This day in History

[Shermatt]

October 19, 1920
Harley-Davidson Motor Co. registered "Harley-Davidson" trademark first used in June 1906 for motorcycles, bicycles, side cars and parcel cars.

October 19, 1958
Briton Mike Hawthorn, driving a Ferrari Dino 246, clinched the Formula One World Championship at the Moroccan Grand Prix at Ain-Diab near Casablanca. But the triumph of Britain's first World Championship was marred by the death of British driver Stuart Lewis-Evans, who died a few days later from injuries sustained during an accident in the race, and by the tragic death of Hawthorn himself, who died in a road accident just two months later

October 19, 1982
John DeLorean began his automotive career with Packard in the 1950s, and was recruited to Pontiac in 1959. A rising star at Pontiac, DeLorean pioneered the successful GTO and Grand Prix, and by the late 1960s had risen to the top position in a company that was behind only Chevrolet and Ford in sales. In 1970, DeLorean was moved to manage the Chevrolet Division, and by 1973 Chevy was selling a record 3,000,000 cars and trucks, with DeLorean seeming a top candidate for General Motors' (GM) next presidency. But in late-1973, he walked away from his $650,000 job at GM, boasting he was "going to show them how to build cars." After raising nearly $200 million in financing, DeLorean formed the DeLorean Motor Company in 1974, and constructed a car factory in Northern Ireland. Interest in DeLorean's sleek and futuristic DMC-12 car was high, but by the early 1980s the company was in serious financial trouble. Failing to find additional investors, the proud DeLorean became involved in racketeering and drug trafficking in a desperate attempt to save his beleaguered company. On this day in 1982, after being caught on film during an FBI sting operation trying to broker a $24 million cocaine deal, DeLorean was arrested on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. But two years later a federal jury ruled that he was a victim of entrapment, and DeLorean was acquitted of all charges. Nevertheless, the debacle ruined his credibility, and John DeLorean's fall from the top of the automotive industry was complete. He died from a stroke at the age of 80, on March 19, 2005.

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 20, 1965
The last PV544 was driven off the Volvo assembly line at its Lundy plant in Sweden by longtime Volvo test driver Nils Wickstrom. Gustaf Larson, the engineer who had co-founded Volvo with businessman Assar Gabrielsson in 1927, was present at the ceremony. An impressive total of 440,000 Volvo PV544s had been produced during its eight-year run, over half of which had been exported. The Volvo PV544 was first introduced in 1958 as an updated version of its popular predecessor, the PV444. Like the PV444 with its laminated windscreen, the PV544 featured an important safety innovation--it was the first car to be equipped with safety belts as standard fitting. But the PV544 was also a powerful automobile, boasting a 4-speed manual transmission option and power up to 95bhp. Shortly after its introduction, the 544 became one of the most successful rally cars, dominating rally racing into the 1960s. Yet, the PV544 was also affordably priced, and its first-year sales put Volvo over the 100,000-exported automobiles mark. The PV544 was successfully reintroduced every year until 1965, when it was decided by Volvo that production of the model would cease.

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 21, 1891
A one-mile dirt track opened for harness races at the site of the present-day Tennessee State Fairgrounds in Nashville. Harness racing proved a popular event at the annual Tennessee State Fair, but it was nothing compared to the excitement generated by the fair's first automobile race, held at the fairgrounds in 1904. For the next 50 years, motor racing events were the highlight of the annual state fair, drawing top American drivers to compete, and launching the careers of others. In 1956, the track was paved and lighted, and the tradition of weekly Saturday night racing at the fairgrounds was born. And in 1958, NASCAR came to Nashville with the introduction of the NASCAR Winston Cup to be run on a brand-new half-mile oval. The legendary driver Joe Weatherly won the first Winston Cup, beating the likes of Fireball Turner, Lee Petty, and Curtis Turner in the 200-lap event. Between 1958 and 1984, the fairgrounds hosted 42 NASCAR Winston Cups, and Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip were the overall leaders in victories, with nine and eight Winston Cups respectively. The last Winston Cup race to descend onto the Tennessee State Fairgrounds was a 420-lap event won by driver Geoff Bodine. But despite the departure of the Winston Cup, the Nashville Speedway continued to improve on its racetrack, and illustrious racing events such as the Busch Series are held on the historic track every year.
PICTURED: Joe Weatherly

October 21, 1891
The 50th birthday of the incandescent light bulb, Henry Ford throws a big party to celebrate the dedication of his new Thomas Edison Institute in Dearborn, Michigan. Everybody who was anybody was there: John D. Rockefeller Jr., Charles Schwab, Otto H. Kahn, Walter Chrysler, Marie Curie, Will Rogers, President Herbert Hoover—and, of course, the guest of honor, Thomas Edison himself. At the time, the Edison Institute was still relatively small. It consisted of just two buildings, both of which Henry Ford had moved from Menlo Park, New Jersey and re-constructed to look just as they had in 1879: Edison's laboratory and the boarding-house where he had lived while he perfected his invention. By the time the Institute opened to the public in 1933, however, it had grown much more elaborate and today the Henry Ford Museum (renamed after Ford's death in 1947) is one of the largest and best-known museums in the US.
Ford's museum was an epic expression of his own interpretation of American history, emphasizing industrial and technological progress and the "practical genius" of great Americans. Its collection grew to include every Ford car ever built, along with other advances in automotive and locomotive technology. There were also farm tools, home appliances, furniture and industrial machines such as the printing press and the Newcomen steam engine. On a 200-acre tract next door, Ford built a quaint all-American village by importing historic homes and buildings from across the United States.
Today, there are more than 200 cars on display at the Ford museum, including the 15 millionth Model T, the Ford 999 racer that set the world speed record in 1904, the first Mustang ever produced and a 1997 EV1 electric car made by General Motors. More than 2 million people visit "The Henry Ford," as it's now called, every year.

[Shermatt]

October 22, 1936
In 1934, German automaker Ferdinand Porsche submitted a design proposal to Adolf Hitler's new German Reich government, calling for the construction of a small, simple, and reliable car that would be affordable enough for the average German. Only about one in 50 Germans owned cars at the time, and the motor industry had only a minor significance in Germany's economy. Nazi propagandists immediately embraced the idea, coining "Volkswagen," which translates as "people's car," at an automobile show later in the year. Hitler himself hoped the "people's car" would achieve the kind of popularity in Germany as Ford's Model T had in the United States, and began calling the Volkswagen the "Strength Through Joy" car. Porsche received a development budget from the Reich's motor industry association, and began working on the Volkswagen immediately. Porsche completed the first prototype in secret in October of 1935. The simple, beetle-shaped automobile was sturdily constructed with a kind of utilitarian user-friendliness scarcely seen in an automobile before. On this day in 1936, the first test-drives of the Volkswagen vehicle began, and employees drove the VW 3-series model over 800 kilometers a day, making any necessary repairs at night. After three months of vigorous testing, Porsche and his engineers concluded, in their final test verdict, that the Volkswagen "demonstrated characteristics which warrant further development." In 1938, the first Volkswagen in its final form was unveiled, a 38-series model that The New York Times mockingly referred to as a "Beetle." However, the outbreak of World War II prevented mass-production of the automobile, and the newly constructed Volkswagen factory turned to war production, constructing various military vehicles for the duration of the conflict. After the war, the Allies approved the continuation of the original Volkswagen program, and, under the leadership of Heinrich Nordhoff in the late 1940s and 1950s, sales of the Volkswagen Beetle began to take off. In the 1960s and early 1970s, sales of the compact Volkswagen Beetle worried even America's largest automakers, as the Third Reich's simple people's car became a popular symbol of the growing American counterculture.
PICTURED: The Porsche of today's era

October 22, 1903
Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM) filed suit against Ford Motor Company as an unlicensed (by ALAM) manufacturer of internal combustion vehicles (controlled 1895 Selden patent); claimed patent applied to all gasoline-powered automobiles; ALAM launched PR campaign, threatened to sue those who bought Ford automobiles.

October 22, 1906
Henry Ford became President of Ford Motor Company.

October 22, 1987
Canadian Garry Sowerby and American Tim Cahill completed the first trans-Americas drive, driving from Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in a total elapsed time of 23 days, 22 hours, and 43 minutes. The pair drove the 14,739-mile distance in a 1988 GMC Sierra K3500 four-wheel-drive pickup truck powered by a 6.2-liter V-8 Detroit diesel engine. Only on one occasion did Sowerby and Cahill trust another form of transportation to their sturdy Sierra: the vehicle and team were surface-freighted from Cartagena, Colombia, to Balboa, Panama, so as to bypass the dangerous Darien Gap of Colombia and Panama.

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 23, 1970
At the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, American Gary Gabelich attained a record 631.367mph average speed in The Blue Flame, a rocket-powered four-wheeled vehicle. Momentarily achieving 650mph, Gabelich's vehicle was powered by a liquid natural gas, hydrogen peroxide rocket engine that produced a thrust of up to 22,000 pounds. Gabelich's achievement ended the domination of Craig Breedlove, the American driver who set a series of astounding victories in jet-powered vehicles during the 1960s, breaking the 400mph, 500mph, and 600mph barriers in 1963, 1964, and 1965, respectively. The Blue Flame's land-speed record stood until 1983, when Briton Richard Noble raced to a new record in his jet-powered Thrust 2 vehicle. The Thrust 2, a 17,000-pound jet-powered Rolls-Royce Avon 302 designed by John Ackroyd, reached a record 633.468mph over the one-mile course in Nevada's stark Black Rock Desert.

October 23, 1973
Toyota U.S.A. held its first (three-day) national news conference in Los Angeles, CA to discuss the fuel efficiency of its automobiles (5 days after 11 Arab oil producers increased oil prices and cut back production in response to the support of the United States and other nations for Israel in the Yom Kippur War); American consumers suffered gasoline rationing, a quadrupling of prices, huge lines at gas stations - foreign auto manufacturers flourished in the large American market.

October 23, 1983
A suicide bomber drives a truck filled with 2,000 pounds of explosives into a U.S. Marine Corps barracks at the Beirut International Airport. The explosion killed 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. A few minutes after that bomb went off, a second bomber drove into the basement of the nearby French paratroopers' barracks, killing 58 more people. Four months after the bombing, American forces left Lebanon without retaliating.
The Marines in Beirut were part of a multinational peacekeeping force that was trying to broker a truce between warring Christian and Muslim Lebanese factions. In 1981, American troops had supervised the withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Beirut and then had withdrawn themselves. They returned the next year, after Israel's Lebanese allies slaughtered nearly 1,000 unarmed Palestinian civilian refugees. Eighteen hundred Marine peacekeepers moved into an old Israeli Army barracks near the airport—a fortress with two-foot–thick walls that could, it seemed, withstand anything. Even after a van bomb killed 46 people at the U.S. Embassy in April, the American troops maintained their non-martial stance: their perimeter fence remained relatively unfortified, for instance and their sentries' weapons were unloaded.
At about 6:20 in the morning on October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes truck charged through the barbed-wire fence around the American compound and plowed past two guard stations. It drove straight into the barracks and exploded. Eyewitnesses said that the force of the blast caused the entire building to float up above the ground for a moment before it pancaked down in a cloud of pulverized concrete and human remains. FBI investigators said that it was the largest non-nuclear explosion since World War II and certainly the most powerful car bomb ever detonated.
After the bombing, President Ronald Reagan expressed outrage at the "despicable act" and vowed that American forces would stay in Beirut until they could forge a lasting peace. In the meantime, he devised a plan to bomb the Hezbollah training camp in Baalbek, Lebanon, where intelligence agents thought the attack had been planned. However, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because he did not want to strain relations with oil-producing Arab nations. The next February, American troops withdrew from Lebanon altogether.
The first real car bomb—or, in this case, horse-drawn-wagon bomb—exploded on September 16, 1920 outside the J.P. Morgan Company's offices in New York City's financial district. Italian anarchist Mario Buda had planted it there, hoping to kill Morgan himself; as it happened, the robber baron was out of town, but 40 other people died (and about 200 were wounded) in the blast. There were occasional car-bomb attacks after that—most notably in Saigon in 1952, Algiers in 1962, and Palermo in 1963—but vehicle weapons remained relatively uncommon until the 1970s and 80s, when they became the terrifying trademark of groups like the Irish Republican Army and Hezbollah. In 1995, right-wing terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols used a bomb hidden in a Ryder truck to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

October 23, 2014
One of the best people I have had the pleasure of meeting and also a fellow car man "Rod Frencham" AKA Rocket, passed away in his sleep. A man that was greatly appreciated by his family and a man that will be greatly missed by all. Rest in Peace brother...we will keep the love alive in your family through us
Matt N Sheri

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 24, 1908
The Locomobile Old 16, driven by George Robertson, became the first American-made car to beat the European competition when it raced to victory in the fourth annual Vanderbilt Cup held in Long Island, New York. The Vanderbilt Cup, an early example of world-class motor racing in America, was created in 1904 to introduce Europe's best automotive drivers and manufacturers to the U.S. George Heath won the first Vanderbilt Cup in a French-made Panhard automobile, beginning a French domination of the event that would last until Old 16's historic victory. Old 16 was first built in 1906 by the Connecticut-based Locomobile Company, and showed promise when it raced to a respectable finish in the second Vanderbilt Cup. With some modifications, Old 16 was ready to race again in 1908. Americans pinned their hopes on the state-of-the-art road racer to end the European domination of early motor racing. Designed simply for speed and power, Old 16 had an 1032 cc, 4-cylinder, 120 hp engine with a copper gas tank, and a couple of bucket seats atop a simple frame with four wooden-spoked wheels completed the design. At the fourth Vanderbilt Cup, Robertson pushed Old 16 to an average speed of 64.38 mph, dashing around the 297-mile course to the cheers of over 100,000 rowdy spectators, who lined the track dangerously close to the speeding motor cars. With a thrown tire in the last lap and a frantic fight to the finish against an Italian Isotta, America's first major racing victory was a hair-raising affair. Old 16 is one of the oldest American automobiles still in existence, and is currently on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
PICTURED: Old 16 Locomobile-winner of the 1908 Vanderbilt Cup Race at the Westbury Turn

October 24, 1944
French automaker and accused Nazi collaborator Louis Renault died in a Paris military prison hospital of undetermined causes. Born in Paris, Renault built his first automobile, the Renault Type A, in 1898. Inspired by the DeDion quadricycle, the Type A had a 270 cc engine (1.75hp), and could carry two people at about 30mph. Later in the year, Renault and his brothers formed the Societe Renault Freres, a racing club that achieved its first major victory when an automobile with a Renault-built engine won the Paris-Vienna race of 1902. After Louis' brother, Marcel, died along with nine other drivers in the Paris-Madrid race of 1903, Renault turned away from racing and concentrated on mass production of vehicles. During World War I, Renault served his nation with the "Taxis de la Marne," a troop-transport vehicle, and in 1918, with the Renault tank. Between the wars, Renault continued to manufacture and sell successful automobiles, models that became famous for their sturdiness and longevity. With the German occupation of France during World War II, the industrialist, who had served his country so well during World War I, mysteriously offered his Renault tank factory and his services to the Nazis, perhaps believing that the Allies' cause was hopeless. The liberation of France in 1944 saw the arrest of Louis Renault as a collaborator, and the Renault company was nationalized with Pierre Lefaucheux as the new director. The 67-seven-year-old Renault, who likely suffered torture during his post-liberation detainment, died soon after his arrest.

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 25, 1902
Racing was in Barney Oldfield's blood long before he ever had the opportunity to race an automobile. Born in Wauseon, Ohio, Oldfield's first love was bicycling, and in 1894, he began to compete professionally. In his first year of racing, the fearless competitor won numerous bicycling events and, in 1896, was offered a coveted position on the Stearns bicycle factory's amateur team. Meanwhile in Dearborn, Michigan, the entrepreneurial inventor Henry Ford had completed his first working automobile and was searching for a way to establish his name in the burgeoning automobile industry. In the early days, it was not the practical uses of the automobile that attracted the most widespread attention, but rather the thrill of motor racing. Recognizing the public's enthusiasm for the new sport, Ford built a racer with Oliver Barthel in 1901. Ford himself even served as driver in their automobile's first race, held at the Grosse Point Race Track in Michigan later in the year. Although he won the race and the kind of public acclaim he had hoped for, Ford found the experience so terrifying that he retired as a competitive driver, reportedly explaining that "once is enough." In 1902, he joined forces with Tom Cooper, the foremost cyclist of his time, and built a much more aggressive racer, the 999, that was capable of up to 80hp. On this day in 1902, the 23-year-old Barney Oldfield made his racing debut in the 999's first race at the Manufacturer's Challenge Cup in Grosse Point. The race was the beginning of a legendary racing career for Oldfield, who soundly beat his competition, including the famed driver Alexander Winton. The cigar-chomping Oldfield went on to become the first truly great American race-car driver, winning countless victories and breaking numerous speed and endurance records. But Oldfield's victory in the 999 was also Ford's first major automotive victory, and together they went on to become the most recognized figures in early American motoring--Ford as the builder and Oldfield as the driver.
PICTURED: 1902 Ford 999 and Oldfield -- Barney Oldfield in 999, the car that made him famous. [photo from Henry Ford Museum]



October 25, 1910
White race car driver Barney Oldfield beats prize fighter Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight champion of the world, in two five-mile car races in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
Oldfield and Johnson had a history: Oldfield's friend, the white heavyweight champ James J. Jeffries, had quit boxing in 1908 because he did not want to fight a black man for his title. In July 1910, Jeffries came out of retirement to fight Johnson at last, but lost in 15 rounds. (Twenty-six people were killed and hundreds were injured in the nationwide riots that followed the black fighter's victory.) After that, Johnson was unable to find anyone who would fight him—so, he turned to car racing instead. In October 1910, he challenged Oldfield to a race.
Oldfield, a flamboyant daredevil who had just set a new land-speed record (131 mph) in his Blitzen Benz, accepted the challenge at once. The competitors bet $5,000 on the contest—the driver who won two out of three five-mile heats would win the bet—and invited a Hollywood crew to film the race. But there was a problem: in order to make the race official, Johnson needed a license from the American Automobile Association, but the AAA refused to license black drivers. What's more, the organization told Oldfield that it would rescind his license if he went through with the race. But bets had been made and contracts signed, so the race was on!
Rain delayed the race several times, but on October 25 the skies were clear. Five thousand people gathered at the Brooklyn track, waving their hats and cheering for the movie cameras. Oldfield, driving a 60-horsepower Knox car, won the first heat by a half-mile, in 4:44. In the second, he slowed down a bit—he kept just ahead of Johnson's bright-red car, taunting the boxer as he drove--but won the race in 5:14. There was no need for a third heat: Barney Oldfield was the winner.
Eighteen months later, the AAA reinstated Oldfield and he began to race again. A few years later, he drove the first 100-mph lap in the history of the Indianapolis 500 race. Johnson's luck was not as good: Many people resented his success, and especially his habit of dating white women, and he was arrested several times on trumped-up violations of the Mann Act. As a result, he spent a year in federal prison. Johnson died in a car accident in 1946. He was 68 years old.

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 26, 1955
Sammy Swindell, who becomes a star in the outlaw sport of sprint-car racing, is born in Germantown, Tennessee. In 1971, when he was just 15 years old, Swindell raced for the first time on a dirt track at the Riverside Speedway in Arkansas. Since he started dirt-track racing, Swidell has never finished a season outside the top 10.
When Swindell began his career, he was a member of a motley crew of drivers known as the Band of Outlaws. These men, according to the Los Angeles Times, were "a gypsy bunch of maverick sprint car drivers who made their mark racing… on seedy little tracks, running with virtually no rules, sometimes wearing only T-shirts and Levi's. They went where the money was and no questions asked." Their races were unsanctioned by the U.S. Auto Club, the organization that ran the Indianapolis 500 and other "respectable" paved-track races. Instead, the Band of Outlaws competed in catch-as-catch-can affairs put on at county fairgrounds and makeshift clay loops across the Midwest.
Outlaw-style racing, usually called sprint-car racing, was a throwback to the early, scrappy days of motorsports, when drivers like Barney Oldfield and A.J. Foyt careened around hard-packed dirt roads in big, open-topped cars. Sprint cars banged into one another as they screeched around the track; they churned giant grooves into the dirt and dared one another to clatter over them without flipping; they used oversized tires, called "humpers," on their right rear wheels to help them accelerate more flamboyantly; and they had wings, or huge canopies that held them down on the track and helped them go faster. And sprint-car racing was dangerous: in the 1970s and 1980s, at least one driver was killed almost every weekend. Today, sprint-car racing is a little safer but no less pugnacious.
In the 1980s, Sammy Swindell dabbled in more mainstream racing—he joined the Indy Car circuit first, then NASCAR—but his heart remained with the Outlaws. In 2009, he rejoined the sprint-car circuit full time. In all, he has won three Outlaw titles and 268 races.

October 26, 1908
Champion incorporated Champion Ignition Company, in Flint, MI, with backing of Buick Motor Co., for manufacturing of spark plugs. Spencer Stranahan, former partner refused to sell rights to "Champion" name.

October 26, 1954
Chevrolet introduced the V-8 engine.

October 26, 1980
General Motors announced a $567 million loss, biggest quarterly drop ever posted by an American company; pre-tax losses for quarter topped out at $953 million.

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 27, 1945
After the Allied victory in the World War II, Porsche, like other German industrialists who participated in the German war effort, was investigated on war-crime charges. Ferdinand Porsche was arrested by U.S. military officials for his pro-Nazi activities, and was sent to France where he was held for two years before being released. Meanwhile, the Allies approved the continuation of the original Volkswagen program, and Volkswagen went on to become a highly successful automobile company. As his brainchild Volkswagen grew, Porsche himself returned to sports-car design and construction, completing the successful Porsche 356 in 1948 with his son Ferry Porsche. In 1951, Ferdinand Porsche suffered a stroke and died, but Ferry continued his father's impressive automotive legacy, achieving a sports car masterpiece with the introduction of the legendary Porsche 911 in 1963.

October 27, 2006
The last Ford Taurus rolls off the assembly line in Hapeville, Georgia. The keys to the silver car went to 85-year-old Truett Cathy, the founder of the Chick-fil-A fast-food franchise, who took it straight to his company's headquarters in Atlanta and added it to an elaborate display that included 19 other cars, including one of the earliest Fords.
When Ford added the Taurus to its lineup in 1985, the company was struggling. High fuel prices made its heavy, gas-guzzling cars unattractive to American buyers, especially compared to the high-quality foreign cars that had been flooding the market since the middle of the 1970s. The Taurus was smaller than the typical Ford family car, and its aerodynamic styling appealed to design-conscious buyers. Almost immediately, the car was a hit: Ford sold 263,000 in 1985 alone. Sales figures climbed higher each year, and in 1992, the Taurus became the best-selling passenger car in the United States. (It wrested this title away from the Honda Accord, and kept it for the next five years.) It was, according to the Henry Ford Museum, "a winner in the marketplace that saved Ford Motor from disaster."
But by the 2000s, the Taurus had lost much of its appeal. Even after a 1996 facelift, its once cutting-edge design now looked dated, and it still did not have the fuel efficiency of its Japanese counterparts. (In fact, in contrast to cars like the Accord and the Toyota Camry, which overtook the Taurus to become the nation's best-selling car, by the mid-1990s Ford was selling the majority of its Tauruses to rental-car companies, not individuals.) Ford discontinued the Taurus station wagon at the end of 2004, and idled the Hapeville plant—across the street from the original Chick-fil-A—two years later. Fifteen hundred workers lost their jobs.
In place of the Taurus, Ford pushed its full-size Five Hundred sedan along with its midsize Fusion. Neither sold especially well, however, and in 2007 the company re-released the Taurus (actually just a renamed version of the Five Hundred). It unveiled a revamped, sportier Taurus in July 2009.

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 28, 1918
The Tatra was christened. The company later known as Tatra constructed its first automobile in 1897, a vehicle largely inspired by the design of an early Benz automobile. Based in the small Moravian town of Nesselsdorf in the Austro-Hungarian empire, Tatra began as Nesselsdorf Wagenbau, a carriage and railway company that entered automobile production after chief engineer Hugo von Roslerstamm learned of the exploits of Baron Theodor von Liebieg, an avid Austrian motorist who drove across Eastern Europe in a Benz automobile. The Baron himself took the Nesselsdorf Wagenbau's first automobile, christened the President, on a test drive from Nesselsdorf to Vienna. He was impressed with the design and pushed von Roslerstamm and Nesselsdorf Wagenbau to enter racing.
The company put its faith in the talented young engineer Hans Ledwinka, and under his leadership the Rennzweier and the Type A racers were produced, demonstrating modest racing success and encouraging the beginning of large-scale production of the Type S in 1909. The company continued to grow until 1914, when, with the outbreak of World War I, it shifted to railroad-car construction. On this day in 1918, just two weeks before the end of the war on the Western front, the Moravian town of Nesselsdorf in the old Austro-Hungarian empire became the city of Koprivnicka in the newly created country of Czechoslovakia, necessitating a name change for the Nesselsdorf Wagenbau.
Soon after the war, Hans Ledwinka and the newly named Koprivnicka Wagenbau began construction of a new automobile under the marque Tatra. The Tatra name came from the Tatra High Mountains, some of the highest mountains in the Carpathian mountain range. Ledwinka settled on Tatra in 1919 after an experimental model with 4-wheel brakes passed a sleigh on a dangerously icy road, prompting the surprised sleigh riders to reportedly exclaim: "This is a car for the Tatras." In 1923, the first official Tatra automobile, the Tatra T11, was completed, and Ledwinka's hope for an affordable "people's car" had come to fruition. The rugged and relatively small automobile gave many Czechoslovakians an opportunity to own an automobile for the first time, much as Ford's Model T had in the United States. In 1934, Tatra achieved an automotive first with the introduction of the Tatra 77, an innovative model that holds the distinction of being the world's first aerodynamically styled automobile powered by an air-cooled rear-mounted engine.

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 29, 1954
The last true Hudson was produced. The Hudson Motor Car Company was founded in 1909 by Joseph L. Hudson, and by its second year ranked 11th in the nation for automobile production. Although rarely a top-seller, Hudson was responsible for a number of important automotive innovations, including the placement of the steering wheel on the left side, the self-starter, and dual brakes. In 1919, the Hudson Essex was introduced, a sturdy automobile built on an all-steel body that sold for pennies more than Ford's Model T. Hudson production peaked in 1929 with over 300,000 units, including a line of commercial vehicles. During the early 1930s, Hudson became increasingly involved in motor sports, and the Hudson Essex-Terraplane cars set records in hill climbing, economy runs, and speed events. After World War II, the modest automobile company set its sights on stock racing, launching its new Monobuilt design in 1948. The Monobuilt design consisted of a chassis and frame that were combined in a unified passenger compartment, producing a strong, lightweight design, and a beneficial lower center of gravity that didn't effect road clearance. Hudson coined this innovation "step-down design" because, for the first time, passengers had to step down in order to get into a car. Most cars today are still based on the step-down premise.
In 1951, Hudson introduced the powerful Hornet, a model that would dominate stock car racing from 1952 to 1954. In 1952 alone, Hudson won 29 of the 34 events. A key factor in Hudson's racing success was the innovative step-down design of its cars. Because of their lower centers of gravity, Hornets would glide around corners with relative ease, leaving their clunky and unstable competitors in the dust. During this period, Hudson hoped that its stock-racing success would help its lagging sales, but the public preferred watching the likes of Marshall Teague racing around in a Hornet to actually purchasing one. In 1954, the Hudson Motor Company and the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation merged to form the American Motors Corporation, and Hudson, which had been suffering severe financial problems, signed on as the weaker partner. Soon after, it was announced that all 1955 models would be made in Nash's facilities, and that most of Hudson's recent innovations would be discontinued. On this day, the last step-down Hudson was produced. Although the Hudson name would live on for another two years, the cars no longer possessed the innovative elegance and handling of models like the Hornet of the early 1950s.

[IGALOP]

That timber runabout boat center/rear would be worth big moolah if it were real & around now. There is quite a few resto's of these around Melbourne now. Such cool looking classic boats. 

[Shermatt]

On this day, October 30, 1963
The first Lamborghini, the 350GTV (made by tractor maker Ferruccio Lamborghi to compete with Ferrari) debuted at Turin auto show.
Sports car maker Ferruccio Lamborghini was born in Renazzo di Cento, Italy, on April 28, 1916. After studying mechanical engineering in Bologna, Lamborghini served as a mechanic for the Italian Army's Central Vehicle Division in Rhodes during World War II. Upon his return to Italy, he worked on converting military vehicles into agricultural machines, and, in 1948, began building and designing his own tractors. His well-designed agricultural machinery proved a success, and with this prosperity Lamborghini developed an addiction for luxury sports cars. In the early 1960s, he purchased a Ferrari 250 GT, made just a few miles away in Enzo Ferrari's factory. After encountering problems with the car, Ferruccio reportedly paid Enzo a visit, complaining to him about his new Ferrari's noisy gearbox. Legend has it that the great racing car manufacturer Ferrari responded in a patronizing manner to the tractor-maker Lamborghini, inspiring the latter to begin development of his own line of luxury sports cars--automobiles that could out perform any mass-produced Ferrari.
On this day in 1963, the Lamborghini 350GTV debuted at the Turin auto show. But Lamborghini had not completed the prototype in time for the deadline, and the 350GTV was presented with a crate of ceramic tiles in place of an engine. With or without the engine, Lamborghini's first car was not particularly well received, and only one GTV was ever completed. But the former tractor-maker was not discouraged, and in 1964 the drastically redesigned 350GT went into production, and Lamborghini managed to sell over 100 of the expensive cars. The GT was a quiet and sophisticated high-performance vehicle, capable of achieving 155mph with a maximum 320hp. The elegant Lamborghini 350GT indeed provided a smoother ride than most of its Ferrari counterparts, and Ferruccio's old tractor factory, located just a few miles from the Ferrari factory, began constructing some of the most exotic cars the world had ever seen, such as the Miura, the Espada, and the legendary Countach.

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 6, 1899
James Ward Packard, an electrical-wire manufacturer from Warren, Ohio, first demonstrated his interest in automobiles when he hired Edward P. Cowles and Henry A. Schryver to work on plans for a possible Packard automobile in 1896. Although a functional engine was completed in 1897, it would take another two years, and James Packard's purchase of a Winton horseless carriage, before his company fully flung itself into the burgeoning automobile industry. In 1898, James Packard purchased an automobile constructed by fellow Ohio manufacturer Alexander Winston, and Packard, a first-time car owner, experienced problems with his purchase from the start. Finally, in June of 1899, after nearly a year of repairing and improving the Winston automobile on his own, Packard decided to launch the Packard Motor Company. On this day, only three months after work on his first automobile began, the first Packard was completed and test-driven through the streets of Warren, Ohio. The Model A featured a one-cylinder engine capable of producing 12hp. Built around the engine was a single-seat buggy with wire wheels, a steering tiller, an automatic spark advance, and a chain drive. Within only two months, the Packard Company sold its fifth Model A prototype to Warren resident George Kirkham for $1,250. By the 1920s, Packard was a major producer of luxury automobiles, and this prosperity would continue well into the late 1950s.

November 6, 1986
The destitute Alfa Romeo company approved its acquisition by fellow Italian automobile manufacturer Fiat, shortly after rejecting a takeover bid by the Ford Motor Company. Alfa Romeo was founded by Nicola Romeo in 1908, and during the 1920s and 1930s produced elegant luxury racing cars like the RL, the 6C 1500, and the 8C 2900 B. Alfa Romeo saw its peak business years during the 1950s and 1960s, when Alfa Romeo chairman Giuseppe Luraghi oversaw a company shift toward more functional and affordable cars. The Giuletta, the Spider, and the Giulia series received enthusiastic responses from consumers, and Alfa Romeo flourished. However, during the 1970s, the company fell out of touch with a changing market, and, like many other automobile companies, failed to meet the demands of recession-era consumers who preferred fuel efficiency and reliability to luxury and design. By the mid-1980s, Alfa Romeo was bankrupt, and Fiat took over the company, assigning it to a new unit called Alfa Lancia Spa, which opened for business in 1997.

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 7, 1957
Before World War II, Audi-founder August Horch cranked out his innovative Audis in the Zwickau Automobile Factory in the eastern German state of Sachsen. It was here that Audi manufactured the first automobiles with four-wheel hydraulic brakes and front wheel drive, decades before these innovations became standard throughout the automobile industry. After World War II, Germany was separated into Eastern and Western occupation zones, and Audi, like most other significant German corporations, fled to the capitalist West. Among the deserted factories the Soviet occupiers faced in postwar East Germany was the former Horch-Audi works in Zwickau. Under the authority of the Soviet administrators, and later under the East German Communist government, the Zwickau factory went back into service in the late 1940s, producing simple, pre-war German automobiles like the Das Klein Wonder F8, and the P70, a compact car with a Duroplast plastic body. In 1957, the East German government approved the updated P50 model to enter the market under a new company name--Trabant. On this day, the first Trabant, which translates to servant in English, was produced at the former Horch auto works in Zwickau. For the Trabant's first marque, the designers settled on "Sputnik," to commemorate the Soviet Union's launching of the first artificial Earth satellite the month before. The Trabant Sputnik was the first in the P50 series, featuring a tiny engine for its time--a two-cylinder 500 cc engine capable of reaching only 18bhp. In design, the Trabant Sputnik was the archetypal eastern European car: small, boxy, and fragile in appearance. Yet, despite the lack of style or power found in the Sputnik and its descendants, these automobiles were affordable, and provided the citizens of East Germany and other Soviet bloc countries with a capable means of getting from here to there.

November 7, 1965
In 1964, Art Arfons, a drag racer from Ohio, built a land-speed racer in his backyard using a military surplus J79 jet aircraft engine with an afterburner. Arfons christened the vehicle Green Monster, and in September took the racer to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to join in the race to set a new land- speed record. On October 5, the Green Monster jet powered to 434.022--a new land-speed record. However, Arfons' record would only stand for six days, for on October 13, Craig Breedlove set his second land-speed record when he reached 468.719 in his jet-powered Spirit of America. In 1965, Arfons returned to the Bonneville Salt Flats in a revamped Green Monster, and on this day shattered Breedlove's record from the previous year, when he raced to 576.553mph across the one-mile course.

[Shermatt]

November 8, 1866
Herbert Austin, the founder of the Austin Motor Company, was born the son of a farmer in Little Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England. At the age of 22, Austin moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he served as an apprentice engineer at a foundry, before becoming the manager of the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Company. Long journeys into the wide-open spaces of Australia gave him insight into the benefits of gasoline-driven vehicles, and Austin decided to try his luck in the burgeoning automobile industry. In 1893, Austin returned to England with the Wolseley Company and began work on his first automobile. Like his American counterpart, Henry Ford, Austin hoped to produce an affordable motor car for the masses, and by 1895 the Wolseley Company completed its first vehicle, a three-wheeled automobile, followed by the first four-wheeled Wolseley vehicle in 1900. In 1905, Herbert Austin founded the Austin Motor Company in Birmingham, England, and by 1914, the company was producing over 1,000 automobiles a year. During World War II, Austin and his factories joined in the British war effort, a service for which he was knighted in 1917. In 1922, with the introduction of the Austin 7 Tourer, Sir Herbert Austin finally fulfilled his ambition to produce a mass-produced automobile. The diminutive vehicle, boasting four-wheel brakes and a maximum speed of 50mph, was an instant success in England. In 1930, the Austin 7 was introduced to America, and enjoyed five years of modest U.S. sales before falling prey to the hard times of the Depression in 1935.

November 8, 1895
Diamler returned to his own company as chief engineer. He received shares worth 30,000 marks that he was entitled to through 1882 contract with Daimler. In mid 1893 - Daimler was forced to sell his stake in company, rights to his inventions for 66,666 marks to avoid bankruptcy. In 1895 - group of British industrialists, fronted by Frederick R. Simms, looked to acquire license rights to Maybach-designed Phoenix engine for Britain for 350,000 marks only if Daimler and Maybach returned to company. Daimler returned as expert advisor, general inspector. His stake in company returned (worth 200,000 marks) additional 100,000 mark bonus was also paid.

November 8, 1918
McLaughlin Carriage and Motor Company Limited and Chevrolet Motor Company of Canada Limited merged and formed General Motors of Canada Limited. R.S. "Sam" McLaughlin) became president but GM already owned 49% of company.

November 8, 1956
The Ford Motor Company decided on the name "Edsel" for a new model in development for the 1958 market year. The new addition to the Ford family of automobiles would be a tribute to Edsel Bryant Ford, who served as company president from 1919 until his death in 1943. Edsel Ford was also the oldest son of founder Henry Ford and father to current company President Henry Ford II. The designer of the Edsel, Roy Brown, was instructed to create an automobile that was highly recognizable, and from every angle different than anything else on the road. In the fall of 1957, with great fanfare, the 1958 Edsel was introduced to the public. With its horse collar grill in the front and its regressed side-panels in the rear, the Edsel indeed looked like nothing else on the road. However, despite its appearance, the Ford Edsel was a high-tech affair, featuring state-of-the-art innovations such as the "Tele-Touch" push-button automatic transmission. Nevertheless, buyer appeal was low, and the Ford Edsel earned just a 1.5 percent share of the market in 1958. After two more years, the Edsel marque was abandoned, and its name would forever be synonymous with business failure.

November 8, 1992
Daredevil Jacky Vranken of Belgium set a record for the highest speed ever attained on the rear wheel of a motorcycle. At St. Truiden Military Airfield in Belgium, Vranken reached 157.87 while performing an extended "wheelie" with his Suzuki GSXR 1100 motorcycle. The year before, Yasuyuki Kudo of Japan had set the record for the longest wheelie when he covered 205.7 miles nonstop on the rear wheel of his Honda TLM 220 R motorcycle at the Japan Automobile Research Institute in Tsukuba, Japan.

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 9, 1960
Robert McNamara becomes the president of the Ford Motor Company. He would hold the job for less than a month, heading to Washington in December to join President John F. Kennedy's cabinet. McNamara served as the secretary of defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson until he resigned in 1968. That year, he became the president of the World Bank, a job he held until 1981.
At the end of World War II, Ford was in tatters. Henry Ford was still in charge, but he was getting old and increasingly senile; furthermore, since he had made no secret of his pacifist, anti-Semitic and anti-union convictions, many people were reluctant to do business with him or to buy one of his cars. The company had been steadily losing money since the stock market crash of 1929, and by 1945 it was losing about $9 million every month.
At GM and Chrysler, by contrast, business was booming. In order to catch up, in September 1945 Henry Ford's wife and daughter-in-law presented the elderly man with an ultimatum: make 28-year-old Henry Ford II (the elder Ford's grandson) the company's president, or his mother would sell her controlling stake in the company to the highest bidder.
Left without much choice, the elder Ford gave in and put his grandson in charge. Right away, Ford II hired 10 "Whiz Kids," including McNamara, all straight out of the Army Air Corps and all with training in economics and statistics from places like Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley and Princeton. These "Whiz Kids" managed to streamline the company and make it profitable again, in part by creating a sleek new look for Ford cars. The company's '49 coupe, with its "spinner" grille, slab sides and integrated fenders, was an immediate hit.
In all, McNamara spent 14 years at Ford, before heading to Washington, D.C., where he served under both Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson. McNamara was a key advisor to Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis and is credited with using his management skills to help the Pentagon function more efficiently. He is also known as an engineer of America's Vietnam War policy under both Kennedy and Nixon, an often-criticized role that he later discussed in the 2003 documentary The Fog of War.
McNamara left the Pentagon in early 1968, and then spent 12 years as head of the World Bank.
He died on July 6, 2009 at 93 years old.

November 9, 1989
East German citizens were allowed to buy western cars.




November 10, 1965
Formula One racer Eddie Irvine was born in Newtownards, Northern Ireland. In 1996, Irvine won a coveted place on the Ferrari team, racing alongside the likes of World Champion Michael Schumacher, but Irvine is also famous as one of the last of Formula One's most endangered species--the playboy racing driver. The popular bachelor, who maintains an impressive neutrality in regard to his British or Irish nationality, has not won a grand prix as of 1998, yet enjoyed seven career-podium finishes and reached a Formula One ranking of fourth in the world in 1998. Irvine got his start in racing at the young age of 17, competing in his father's Crossle FF 1600 Chassis, and by 1988 had worked his way up to British Formula Three series. 1990 saw him driving for the Jordan F3000 team, and he won his first race at Hockinheim that year, finishing third overall in the series. In the fall of 1993, Irvine made his Formula One debut driving for Sasol Jordan, and at the Suzuki racetrack in Japan he placed sixth, becoming the first driver since Jean Alesi to score points on a Formula One debut. In his first few years of Formula One racing, Irvine, a notoriously fearless and reckless driver, earned the nickname "Irv the Swerve." However, he also demonstrated enough driving potential to be offered the number-two position on the championship Ferrari team in 1996.

November 10, 1885
Paul Daimler, son of German engineer Gottlieb Daimler, became first motorcyclist when he rode his father's new invention for six miles; frame and wheels made of wood; leather belt transferred power from engine to large brass gears mounted to rear wheel; no suspension (front or rear); single cylinder engine had bore of 58mm, stroke of 100mm giving a displacement of 264cc's, gave 0.5hp at 700 rpm, top speed was 12 km/h.

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 11, 1978
A stuntman on the Georgia set of "The Dukes of Hazzard" launches the show's iconic automobile, a 1969 Dodge Charger named the General Lee, off a makeshift dirt ramp and over a police car. That jump, 16 feet high and 82 feet long (its landing totaled the car), made TV history. Although more than 300 different General Lees appeared in the series, which ran on CBS from 1979 until 1985, this first one was the only one to play a part in every episode: That jump over the squad car ran every week at the end of the show's opening credits.
The General Lee was a neon-orange Charger with "01" painted on the doors, a Confederate flag on the roof, and a horn that played the first 12 notes of the song "Dixie." It belonged to the Dukes of Hazzard themselves, the cousins Bo (played by actor John Schneider) and Luke Duke (actor Tom Wopat), who used it to get out of dangerous scrapes and away from the corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg. Scenes featuring the General Lee are some of the show's most memorable: Luke Duke sliding sideways across the car's hood; the boys hopping feet-first through the windows (the Charger's doors were welded shut, so the windows were the only way to get in and out); the General flying over ditches, half-open drawbridges and police cruisers.
Because practically every one of the General Lee's stunts ended up wrecking the car, the show's prop masters bought every 1969 Dodge Charger they could find (and there were plenty: the Chrysler Corporation sold about 85,000 in all). Then they outfitted each one for action, adding a roll cage to the inside, a protective push bar to the nose and heavy-duty shock absorbers and springs to the suspension. The prop masters also tampered with the brakes to make it easier to do the 180-degree "Bootleggers' Turn" that so often helped the Duke boys evade Boss Hogg. Cars used for jumps also got trunks full of concrete or lead ballast to keep them from flipping over in midair.
While "The Dukes of Hazzard" was on the air, the General Lee got about 35,000 fan letters each month. Fans bought millions of remote-controlled and toy versions of the car, and some even modified their real cars to look like the Dukes' Charger. Indianapolis DJ Travis Bell restored the original General Lee in 2006.

November 11, 1926
Official numerical designation 66 (Will Rogers Highway) assigned to the Chicago-to-Los Angeles Route (2,448 miles). It is one of nation's principal east-west arteries; diagonal course linked hundreds of predominately rural communities in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas to Chicago; enabled farmers to transport grain, produce for redistribution; diagonal configuration of Route 66 particularly significant to trucking industry (rivaled railroad for preeminence in American shipping) traversed essentially flat prairie lands, enjoyed more temperate climate than northern highways.

November 11, 1949
Rex Mays, a 1993 inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, earned his place among the all-time greats of motor racing as much for his willingness to put the welfare of others before his own as for his actual racing ability. Mays got his start on the West Coast midget racing circuit in the 1930s, winning numerous races before entering national competition where he added sprint and champ-car racing to his repertoire. In 1934, he entered the racing big leagues when he placed ninth in his first Indianapolis 500. Mays never managed to win the esteemed event, but he placed second in 1940 and 1941, the same two years that he won the national titles for champ-car racing. In 1941, Mays gave up the fame and fortune of motor racing to serve his country as an Air Force pilot during World War II. After the war, Mays returned to racing. Although he was not as winning a racer as before the war, two separate incidents demonstrated the distinction of his character, and guaranteed his venerable place in the racing history books. In June of 1948, while competing in a champ-car race at the Milwaukee Mile in Wisconsin, Mays deliberately crashed into a wall, nearly ending his life, in order to avoid hitting racer Duke Dinsmore, who was thrown from his car a moment before. And in the fall of 1949, at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse, New York, May prevented a possible fan riot when he silently took to the racetrack alone after other racers refused to compete because of a dispute over prize money. One by one the other racers joined him and violence was prevented. A few months later, on November 11, 1949, Rex Mays was killed during a race held at Del Mar, California, when he was run over by another car after being thrown from his vehicle in a mishap. In addition to his place in the Motorsports Hall of Fame, Rex is honored with a special plaque at the Milwaukee Mile, at the exact spot on the Turn One wall where he nearly gave up his life to save another.

November 11, 1989
In 1935, British car designer William Lyons introduced the SS Jaguar 100 as a new marque for his Swallow Sidecar Company. Swallow Sidecar had been manufacturing complete luxury cars for four years, but the SS Jaguar 100 was Lyons' first true sports car. During World War II, Lyons dropped the Swallow Sidecar name, and the politically incorrect SS initials, and Jaguar Cars Ltd. was formally established. The first significant postwar Jaguar, the XK 120, was introduced in 1948 at the London Motor Show to great acclaim. Capable of speeds in excess of 120mph, the XK 120 was the fastest production car in the world, and is considered by many to be one of the finest sports cars ever made. Over the next three decades, Jaguar became the epitome of speed coupled with elegance, and the company flourished as its racing division racked up countless trophies. On this day in 1989, Jaguar entered a new era when the company became a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company. The integrity of the Jaguar marque was recognized and maintained, and throughout the 1990s the company continued to produce distinguished automobiles such as the Jaguar XK8 and the luxurious Vanden Plas.

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 12, 1965
Brothers Bill and Bob Summers set a world land-speed record—409.277 miles per hour—on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. They did it in an amazing, hemi-powered hot rod they called the Goldenrod. The car got its name from the '57 Chevy gold paint the brothers used. Today, the Goldenrod is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
The Summers brothers—Bill was the levelheaded engineer and Bob was the daredevil driver—had been hot-rod racing near their home in Southern California and at the Bonneville Salt Flats for years. In 1963, they decided to get serious: if they could find the parts and equipment they needed to build the right car, they agreed, they would try to go faster than any man had ever gone. (The land-speed record at that time, 394.196 miles per hour, had been set by Briton John Cobb in 1947.) But the Summers brothers weren't the only people to have this idea: In July 1964, Englishman Donald Campbell broke Cobb's record (403.10 mph), and in 1964 and 1965, two American drivers used jet engines to go more than 600 miles per hour.
But the Summers brothers thought that using jet engines was cheating: They believed, wrote one reporter, "that real cars were driven by friction between tires and the ground." The brothers wanted their car to be as fast as possible by being as aerodynamic as possible, and it was: The finished Goldenrod was the sleekest, lowest, narrowest racer in history. It was 32 feet long, 48 inches wide and 42 inches tall, with a pointed nose and four 426 cubic-inch V8 hemi engines on loan from Chrysler. Firestone Tire and Rubber donated the specially-built low-profile tires, and Mobil Oil provided the fuel.
The Goldenrod's first six-mile run across the Bonneville Salt Flats broke Campbell's record easily, averaging 417 miles per hour. To set an official record, however, a car must make two record-breaking runs, one out and one back, within an hour. With five minutes to spare, the yellow car headed across the desert for a second time. When she screamed past the timers, her achievement was official: she'd hit an average speed of 409.277 miles per hour.
Because the Summers brothers had to return the Goldenrod's engines to Chrysler, they never tried to break their own record. It stood until Al Teague's supercharged Spirit of '76 broke it until 1991. In 2002, the Henry Ford bought the Goldenrod, paying for the car's restoration with a grant from the federal Save America's Treasure's Fund. The car is on display at the museum today.

November 12, 1927
The Holland Tunnel between New York City and Jersey City, New Jersey, was officially opened when President Calvin Coolidge telegraphed a signal from the presidential yacht, Mayflower, anchored in the Potomac River. Within an hour, over 20,000 people had walked the 9,250-foot distance between New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River, and the next day the tunnel opened for automobile service. The double-tubed underwater tunnel, the first of its kind in the United States, was built to accommodate nearly 2,000 vehicles per hour. Chief engineer Clifford Milburn Holland resolved the problem of ventilation by creating a highly advanced ventilation system that changed the air over 30 times an hour at the rate of over 3,000,000 cubic feet per minute.

November 12, 1946
The Exchange National Bank of Chicago, Illinois, instituted the first drive-in banking service in America, and anticipated a cultural phenomenon that would sweep across America in the coming decade. In 1946, America's Big Three automobile companies were still engaged in the laborious process of retooling from war production to civilian automobile company. With the influx of returning soldiers, and economic signs pointing to a period of great American prosperity, market demand for automobiles was high. At first, U.S. carmakers responded by offering their old pre-war models, but beginning in 1949, the first completely redesigned postwar cars hit the market, and Americans embraced the automotive industry as never before. By the early 1950s, the U.S. was a nation on wheels. With a seemingly endless reserve of cheap gas available, drive-in culture--featuring everything from drive-in movie theaters to drive-in grocery stores--flourished alongside America's highways and main streets. In 1946, the Exchange National Bank of Chicago anticipated the rise of America's drive-in society by several years, featuring such drive-in banking innovations as tellers' windows protected by heavy bullet-proof glass, and sliding drawers that enabled drivers to conduct their business from the comfort of their vehicle.

November 12, 1998
Daimler-Benz completed merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 13, 1916
Errett Lobban Cord, the genius behind the Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg family of automobiles, first became involved with automobiles as a racing car mechanic and driver. On this day, the 20-year-old Cord won his first motor race in Arizona. Cord, driving a Paige vehicle designed by Harry Jewett, won the 275-mile race from Douglas, Arizona, to Phoenix, Arizona. From his racing beginnings, Cord moved into automobile sales, and in 1924 came to Auburn, Indiana, to save the faltering Auburn Automobile Company. Cord, a brilliant salesman, rapidly pulled the company out of debt by clearing out hundreds of stockpiled Auburn vehicles and excess parts, and was subsequently named the vice president and general manager at Auburn. Under Cord's guidance, the Auburn line was entirely refashioned, and the new Auburns were known as some of the most luxurious and fashionable cars on the road. In 1926, Cord acquired the expert design skills of Fred Duesenberg, and in 1928, the Duesenberg Model J, one of the finest automobiles ever made, was introduced to the public. To make the family complete, the Auburn plant introduced the Cord L-29 in 1929, which was America's first successful front-wheel drive car. The Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg automobiles that sold so well in the roaring 1920s also proved surprisingly resilient during the early years of the Depression, but by 1937, America's hard times were too much even for E. L. Cord, and manufacturing ceased as his entire corporation was sold.

November 13, 1940
Willys-Overland completes original Jeep prototype. In 1939, the U.S. Army asked America's automobile manufacturers to submit designs for a simple and versatile military vehicle. It would be two full years before the official U.S. declaration of war, but military officials, who knew this declaration to be inevitable, recognized the need for an innovative troop-transport vehicle for the global battlefields of World War II. The American Bantam Car Company, a small car manufacturer, submitted the first design approved by the army, but the production contract was ultimately given to Willys-Overland, a company that had a larger production capability and offered a lower bid. The Willys Jeep, as it would become known during the war, was similar to the Bantam design, and featured four-wheel drive, an open-air cab, and a rifle rack mounted under the windshield. On this day, the first Willys-Overland Jeep prototype was completed, and submitted to the U.S. Army for approval. One year later, with the U.S. declaration of war, mass production of the Willys-Overland Jeep began. By the war's end in 1945, some 600,000 Jeeps had rolled off the assembly lines and onto the battlefields of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The efficient and sturdy four-wheel drive Jeep became a symbol of the American war effort--no obstacle could stop its advance. Somewhere along the line the vehicle acquired the name "Jeep," likely evolving from the initials G.P. for "general purchase" vehicle, and the nickname stuck. In 1945, Willys-Overland introduced the first civilian Jeep vehicle, the CJ-2A--the forefather of today's sport utility vehicles

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 15, 1977
At the Mahwah plant in New York, workers completed the 100,000,000th Ford to be built in America: a 1978 Ford Fairmont four-door sedan. The Fairmont series was introduced at the beginning of the 1978 model year, to replace the discontinued Ford Maverick. Several Fairmont models were available in the first year of the series, and the available power ran from a 140 cubic-inch, four-cylinder engine to a 302 cubic-inch V-8. The most popular Ford Fairmont was the Sporty Coupe, which was introduced midway through the 1978 model year, and featured styling reminiscent of the Thunderbird. The vehicle was two inches longer than the other Fairmont models, and featured quad headlights and a unique roof design featuring a decorative wrap-over. In the 1979 model year, the Fairmont Sporty Coupe became the Fairmont Futura Sport, and, by 1980, was available as a four-door sedan in addition to the original two-door coupe. By 1981, the Fairmont Futura series was more of a high-trim automobile than its original manifestation as a sporty vehicle, and a Futura station wagon became available. At the end of the 1983 model year, the entire Fairmont line was discontinued.



November 15, 1965
Craig Breedlove, driving his jet-powered Spirit of America--Sonic 1 vehicle, raced to 600.601 mph over the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, and set a new land-speed record. Breedlove, a four-time land-speed record holder, was also the first driver to break the 400 mph and 500 mph land-speed barriers, in 1963 and 1964 respectively. Five years later, Gary Gabelich, in his Blue Flame rocket-powered vehicle, would break Breedlove's record by reaching 622.407 mph over the Bonneville Salt Flats.

PICTURED BELOW: Craig Breedlove's Spirit of America

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 17, 1906
Honda Motor Company founder Soichiro Honda was born the son of a blacksmith in Hamamatsu, Japan, about 150 miles southwest of Tokyo. Honda, who displayed remarkable mechanical intuition even at a young age, began working in an auto repair shop in Tokyo at age 15. In 1928, Honda returned to Hamamatsu to set up another branch of the repair shop, and also began pursuing his youthful passion for motor car racing. In 1936, Honda won his first racing trophy at the All-Japan Speed Rally, but nearly died when his car crashed shortly after setting a speed record. After a prolonged recovery, Honda left racing, and during World War II constructed airplane propellers for his country. When the war was over, Japan's industry was in shambles, and Honda saw an opportunity to beat swords into plowshares by starting an automotive company of his own. He bought a surplus of small generator engines from the military at a bargain price and began attaching them to bicycle frames. Honda's fuel-efficient vehicles were popular in a time when fuel was scarce, and in September of 1948, with only $1,500, Honda formed the Honda Motor Company in Hamamatsu. The company began building a full line of powerful and well-made motorcycles that by 1955 led motorcycle production in Japan. Honda proved as effective a company manager as he was a talented engineer, and by the early 1960s, Honda was the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles. From this immense success, Honda was inspired to begin automobile production in 1962. Honda's first vehicle, the pint-size S-360, failed to make a dent in the American market, and it was not until 1972, and the introduction of the Civic 1200, that Honda became a serious contender in the industry. The fuel crisis of 1973 was the catalyst that thrust Honda and other Japanese auto manufacturers into the forefront of the international market. Cars like the Honda Civic proved far more durable and fuel efficient than anything being produced in Detroit at the time, and American consumers embraced Japanese-made automobiles. In 1973, Soichiro Honda retired from the top position at Honda, but the company he founded went on to become an industry leader, establishing such successful marques as the Accord, which by 1989 was the best-selling car in America.

November 17, 1970
First wheeled-vehicle on the moon. An unmanned Soviet lunar probe, Luna 17, soft-landed in the Sea of Rains on the surface of the moon on this day. Hours later, Lunokhod 1, a self-propelled vehicle controlled by Soviet mission control on earth, rolled out of the Luna landing probe, and became the first wheeled vehicle to travel on the surface of the moon. Lunokhod, which explored the Mare Imbrium region of the Sea of Rains, sent back television images and took soil samples. Despite this notable space first, the Soviet space program was trailing considerably behind the U.S. program which, in 1969, had succeeded in putting an American on the moon with the Apollo 11 lunar mission. In August of 1971, during the fourth manned lunar landing, the United States achieved another first: astronauts David R. Scott and James B. Irwin drove the Lunar Rover--the first manned lunar automobile--on the surface of the moon.

November 17, 1998
The brand-new Daimler Chrysler began trading its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The company had formed five days earlier, when the American Chrysler Corporation merged with the German conglomerate Daimler-Benz AG. As a result of the merger, DaimlerChrysler became the world's fifth-largest automaker behind General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen.
The Daimler-Chrysler merger, for which Daimler-Benz AG paid $36 billion, was supposed to create a single powerhouse car company that could compete in all markets, all over the world. Daimler-Benz was known for its high-quality luxury cars and sturdy trucks, while Chrysler's minivans and Jeeps had a big chunk of the growing sport- utility vehicle market; meanwhile, the American company seemed to have mastered the art of high-volume, low-cost manufacturing. However, things did not quite work out that way. Chrysler actually lost so much money—$1.5 billion in 2006 alone—that in 2007 Daimler paid a private equity firm to take the company off its hands.
In 2009, Chrysler filed for bankruptcy again. In order to stay afloat, it merged with the Italian company Fiat.

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 21, 1970
One of the rarest of Ford Mustangs--the Boss 351--debuted at the Detroit Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan. Ford first introduced the Mustang marque in 1964 and the car was an instant success, appearing on the covers of both Time and Newsweek. The car, known as a "pony car" for its small size, had the appearance of a sports car. However, the Mustang was far more reasonably prized than the average sports car, and it possessed a rare popular appeal that made it one of the greatest automotive success stories of the 1960s. By 1970, the Ford Mustang had grown considerably in size, and the Boss 351 could better be described as a "muscle car" than a "pony car." The car featured a powerful 8-cyclinder engine built on Ford's new "Cleveland" block, and was factory rated at 300bhp. The Boss 351 was also unquestionably one the rarest Mustangs ever released--it was manufactured for just a single production year, 1971, and only 1,806 units were made--compared with the 500,000 Mustangs manufactured and sold by Ford in 1965 alone.

November 21, 1937
Howard E. Coffin, who founded the Hudson Motor Company along with Joseph L. Hudson in 1909, died from an accidental gunshot wound at Sea Island Beach in Georgia at the age of 64. Coffin served as vice president and chief engineer of Hudson from 1909 to 1930, and was responsible for a number of Hudson's important automotive innovations, including the placement of the steering wheel on the left side, the self-starter, and dual brakes. Under Coffin's influence the Hudson Essex was introduced in 1919, a sturdy automobile built on an all-steel body that sold for pennies more than Ford's Model T. Coffin's last production year with Hudson was also the company's most prosperous--Hudson production peaked in 1929 with over 300,000 units.

November 21, 2005
General Motors Corp. announced it would close 12 facilities, lay off 30,000 workers in North America.

[Shermatt]

On this day, November 25, 1973
In response to the 1973 oil crisis, President Richard M. Nixon called for a Sunday ban on the sale of gasoline to consumers. The proposal was part of a larger plan announced by Nixon earlier in the month to achieve energy self-sufficiency in the United States by 1980. The 1973 oil crisis began in mid-October, when 11 Arab oil producers increased oil prices and cut back production in response to the support of the United States and other nations for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Almost overnight, gasoline prices quadrupled, and the U.S. economy, especially its automakers, suffered greatly as a result. The Sunday gasoline ban lasted until the crisis was resolved in March of the next year, but other government legislation, such as the imposing of a national speed limit of 55mph, was extended indefinitely. Experts maintained that the reduction of speed on America's highways would prevent an estimated 9,000 traffic fatalities per year. Although many motorists resented the new legislation, one long-lasting benefit for impatient travelers was the ability to make right turns at a red light, a change that the authorities estimated would conserve a significant amount of gasoline. In 1995, the national 55mph speed limit was repealed, and legislation relating to highway speeds now rests in state hands.

November 25, 1920
Gaston Chevrolet, the younger brother of famous automobile designer and racer Louis Chevrolet, was killed during a race in Beverly Hills, California. Gaston, born in La-Chauz-de-Fonds, Switzerland, came to America in the early nineteenth century to join his brothers Louis and Andre in the establishment of a racing car design company: the Frontenac Motor Corporation. Frontenac replaced Louis' earlier racing car design company, the Chevrolet Motor Company, which he sold to William C. Durant in 1915. After some initial success, the Chevrolet brothers were faced with obsolete vehicles after World War I, and not enough financial resources to make them competitive again. However, in 1920, the new management at the Monroe Motors Company asked Louis to run his racing team. The Chevrolets moved their operations to Indianapolis, and rapidly made the Monroe racers ready for the 1920 Indy 500, the first to be held since 1914. During the 1920s, the Indy 500 was the most important racing event in America, and Gaston Chevrolet, driving a Chevrolet-adapted Monroe, won the first post-war competition with an average race speed of 86.63mph. The Chevrolet brothers did not have long to enjoy their success, however, because just a few months later Gaston was killed along with his riding mechanic Lyall Jolls during the Beverly Hills race.

[Juanball mustang]

Where's Shermatt and his this day in history. I know after 365 posts it might become a little repetitive but guessing most of us are at an age we'd love to remember something from a year ago !