accidents. Fatal collisions between pedestrians and motor vehicles occur most often between six p.m. and nine p.m., a period that roughly coincides with rush hour. In 1998, in hopes of minimizing gridlock, New York City began strictly enforcing its jaywalking laws during rush hour. Pedestrians are subject to a $50 fine if they walk, or run, when faced with a Don't Walk sign.

Andre Gustave Citroen

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

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February 6, 1911
Rolls-Royce adopted the "Spirit of Ecstasy" mascot, the silver-winged hood ornament that has become the company's symbol.

February 6, 1954
On this day, Mercedes introduced their 300SL coupe to the public. A stylish sports car characterized by its gull-wing doors, the coupe was a consumer version of the 300SL race car. With a six-cylinder engine and a top speed of 155mph, the two-door coupe created a sensation among wealthy car buyers who were actually seen waiting in line to buy it. Because of the impracticality of the gull-wing doors, the company only manufactured 1,400 300SL coupes. Nevertheless, the 300SL is widely considered the most impressive sports car of the decade. Unfortunately, the 300SL race car also played an infamous role in car racing history. Careening out of control in the 1955 race at Le Mans, the SL crashed into the gallery. Eighty spectators died and Mercedes-Benz pulled its cars out of racing competition for nearly three decades

February 6, 1985
On this day, Walter L. Jacobs, founder of the first car rental company, died. Although he was "not exactly" the founder of the Hertz Corporation, Jacobs' car rental business became the Hertz Corporation after it was purchased by John Hertz in 1923. At the age of 22, Jacobs opened a car-rental business with a dozen Model T Fords that he personally repaired and maintained. Within five years, his business generated an annual revenue of around $1 million. After he sold his business to Mr. Hertz, the president of the Yellow Cab and Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company, Jacobs remained Hertz's top executive. In addition to its innovations within the car rental industry, Hertz also maintains the unusual distinction of having been a subsidiary of both the General Motors Corporation and Ford Motor Company.


February 6, 2009
On this day in 2009, the Honda Insight, billed as "the world's first affordable hybrid," goes on sale in Japan. Honda took some 18,000 orders for the car within the first three weeks, pushing Toyota's Prius, known as the world's first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, out of the top-10-selling cars for that month, according to a March 2009 report in The New York Times.
The Insight, a five-door hatchback, went on sale in America on March 24, 2009, and carried a price tag of just under $20,000. In 1999, a three-door hatchback version of the Insight became the first-ever gas-electric hybrid vehicle sold in the U.S. The Toyota Prius, which debuted in Japan in 1997, arrived in America in July 2000 and went on to outsell the first-generation Insight, which was retired in 2006. By the time the second-generation Insight launched in 2009, Toyota controlled 70 percent of the hybrid market in the U.S. (the planet's biggest market for hybrid vehicles). Between 2000 and February 2009, Toyota had sold upward of 700,000 Priuses, or more than half of the 1.2 million purchased worldwide, in America. In March 2009, Toyota announced it had sold more than 1 million gas-electric hybrid vehicles in the U.S. under six Toyota and Lexus brands which in addition to the Prius, include the Highlander SUV and a hybrid Camry sedan, among others.
American automakers trailed behind the Japanese when it came to developing hybrid vehicles. The same week that Toyota announced it had sold its 1 millionth hybrid in America, Ford Motor Company reported that it had built its 100,000th hybrid vehicle in the U.S.
In 2008, Toyota passed General Motors to become the world's largest automaker, a title the American company had held since 1931. GM, which at the time had been hobbled along with the rest of the auto industry by a global economic crisis, received criticism for being the home of the gas-guzzling Hummer and for failing to develop a hybrid vehicle when Toyota first launched the Prius.

Rolls Royce 'Spirit of Ecstasy'


Mercedes 300SL (Ralph Lauren collection)


Honda Insight

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

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February 7, 1938
On February 7, 1938, automotive industry pioneer Harvey Samuel Firestone, founder of the major American tire company that bore his name, dies at the age of 69 in Miami Beach, Florida.
Firestone was born on a farm near Columbiana, Ohio, on December 20, 1868. As a young man, he worked as a salesman for a buggy company and later became convinced that rubber carriage tires would provide a more comfortable ride than steel tires or wooden wheels. Around 1895, Firestone met a young engineer in Detroit named Henry Ford, who was developing his first automobile. Firestone sold Ford a set of rubber carriage tires, an event that marked the start of an important business relationship and friendship between the two men. In 1900, believing that the horse-and-buggy era was ending and the auto age beginning, Firestone incorporated the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio. (Akron, which would come to be known as the world's rubber capital, was also home to Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, founded in 1898, and B. F. Goodrich, established in 1870.) Firestone began producing its own tires in 1903 and three years later sold 2,000 sets of detachable tires to Henry Ford, in what was then the world's largest tire order. In 1908, Ford launched his first factory-built Model T cars. (By the time production ended in 1927, more than 15 million Model T's had come off the assembly line; it was the all-time best-selling car until 1972, when it was surpassed by the Volkswagen Beetle.)
By 1910, Firestone's profits passed $1 million for the first time. The following year, the winner of the inaugural Indianapolis 500 auto race, Ray Harroun, drove a Marmon Wasp equipped with Firestone tires. By 1926, Firestone was manufacturing more than 10 million tires each year, which represented approximately 25 percent of America's total tire output. Around this time, Firestone established its own rubber plantations in Liberia, Africa, in order to break free of Britain and the Netherlands, who controlled the rubber market through production in their Asian colonies.
Harvey Firestone retired in 1932 and died in 1938. In 1988, the Firestone company was acquired by Japan-based Bridgestone Corporation, a leading global tire manufacturer founded in 1931.


February 7, 1942
On this day, the federal government ordered passenger car production stopped and converted to wartime purposes. In spite of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's exhortation that the U.S. auto industry should become the "great arsenal of democracy," Detroit's executives were reluctant to join the war cause. However, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the country mobilized behind the U.S. declaration of war. The government offered automakers guaranteed profits regardless of production costs throughout the war years. Furthermore, the Office of Production Management allocated $11 billion to the construction of war manufacturing plants that would be sold to the automobile manufacturers at remarkable discounts after the war. What had at first seemed like a burden on the automotive industry became a boon. The production demands placed on the industry and the resources allocated to the individual automobile manufacturers during the war would revolutionize American car making and bring about the Golden Era of the 1950s.

February 7, 1975
Canada imposed a 55 mph speed limit on this day. In 1973, reacting to the ban of oil sales to the United States and other Western countries by 11 Arab oil producers, President Richard Nixon lowered the U.S. speed limit to 55 mph in hopes of conserving gasoline. An addition to a greater reserve of oil, a by-product of the mandate turned out to be a lower rate of highway automobile fatalities. Two years later, Canada followed suit in hopes of lowering their own rate of highway fatalities.

Harvey Firestone

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

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February 8, 1936
On this day, General Motors (GM) founder William Durant, filed for personal bankruptcy. Economic historian Dana Thomas described Durant as a man "drunk with the gamble of America. He was obsessed with its highest article of faith--that the man who played for the steepest stakes deserved the biggest winnings." GM reflected Durant's ambitious attitude toward risk-taking in its breathtaking expansionist policies, becoming in its founder's words "an empire of cars for every purse and purpose." However, Durant's gambling attitude had its down sides. Over a span of three years Durant purchased Oldsmobile, Oakland (later Cadillac and Pontiac), and attempted to purchase Ford. By 1910, GM was out of cash, and Durant was forced out of control of the company. Durant got back into the big game by starting Chevrolet, and eventually regained control of GM only to lose it a second time. Later in life, Durant attempted to start a bowling center and a supermarket, but met with little success. Durant's trials and tribulations are proof that, even in America's most successful industry, there were those who gambled and lost.

February 8, 1964
The Iraqi National Oil Company was incorporated in Baghdad on this day. Oil wealth would make Iraq an important player in the politics of the Middle East for the next three decades. The fear of losing access to Arab oil--a fear that marked all U.S. policy to the Middle East following the 1973 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) embargo--drove the U.S. government to heavily support Iraq's war effort against Iran during the 1980s. However, America's friendly relationship with Iraq ended in 1990 with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, another oil wealthy Persian Gulf state friendly to the United States.

February 8, 1985
On February 8, 1985, Sir William Lyons, the founder of the British luxury automaker Jaguar, dies at the age of 84 in Warwickshire, England.
Lyons was born in Blackpool, England, on September 4, 1901. In 1922, the motorcycle enthusiast co-founded the Swallow Sidecar Company with his neighbor William Walmsley. The company started out making motorcycle sidecars, then turned to producing its own cars. In the early 1930s, the company was renamed SS Cars Ltd.; its first Jaguar automobile, the SS Jaguar 100, debuted in 1935. During World War II, the company's plants were used to make airplane and auto parts for the British military. Following the war, the company changed its name again, to Jaguar Cars Ltd., to avoid any association with the Schutzstaffel, the Nazi paramilitary group also referred to by the initials "SS."
In 1948, Jaguar released the XK120, which was capable of reaching speeds of 120 mph and helped the company stake its claim as a sports car brand. By the 1950s, Jaguar was exporting its high-performance cars to America. In 1961, the automaker introduced the E-type, known as the XK-E in the U.S., a sleek two-seater with a bullet-like silhouette that was the fastest production sports car on the market at the time of its launch. The iconic roadster won accolades for its design and in 1996 an E-Type became part of the permanent collection of New York City's Museum of Modern Art (it was only the third car to do so yet).
In 1956, Lyons was knighted for his contributions to the British auto industry. A decade later, Jaguar merged with the British Motor Corporation to form British Motor Holdings, which later became part of British Leyland Ltd. Lyons retired from the business in 1972 and spent his remaining years raising livestock on his farm. He died in 1985. In 1990, Jaguar was acquired by the Ford Motor Company. Ford sold Jaguar, along with fellow British luxury brand Land Rover, to India-based Tata Motors in 2008, for approximately $2.3 billion. For Tata, the maker of the Nano, the world's cheapest car, the deal was referred to by some as a move from "mass to class."

Sir William Lyons

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

February 9, 1846
Automotive industry pioneer Wilhelm Maybach, who founded the luxury car brand bearing his name, is born on February 9, 1846, in Heilbronn, Germany.
In 1885, Maybach and his mentor, the German engineer Gottlieb Daimler developed a new high-speed, four-stroke internal combustion engine. Maybach and Daimler fixed their engine to a bicycle to create what is referred to as the first-ever motorcycle. The two men later attached their engine to a carriage, producing a motorized vehicle. In 1890, Daimler and several partners established Daimler Motoren Gelleschaft to build engines and automobiles. Maybach, who served as the company's chief designer, developed the first Mercedes automobile in 1900. The Mercedes was commissioned by auto dealer and racer Emil Jellinek, who wanted a new car to sell to his rich clients in the French Riviera, and named after Jellinek's daughter.
Gottlieb Daimler died in March 1900 and Maybach left the Daimler company in 1907. He later went into business with his engineer son Karl and in 1921 they debuted their first car, the Maybach Type W3, at a Berlin auto show. During the 1920s and 1930s, Maybach became known for developing powerful, technologically sophisticated custom-built vehicles for the wealthy, including the super-luxurious, top-of-the-line Zeppelin model. Wilhelm Maybach died on December 29, 1929, at the age of 83.
During World War II, the company Maybach founded stopped making cars and built engines for German military vehicles. Auto production never resumed after the war, although the company continued to make engines for a variety of vehicles and eventually became part of Daimler-Benz. In the early 2000s, Daimler-Benz resurrected the Maybach nameplate, launching the Maybach 57 and the Maybach 62. Today, the Maybach brand is once again synonymous with opulence and exclusivity. Each car is hand-built to its buyer's specifications and carries a starting price tag in the eight figure range. Maybachs are known for their power and long list of optional luxury extras, including voice-activated controls, entertainment centers, lambswool carpeting and perfume-atomizing systems.

February 9, 1909
On this day, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation incorporated with Carl G. Fisher as president. The speedway was Fisher's brainchild, and he would see his project through its inauspicious beginnings to its ultimate glorious end. The first race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway took place on August 19, 1909, only a few months after the formation of the corporation. Fisher and his partners had scrambled to get their track together before the race, and their lack of preparation showed. Not only were lives lost on account of the track, but the surface itself was left in shambles. Instead of cutting losses on his investment in the speedway, Fisher dug in and upped the stakes. He built a brand new track of brick, which was the cheapest and most durable appropriate surface available to him. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway would later be affectionately called "the Brickyard." Fisher's track filled a void in the international racing world, as there were almost no private closed courses in Europe capable of handling the speeds of the cars that were being developed there. Open course racing had lost momentum in Europe due to the growing number of fatal accidents. Recognizing the supremacy of European car technology, but preserving the American tradition of oval-track racing, Fisher melded the two hemispheres of car racing into one extravagant event, a 500-mile race to be held annually. To guarantee the attendance of the European racers, Fisher arranged to offer the largest single prize in the sport. By 1912, the total prize money available at the grueling Indy 500 was $50,000, making the race the highest paying sporting event in the world. However, the Brickyard almost became a scrap yard after World War II, as it was in deplorable condition after four years of disuse. The track's owner, Eddie Rickenbacher, even considered tearing it down and selling the land. Fortunately, in 1945, Tony Hulman purchased the track for $750,000. Hulman and Wilbur Shaw hastily renovated the track for racing in the next year, and launched a long-term campaign to replace the wooden grandstand with structures of steel and concrete. In May of 1946, the American Automobile Association ran its first postwar Indy 500, preserving an American tradition. Today, the Indy 500 is the largest single-day sporting event in the world.

Wilhelm Maybach

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

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February 10, 1941
The first highway post office service was established along the route between Washington, D.C., and Harrisonburg, Virginia. Mail was transported in buses equipped with facilities for sorting, handling, and dispatch of mail.

February 10, 1966
Ralph Nader testified before the Senate, reinforcing his earlier claims that the automobile industry was socially irresponsible and detailing the peculiar methods the industry used in attempting to silence him. Nader's 1965 book, Unsafe At Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, had become a sensation a year earlier. Nader attacked the automotive industry's unwillingness to consider the safety of the consumer, or as Nader himself put it, "insisting on maintaining the freedom to rank safety wherever it pleases on its list of considerations." Nader's heaviest criticism was leveled at the Chevrolet Corvair, a car that had been involved in a high number of one-car accidents. General Motors (GM) responded to Nader's criticism by launching an investigation into his personal life and accusing Nader of being gay and anti-Semitic. Nader filed an invasion of privacy suit against GM, and ultimately exacted $425,000 from the automotive giant. By bringing the public's right to safe automobiles into the spotlight, and by directly challenging General Motors in court, Nader created the methodology for contemporary consumer advocacy. The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which in 1966 mandated seatbelts, owed its existence to Nader's initiative, as do the other federally regulated safety standards which are common practice today.

February 10, 1989
The Ford Motor Company announced a 1988 net income of $5.3 billion, a world's record for an automotive company. The record served to mark the return to triumph of the U.S. automotive industry after the doldrums of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Ralph Nader

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The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

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February 11, 1937
After a difficult 44-day sit-down strike at the Fisher Body plant in Flint, Michigan, General Motors (GM) President Alfred P. Sloan signed the first union contract in the history of the U.S. automobile industry. Organized by the Union of Auto Workers (UAW), the strike was intended to force GM to give ground to its workers. GM workers had protested before, and they'd been fired and replaced for it. The UAW decided they needed to achieve the total shutdown of a working plant in order to bring company executives to the negotiating table. On New Year's Eve, 45 minutes after lunch, union leaders ordered the assembly line halted. Executives kept the belts running, but the workers wouldn't work. GM turned to the courts, winning an injunction against the workers on the grounds that the sit-down strike was unconstitutional. The injunction was overturned when it was discovered that the judge who presided in the case owned over $200,000 of GM stock. Twelve days after the strike had begun, with the workers still dug in, Sloan ordered the heat in the building turned off and barred the workers access to food from the outside. Police, armed with tear gas and guns, surrounded the building. The police fired--first tear gas and later bullets--into the plant. Sympathetic picketers outside, many of them family members of the strikers, helped to break all the windows in the plant by hurling rocks from were they stood. Others, braver still, broke the picket line with their automobiles to form a barricade that prevented the police vehicles from overrunning the building the strikers occupied. Finally, days after the Battle of the Running Bulls, as the violent confrontation came to be known, Michigan Governor Frank Murphy called in the National Guard with the intention of quelling any further violence. The presence of the National Guard bolstered the strikers' confidence. Realizing the futility of their position, GM executives came to the bargaining table. After a week of negotiations over which Governor Murphy personally presided, an agreement between GM and the UAW was reached.

February 11, 1951
Marshall Teague drove a Hudson Hornet to victory on the beach oval of the 160-mile Daytona Grand National at Daytona Beach, Florida, beginning Hudson's extraordinary run on the NASCAR circuit. In 1948, Hudson introduced the revolutionary "step-down" chassis design that is still used in most cars today. Until Hudson's innovation all car drivers had stepped up into the driver's seats. The "step-down" design gave the Hornet a lower center of gravity and, consequently, better handling. Fitted with a bigger engine in 1951, the Hudson Hornet became a dominant force on the NASCAR circuit. For the first time a car not manufactured by the Big Three was winning big. Excited by the publicity generated by their success on the track, Hudson executives began directly backing their racing teams, providing the team cars with everything they needed to make their cars faster. The Big Three, fearing that losses on the track would translate into losses on the salesroom floor, hurried to back their own cars. Thus was born the system of industry-backed racing that has become such a prominent marketing tool today. The Hudson Hornet would contend for nearly every NASCAR race between 1951 and 1955, when rule changes led to an emphasis on horsepower over handling.

February 11, 1958
Marshall Teague died at age 37 after attempting to raise the closed-course speed record at Daytona.

Marshall Teague and his #6 Fabulous Hudson Hornet

Source:
The History Channel
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[Landrover]

February 12, 1898
First car crash resulting in fatality happened in Great Britain to Henry Lindfield, Brighton business agent for International Cars; electric car's steering gear failed, ran through a wire fence, hit an iron post, cut main artery in his leg, died of shock from the operation the following day.

February 12, 1900
J.W. Packard received his first automotive patent a year after forming his company with partner George Weiss. Packard became interested in building cars after purchasing a Winton horseless carriage. The Winton proved unreliable and after nearly a year of fixing up his horseless carriage, Packard decided he would manufacture his own automobile.

February 12, 1953
The Willys-Overland Company, which brought America the Jeep, celebrated its golden anniversary. The original design for an all-terrain troop transport vehicle--featuring four-wheel drive, masked fender-mount headlights, and a rifle rack under the dash--was submitted to the U.S. Armed Forces by the American Bantam Car Company in 1939. The Army loved Bantam's design, but the production contract was ultimately given to Willys-Overland on the basis of its similar design and superior production capabilities. Mass production of the Willys Jeep began after the U.S. declaration of war in 1941. By 1945, 600,000 Jeeps had rolled off the assembly lines and onto battlefields in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The name "Jeep" is supposedly derived from the Army's request to car manufacturers to develop a "General Purpose" vehicle. "Gee Pee" turned to "Jeep" somewhere along the battle lines. The Willys Jeep became a cultural icon in the U.S. during World War II, as images of G.I.s in Gee Pees liberating Europe saturated the newsreels in movie theaters across the country. Unlike the Hummer of recent years, the Jeep was not a symbol of technological superiority but rather of the courage of the American spirit, a symbol cartoonist Bill Mauldin captured when he drew a weeping soldier firing a bullet into his broken down Willys Jeep. In 1945, Willys-Overland introduced the first civilian Jeep vehicle, the CJ-2A.

February 12, 1973
Four metric distance road signs, first in U.S., erected along Interstate 71 in Ohio; showed distance in both miles, kilometers between Columbus and Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland

February 12, 1973
On this day in 2008, in an attempt to cut costs, struggling auto giant General Motors (GM) offers buyouts to all 74,000 of its hourly employees in the U.S. represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. The move came after GM lost $38.7 billion in 2007, which at the time was the largest loss ever experienced by any car maker. Two weeks later, on February 26, the loss was adjusted by $4.6 billion, to $43.3 billion.
GM offered its employees a range of buyout options, including a $140,000 lump payment to those who worked at the company for at least 10 years and agreed to give up their health benefits and pension. GM's goal was to replace the employees who accepted buyouts with new workers brought in at a lower pay scale. At the time, a veteran GM worker (who belonged to the UAW) had an average base salary of $28.12 an hour, but once such benefits as health-care coverage and pension were added in, the cost to GM jumped to $78.21, according to a report by CNNMoney.com.
Some 19,000 GM workers ended up taking buyouts; however, the company's troubles were far from over, as gas prices reached record highs in the summer of 2008 and auto sales continued to slump amidst a growing global economic crisis. GM was criticized for focusing too heavily on its sport utility vehicles and small trucks and being slow to respond to an increasing consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. In December 2008, the federal government stepped in with a $13.4 billion loan to help keep GM afloat (Chrysler, the third-largest U.S. automaker, also received federal bailout funds). Also in 2008, Japan-based Toyota surpassed GM as the world's largest automaker, a title the American company, which was founded in 1908, had held since 1931. At its peak in the early 1960s, GM made more than half of all the cars and trucks purchased in the U.S.
In March 2009, President Barack Obama announced that in order to receive additional federal aid and avoid possible bankruptcy, both GM and Chrysler would be required to make deep concessions and develop radical restructuring plans. Additionally, GM's chief executive Rick Wagoner, who had held the top job since 2000, was forced to resign immediately. Nevertheless, on April 30, 2009, Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced it would enter a partnership with Italian automaker Fiat. GM filed for bankruptcy a month later, on June 1.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

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February 13, 1953
William C. Mack of Mack Trucks Inc. died at age 94. Mack trucks, with their hood-mounted bulldogs, are a symbol of durability and toughness in the commercial vehicle industry.

February 13, 1958
The first Ford Thunderbird with four seats was introduced. The four-passenger "square bird" converted the top-of-the-line Ford from a sports car to a luxury car. The new four-seater packed a 352-cubic-inch 300 horsepower V-8. Thirty-eight thousand cars were initially sold, making the T-Bird one of only two American cars to increase sales between 1957 and 1958. The T-Bird has become a symbol of 1950s American culture, immortalized in movies like Grease and rock songs like the Beach Boys' "I Get Around."

1959 Ford Thunderbird

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The History Channel
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February 14, 1867
Sakichi Toyoda, whose textile machinery company spawned the Toyota Motor Corporation, is born in Japan on February 14, 1867. In 2008, Toyota surpassed the American auto giant General Motors (GM) to become the world's largest automaker.
Referred to as Japan's Thomas Edison, Sakichi Toyoda invented a variety of weaving machines, including an automatic power loom, and founded Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. By the late 1920s, Toyoda's son Kiichiro, who worked for the family business, had begun plans, with his father's support, to develop an automobile. Sakichi Toyoda died on October 30, 1930, at the age of 63. In 1933, Kiichiro Toyoda established an auto division within Toyoda Loom Works, which released a prototype vehicle two years later. In 1937, Toyota Motor Corporation was formed as a spinoff of Toyoda Loom Works.
The new car company initially looked to the U.S. auto industry for inspiration. According to The New York Times: "Over the years of its rise to the top, Toyota has made no secret of how much it has learned from Detroit. Its first car, the AA, was a blatant copy of a Chevrolet sedan. Its executives scoured every corner of the Ford Motor Company in the 1950s, taking home ideas to Japan that later inspired the Toyota Production System."
Kiichiro Toyoda died in 1952 at the age of 57, but his company continued to grow. In 1966, Toyota introduced its compact Corolla model, which in 1997 became the world's best-selling car, with more than 35 million sold at the time. The oil crisis of the 1970s made Toyota's small, fuel-efficient vehicles increasingly attractive in America. In the 1980s, the automaker launched the popular Camry and 4Runner sport utility vehicle. Toyota's luxury car line, Lexus, debuted in the U.S. in 1989. The automaker introduced the planet's first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, the Prius, in 1997 in Japan and worldwide in 2001. By the end of the 1990s, Toyota had produced over 100 million vehicles in Japan.
In 2008, Toyota reached another milestone when it sold more cars and trucks than General Motors--8.97 million vehicles versus 8.35 million vehicles--and claimed the sales crown that the American auto giant had held for more than 70 years. However, Toyota, like the rest of the auto industry, was hurt by the global financial crisis and in May 2009 reported the company's first-ever annual loss.


February 14, 1896
Edward Prince of Wales, who would later become King Edward VII, became the first member of the British Royal Family to ride in a motor vehicle.

February 14, 1929
The mob hit known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre took place in Chicago on this day. In order to perpetrate the hit, members of Al Capone's gang reportedly fitted a Cadillac touring sedan to the speculations of the Chicago Police Department. Under the guidance of Capone's Lieutenant Ray Nitty, the murderers sought out the garage of one "Bugs" Moran with the intention of killing him. Fearing the possibility of misidentifying Mr. Moran, the henchman killed all seven of the men in the garage. Without the help of their modern-day Trojan Horse--the Cadillac Sedan which gang member Bryan Bolton claimed to have personally purchased from the Cadillac Car Company on Michigan Avenue in Chicago--the gang would not have been able to infiltrate "Bugs" Moran's garage with such veritable ease.

February 14, 1948
A week before the organization was officially incorporated, NASCAR held its first race for modified stock cars on a 3.2 mile-course at Daytona Beach. In the 150-mile race that featured almost exclusively pre-war Fords, Red Byron edged Marshall Teague to become NASCAR's first champion. Stock car racing would become a tradition at Daytona, but pre-war Fords would not. By 1949 the Olds 88 had become NASCAR's dominant vehicle.

February 14, 1977
Elmer Symons, a motorcycle enduro racer was born in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa on this day. He began enduro racing in 1996 and moved to the United States in 2003. He had placed well in numerous regional competitions and had participated in the 2005 and 2006 Dakar Rally as a support mechanic. He crashed his privateer KTM and died at the scene at 142 km into the fourth stage in his first attempt to complete the Rally as a rider. The emergency helicopter was with him within 8 minutes of his emergency alert beacon triggering, but was unable to do anything other than record his death. He was in 18th place for motorcycles overall, and leading the Marathon class after the previous stage. Symons is the rally's 49th fatality.

Sakichi Toyoda


Elmer Symons

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

February 15, 1902
Oldsmobile ran its first national automobile advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post. Ransom Olds was no stranger to innovations in the field of publicity. A year earlier, Olds had sent one of his assistants, Roy Chapin, on a voyage from Detroit to New York in a 1901 Olds Runabout. In spite of the absence of proper roads, gas stations, or repair garages, nine days and 800 miles later, Chapin arrived at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel unscathed. Newspaper accounts of the journey boosted publicity for the Runabout. In one year, Olds' company increased its sales of Runabouts from 425 to 2,500. With the help of newspaper advertisements annual sales would jump another 100 percent to 5,000 cars by 1904.
Olds also commissioned two popular songwriters of the day to write a song for advertising purposes. The result was “In My Merry Oldsmobile,” a song inspired by the Curved Dash Olds and now an all-time standard.

February 15, 1967
J. Frank Duryea, founder of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company with his brother Charles, died in Old Saybrook, Conneticut, at age 97. Seventy-four years earlier in the month of February, the Duryea brothers manufactured the first of 13 Duryea Motor Wagons, unofficially giving birth to the auto production line and the American automobile industry.

Frank Duryea

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

February 16, 1852
Henry and Clement Studebaker founded H & C Studebaker, a blacksmith and wagon building business, in South Bend, Indiana. The brothers made their fortune manufacturing during the Civil War, as The Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company became the world's largest manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages.
With the advent of the automobile, Studebaker converted its business to car manufacturing, becoming one of the larger independent automobile manufacturers. During World War II, Studebaker manufactured airplanes for the war effort and emphasized its patriotic role by releasing cars called "The President," "The Champion," and "The Commander." Like many of the independents, Studebaker fared well during the war by producing affordable family cars.
After the war, the Big Three, bolstered by their new government-subsidized production facilities, were too much for many of the independents. Studebaker was no exception. Post World War II competition drove Studebaker to its limits, and the company merged with the Packard Corporation in 1954.
Financial hardship continued however as they continued to lose money over the next several years. Studebaker rebounded in 1959 with the introduction of the compact Lark but it was shortlived. The 1966 Cruiser marked the end of the Studebaker after 114 years.

February 16, 1997
On February 16, 1997, 25-year-old Jeff Gordon claims his first Daytona 500 victory, becoming the youngest winner in the history of the 200-lap, 500-mile National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) event, dubbed the "Super Bowl of stock car racing." Driving his No. 24 Chevrolet Monte Carlo for the Hendrick Motorsports racing team, Gordon recorded an average speed of 148.295 mph and took home prize money of more than $377,000. According to NASCAR.com, Gordon was "a veritable babe in a field that included 27 drivers older than 35, 16 at least 40." Gordon's Hendrick teammates Terry Labonte and Ricky Craven finished the race second and third, respectively.
Gordon was born August 4, 1971, in Vallejo, California, and became involved in racing as a child. In 1993, he competed in his first full season of Winston Cup series (now known as the Sprint Cup), NASCAR's top racing series, and was named Rookie of the Year. He went on to win the Winston series championship in 1995, 1997, 1998 and 2001. Following his first victory at the Daytona 500 in 1997, Gordon won the prestigious race, which serves as the NASCAR season-opener, again in 1999 and 2005.
At the other end of the Daytona age spectrum from Gordon is 50-year-old Bobby Allison, who on February 14, 1988, became the oldest driver to win the Daytona 500. He had an average speed of 137.531 mph and collected over $202,000 in prize money. Allison's son Davey came in second place in that race. Bobby Allison, who was born on December 3, 1937, in Florida, drove in his first Daytona 500 in 1961 and went on to win the race in 1978 and 1982, in addition to his 1988 victory.
The first-ever Daytona 500 was held on February 22, 1959, at the then brand-new Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. A crowd of more than 40,000 was on hand to witness the 59 cars that started the event. Lee Petty narrowly defeated Johnny Beauchamp to win the race with an average speed of 135.521 mph. He collected prize money of some $19,000. By comparison, Matt Kenseth won the 2009 Daytona 500 with an average speed of 132.816 mph, and took home prize money of more than $1.5 million.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

February 17, 1911
The first self-starter, based on patented inventions created by General Motors (GM) engineers Clyde Coleman and Charles Kettering, was installed in a Cadillac. In the early years of fierce competition with Ford, the self-starter would play a key role in helping GM to keep pace. The Ford Model T's crank starter caused its share of borken jaws and ribs. Charles Kettering, the founder of Delco (Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company), devised countless improvements for the automobile, including lighting and ignition systems, lacquer finishes, antilock fuels, and leaded gasoline. Prior to his work with cars, Kettering also invented the electric cash register.

February 17, 1934
Pennsylvania State industrial engineer Amos Neyhart fitted his own car with dual brake, clutch linkages and began teaching driving to State College High School students in State College, PA, started American tradition of driver's education, provided both classroom and behind-the-wheel instruction. Students who completed Amos Neyhart's course received State of Pennsylvania driver's licenses.

February 17, 1972
The 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle rolled out of the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, surpassing the Ford Model T's previous production record to become the most heavily produced car in history. The Beetle or the "Strength Through Joy" car, as the Germans initially called it, was the brainchild of Ferdinand Porsche. He developed the Volkswagen on orders from the German government to produce an affordable car for the people. Developed before World War II, the Beetle did not go into full-scale production until after the war. It became a counter-culture icon in the U.S. during the 1960s largely because it offered an alternative to the extravagant American cars of the time. In 1998, Volkswagen released the "New Beetle" to rave reviews.

Charles F. Kettering, Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., and Nicholas Dreystadt, President of Cadillac Motor Car, looking over the first self starter. (pro.corbis.com)

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​

 

[Landrover]

February 18, 1898
Enzo Anselmo Ferrari was born in Modena, Italy, on this day. After fighting in World War I, where he lost both his brother and his father, Ferrari became a professional driver with the Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazional. The following year, Ferrari moved to Alpha Romeo, establishing a relationship that would span two decades and take Ferrari from test driver to the director post of the Alpha Racing Division. In 1929, Enzo founded Scuderia Ferrari, an organization that began as a racing club but that by 1933 had absorbed the entire race-engineering division at Alpha. For financial reasons, Alpha took back control of their racing division from Ferrari in 1939. His pride wounded, Ferrari left Alpha Romeo in 1940, transforming the Scuderia into an independent manufacturing company, the Auto Avio Costruzioni Ferrari. Construction of the first Ferrari vehicle was delayed until the end of World War II. Like Ferdinand Porsche, Enzo Ferrari suffered during the war, as his factory was bombed on numerous occasions. Still, Ferrari persisted with his work. In 1949, Ferrari's 166 won the 24 Hours at Le Mans, Europe's most famous car race. Ferrari would not look back. His passion for racing drove his company to become one of the world's premier race car builders. Ferrari cars would win 25 world titles and over 5,000 individual races during Enzo's 41-year reign. Off the track the company fared just as well. Responding to Ferrari's personal demand that his engineers create the finest sports car in the world, the company produced the F40 in 1987. With a top speed of 201mph and a 0 to 60 time of 3.5 seconds, the F40 may have been Ferrari's crowning achievement. Enzo Anselmo Ferrari died on August 14, 1988.

February 18, 1973
Richard Petty, the "King of Stock Car Racing," won the Daytona 500 before a crowd of over 103,000 spectators, marking the first time a stock car race had drawn over 100,000 spectators. No longer would there be questions about NASCAR's mainstream popularity. On this day in 1979, Petty became the first man to win six Daytona 500s. Winning the most prestigious event in any sport six times is enough to earn the nickname "The King," but Petty is perhaps most famous for his 1967 season in which he won 27 of 48 races, including a record 10 straight victories. In a sport where mechanical failure is commonplace, Petty's total domination was seen as superhuman. "The King" came from royal stock. His father, Lee Petty, was the first man to win the Daytona 500.

February 18, 2001
Dale Earnhardt Sr., one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history, died on this day in a last-lap crash at the 43rd Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was 49. Earnhardt was about half a mile from the finish line when his car, the famous black No. 3 Chevrolet, spun out of control and then crashed into a wall while simultaneously colliding with driver Ken Schrader’s car. He died instantly of head injuries.
Earnhardt, whose tough, aggressive driving style earned him the nickname “The Intimidator,” was involved in another crash at the Daytona 500 in 1997, when his car flipped upside down on the backstretch. He managed to escape serious injury. In 1998, he went on to win the Daytona 500, his first and only victory in that race after 20 years of trying.
Earnhardt, a high-school dropout from humble beginnings in Kannapolis, North Carolina, said all he ever wanted to do in life was race cars. Indeed, he went on to become one of the sport’s most successful and respected drivers, with 76 career victories, including seven Winston Cup Series championships. In addition to his legendary accomplishments as a driver, Earnhardt was also a successful businessman and NASCAR team owner. The 2001 Daytona race which cost Earnhardt his life was won by Michael Waltrip, who drove for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (DEI). Earnhardt’s son, Dale Jr., also a DEI driver, took second place in the race.

The crash of Dale Earnhardt's Chevy

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia​