This Month in Automotive History

July 1

1956 Ike’s Interstates
The Highway Revenue Act of 1956 was put into effect by Congress, outlining a policy of taxation with the aim of creating a fund for the construction of over 42,500 miles of interstate highways over a period of thirteen years. The push for a national highway system began many years earlier, when the privately funded construction of the Lincoln Highway begun in 1919. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) did much to set into motion plans for a federally funded highway system, but his efforts were halted by the outbreak of World War II. With the end of the war came America’s industrial boom and a massive increase in automobile registration. Dwight D. Eisenhower, elected president in 1952, had been a supporter of a federally funded highway system ever since, as an Army Lieutenant in 1919, he led a military convoy from San Francisco to New York. His travels through Germany during World War II only increased his desire to replicate Germany’s autobahn system. Eisenhower’s 1954 State of the Union address made clear his intentions to follow through on his interest. He declared the need to “protect the vital interests of every citizen in a safe, adequate highway system.” It wasn’t until 1956 that Eisenhower saw his vision pass through Congress. The scale of the plan was breathtaking: At a time when the total federal budget approached $71 billion, Eisenhower’s plan called for $50 billion over thirteen years for highways. To pay for the project a system of taxes, relying heavily on the taxation of gasoline, was implemented. Legislation has extended the Interstate Highway Revenue Act three times. Today consumers pay 18.3 cents per gallon on gasoline. Eisenhower thought of the Federal Interstate System as his greatest achievement. Today, revisionists question the solutions offered by our massive labyrinth of highways. Undoubtedly the interstate system changed America and made it what it is today, with suburbs and “edge cities” springing up across the country. Employment increased, as well as the U.S. gross national product. Still, both state and federal governments struggle to appropriate the funds to expand our national road network and meet the demand of the ever-growing population of car-owners. Many economists subscribe to Helen Levitt’s theory that “congestion rises to meet road capacity,” and anti-road activists are citing the loss of productive farmland, the demise of small business, the destruction of the environment, and the “urbanization” of American society. Truly, the grass is always greener on the other side of the highway.

July 2

1992 One Million 'Vettes
Original Corvette engineer Zora Arkus Duntov drove the one-millionth Chevrolet Corvette off of the assembly line in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The event was monumental to both America's first sports car and the man that made the car possible. Duntov was born in Belgium, the son of Russian immigrants. He pursued an interest in motorcycle racing and engineering until the outbreak of World War II, at which point he joined the French Air Force. After the French surrender, Duntov managed to secure exit visas to Spain for his entire family. He later resettled in Manhattan, and started a performance engineering firm, called Ardun, with his brother. The firm enjoyed a reputation for quality, but eventually went out of business as the result of questionable financial practices on the part of a third partner that Duntov and his brother had taken on. Duntov moved to England to work on the Allard sports car, which he co-drove at Le Mans in 1952 and 1953. Duntov earned a reputation as an exacting driver and engineer in the European tradition of performance car racing. After witnessing the prototype Corvette on display at the 1953 Motorama in New York City, he decided to join Chevrolet. While Duntov was visually taken by the car, he expressed dismay at what lay under the hood. He wrote Chevrolet chief engineer Ed Cole and offered his services to improve the Corvette, including with his note a technical paper outlining his plan to increase the Corvette's performance capabilities. Chevrolet was so impressed that engineer Maurice Olley, then in charge of the Corvette, offered Duntov a position as a staff engineer. Soon after arriving at Chevrolet, Duntov set the tone for his career at the company by distributing a paper to his superiors entitled "Thoughts Pertaining to Youth, Hot Rodders, and Chevrolet." The paper laid the foundation for a strategy to create both racing and performance parts programs for Chevy. It was his desire that the Corvette measure itself against the best sports cars in the world: Porsche, Ferrari, and Mercedes. He helped develop the small-block V-8 engine to increase the little Corvette's power; he introduced the Duntov high-lift cam-shaft; and he introduced fuel injection, seeing the Corvette through from its inauspicious beginnings to its triumphant end. He created the Corvette Grand Sport Program in 1963, making the Corvette competitive on all levels of international performance competition. Duntov also helped to build the Corvette culture, appearing at Corvette shows, clubs, and rallies all over the U.S. He retired from Chevrolet in 1975, but Duntov's legacy will stay alive as long as Corvettes roam the open road.

July 3

1978 Renowned Bean Counter Dies
Ernest R. Breech, chairman of the Ford Motor Company from 1955-1960, died in Royal Oak, Michigan at the age of 81. Breech had been at the top of the accounting world when Henry Ford II had personally pleaded with him to join the ailing Ford Motor Company and take a chance at reviving one of America’s historic corporations. Born in modest circumstances, the son of a blacksmith in Lebanon, Missouri, Breech excelled in school and was drafted by the St. Louis Browns baseball team. He turned down the contract in favor of college, where he earned record high marks before dropping out for financial reasons. He took correspondence courses to study for the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) examination in Chicago, and received a Gold Medal from the University of Illinois for making the highest marks in the state. Breech described his feelings at receiving the award, saying “That was my first success. I think that was probably the happiest day of my life, business-wise. I took the exam against boys who had gone to the universities.” Breech went on to create one of the greatest accounting careers in history. He went from the Checker Cab Company to General Motors, where he spent nine years, before signing on with the Bendix Aviation Company, where he tripled their output in one year. In 1946, Ford had been losing an average of $68 million a year since the war, and Henry Ford II was struggling to hold onto the reins of one of America’s mightiest institutions, still recovering from the retirement of its founder. Ford befriended Breech, eventually persuading him to work for Ford. Breech considered it his duty, saying “Here’s a young man only one year older than our oldest son. He needs help; this is a great challenge that if I don’t accept I shall always regret.” Before the so-called “Whiz Kids” came on the scene, it was Breech who cleared the ground for expansion by trimming away Ford’s corporate fat. He decentralized management and gave the place what Businessweek called, “the professional management savvy required to translate the concept into the elaborate organization.” More importantly, Breech plowed most of the company’s profits back into the company, investing heavily on future production. Breech became a mentor to young Henry Ford, who studied him carefully. While the two men were apparently inseparable at first, Ford gradually distanced himself from the man that had saved his father’s company. After being the de facto ruler of Ford, from the position of Chairman of the Board, Breech was soon challenged by his protégé. Reportedly, in 1958, at a Ford gathering in West Virginia, Henry Ford declared, “I am the captain of this ship and I intend to remain captain as long as my name is on the bow.” Breech is said to have turned pale at the remark. Two years later Breech stepped down from his position after “many months of deepest soul-searching.” He left behind him a company that was earning $500 million a year with $4 billion in plants and equipment.

July 4

1984 A King's Independence
Richard Petty, the king of stock car racing, won his 200th career victory at the Firecracker 400 race in Daytona, Florida, in front of a record crowd that included NASCAR's first presidential patron, Ronald Reagan. Petty's record for wins will very likely never be broken. The Firecracker 400 win was especially dramatic, as Petty hadn't been winning regularly on the circuit and had suffered an embarrassment eight months earlier when he was found to have run too big an engine in his victory at the 1983 Miller 500 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The convergence of the King's 200th win, the presence of the President, and the date of July 4th led NASCAR critics to suggest that the win may have been arranged. NASCAR has long been suspected of aiding certain drivers in need, the most serious allegation being that it allowed Junior Johnson to run illegal engines in 1994 in order to encourage McDonalds to remain a team car sponsor. Petty fans bristle at the accusation that the King's crowning achievement wasn't courtly, and while their case is solid, a shadow of doubt remains. His supporters contend that Petty leased his car engine from Robert Yates, the headman of Digard racing team--whose driver was Petty's lifelong rival, Bobby Allison. Why would Digard give Petty a bigger engine than Allison? Moreover, Petty had been caught running too big an engine eight months earlier, and the so-called "Pettygate" scandal had resulted in much unpleasant publicity for NASCAR. Additionally, Petty's cars had been running strong all year. He'd led over 200 laps already in 1984 and he had won five weeks earlier at the Dover 500, where Daytona 500 champion Cale Yarborough had described Petty as "real strong" at the season's first event. Finally, Petty had never relied heavily on power to win him races, instead preferring to outmaneuver his opponents and preserve his car for the later stages of the race when he could take control. NASCAR's restrictor plates create fertile ground for conspiracy theories, as slight size adjustments in the plates can create an edge in horsepower that would give an insurmountable advantage to most of today's drivers. It's true that the eighties saw NASCAR trying to promote itself to a broader fan base, and that a spectacle such as an Independence day victory for the sport's greatest racer in front of the nation's President was an irresistible lure. But there was a reason Richard Petty won his first 199 victories when his closest competition won only 105--so why question number 200?

July 5

1933 Life in the Fast Lane
Fritz Todt was appointed General Inspector for German Highways on this day in 1933. His primary assignment: to build a comprehensive autobahn system. Todt, a civil engineer who was a proponent of a national highway system as a means of economic development, was handpicked for the position in 1932 by Adolf Hitler. The two men were close friends, and Todt remained a Nazi party member throughout World War II. By 1936, 100,000 kilometers of divided highways had been completed, leaving Germany with the most advanced transportation system in the world. Todt estimated in a 1936 speech that "170,000,000 cubic meters of earth have been moved. This would fill a line of trucks extending around the earth four times." He concluded his speech with an exhortation to the German people typical of Nazi party propaganda, "They are roads unequaled anywhere else in the world in their technical excellence and beauty. Is this a work of technology? No! Like so much else, it is the work of Adolf Hitler!" The autobahns were, in fact, the envy of the industrialized world and a source of both anxiety and awe for Europeans. A Danish newspaper declared, "They are the expression of a national energy that compels the greatest admiration." What few suspected was that the German road system was the first step to their conquest of Western Europe, as the autobahns allowed the Germans to move troops and personnel faster and in greater numbers than anyone could have imagined. The ease with which the German army moved into France owes much to its facility to mobilize and shift troops faster than the French could. Todt became a national hero for his creation, and the autobahn inspired U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to foster a similar American interstate highway system. Having been in Germany during the war, he returned to the States deeply convinced that good highways were directly linked to economic prosperity.

July 6

1955 Smog Control
The Federal Air Pollution Control Act was implemented on this day in 1955, providing federally allocated funds for research into causal analysis and control of car-emission pollution. Concern over the effects of air-pollution had mounted steadily in the U.S. as urban sprawl increased. In 1952, a "killer fog" enveloped London, causing an estimated 4,000 deaths. Though both the cause and the precise effects of the fog were unclear, the phenomenon sparked an international hysteria about the effects of emissions pollution. The following year, Dr. Arie Haagen-Smit discovered the nature of photochemical smog, determining that nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons combined with ultraviolet radiation from the sun created smog. He also discovered that ozone played a key role in the bonding process that created smog. It was at this time that the U.S. began a rapid shift from coal as an energy source, replacing it with natural gas. It would not be until 1960 that the government specifically addressed car-emissions pollution as a legal issue, with the Federal Motor Vehicle Act of 1960, calling for further research and development into the control of car emissions. The next year, the first automotive emissions control technology--positive crankcase ventilation (PCV)--was mandated by the California Motor Vehicle Board. PCV technology limited hydrocarbon emission by returning blow-by gases from the crankcase back to a car's cylinders, where they were burned with fuel and air. In 1963, the first Federal Clean-Air Act was passed, allocating research money for local and federal institutions to combat air-pollution.

July 7

1928 Chrysler Plymouth Debuts
The Chrysler Corporation introduced the Plymouth as its newest car on this day in 1928. The Plymouth project had taken three years to complete, as Chrysler engineers worked to build a reliable and affordable car to compete with the offerings of Ford and General Motors (GM). The Plymouth debuted with great fanfare in July of 1928, with renowned aviator Amelia Earhart behind the wheel. The publicity blitz brought 30,000 people to the Chicago Coliseum for a glimpse of the new car. With a delivery price of $670, the Plymouth was an attractive buy, selling over 80,000 units in its first year and forcing Chrysler to expand its production facilities drastically. Chrysler was still negotiating its purchase of Dodge at the time, and the Plymouth played a key role in winning over the confidence of Dodge shareholders. When Chrysler released the DeSoto Six later in the year, it scored another important coup in the mid-range market, assuring its position as a competitor to Ford and GM. Chrysler’s great success in the late twenties, along with its purchase of Dodge, gave the company momentum that would carry it through the Depression. Chrysler was the only car company to pay dividends to its shareholders throughout the Depression. While other companies were drowning from stifled cash flow, Chrysler managed to increase sales. In 1933 Chrysler became the only car company to best its sales of the 1929 boom year. All the while Chrysler continued to allocate resources to research and development, and by 1935 Chrysler had surpassed Ford to become the nation’s second largest car company.

July 8

1909 Romney Sticks to His Guns
George Romney, the AMC President largely responsible for the introduction of the compact car, was born in a Mormon colony in Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico. Romney’s grandfather, Miles Romney, had been one of the founding members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. The elder Romney sired thirty children, one of who was Gaskell Romney, George’s father. In 1885 when U.S. law forbade polygamy, a number of Mormons obtained permission from the Mexican government to buy land and start colonies. While George’s parents followed the group, they remained monogamists. The family returned to the U.S. in 1912, afraid of being harmed at the hands of Pancho Villa’s marauding band. George Romney grew up in poverty in California and never went to college. He remained Mormon and credited his success to his spiritual training, saying “I do not think there is any college training that is a substitute for my religious training.” He entered the car industry as a salesman and eventually became one of the most powerful men in the business, leading AMC in becoming the largest independent car company in the country. He became the governor of Michigan in 1962, a position he held for eight years. Romney was a visible figure in the civil rights movement and he caused a great sensation when he spoke out against the war in Vietnam in 1967, as he had strongly supported the war effort in only two years earlier after returning from a visit with a group of governors to Saigon. Following his trip, he deemed the war “morally right and necessary.” Romney’s change of opinion came as he saw the war worsening and through his increased knowledge of Vietnam. He felt that he had been “brainwashed” during his visit to Vietnam and that the leaders of the country were not being honest about the war. The voting public deemed his reversal of opinion unforgivable, hurting his chances badly when Romney ran for the presidency in 1968. Sticking to his guns, Romney accused Secretary of Defense and former Ford executive Robert McNamara of giving the public inaccurate information. Romney may have been enigmatic and prone to changes of opinion, but history shows him as a man who was willing to admit to being wrong while others were afraid to do the same.

July 9

1919 Ford Retools
The Ford Motor Company was reorganized as a Delaware corporation with Edsel Ford as company president on this day in 1919. The reorganization was the last step in Henry Ford’s drive to gain 100% of the company’s stock for his family. He borrowed heavily in order to buy out the minority shareholders. The extent to which the Ford family has maintained control over the company makes Ford unique in the annals of business history. Edsel Ford held the title of President until his death in 1943, but Henry effectively ran the company until 1945, when Henry Ford II took control of the company. The year following the Ford stock buyout saw a postwar recession that rattled the automotive industry, forcing Henry Ford to the brink of defaulting due to his heavy borrowing to manage the buyout. Ford implemented a ruthless cost-cutting policy, pinching pennies in production and administration while laying off half of his office staff and three-quarters if his foremen. Still short of money, he used all of his remaining stock parts in the winter of 1920-21 to build tens of thousands of Model Ts, shipping them to Ford dealers who were still struggling to sell existing Model Ts. Faced with the prospect of losing money on sales or losing their dealerships, the dealers were forced to push the extra cars hard. They never forgave Henry Ford for his extortionist policy, but it worked, and Ford turned the company around. By 1923 Ford held 60% of the domestic car market. Henry Ford earned respect in Wall Street for his initiative, probably because he saved so many of their dollars. A Dow Jones release described Ford as having “displayed a degree of financial astuteness totally unexpected.” Similar authoritarian tactics would lead Ford and his company into trouble in the years after the Great Depression.

July 10

1907 The Rise and Fall of Oldsmar
A post office--a sign of permanent settlement--was established on this day in 1907 at the north end of Tampa Bay, Florida, serving a settlement that would become Oldsmar, Florida, a planned community financed by Oldsmobile icon Ransom Eli Olds. When Olds purchased 37,500 acres from Richard Peters in 1913, only a few settlers occupied the territory. Olds already owned a house on the Atlantic coast of Florida in Daytona Beach, and the Gulf Coast offered the cheap coastal land he needed for his development project. He originally dubbed his new town “R.E. Olds-On-The-Sea,” but thankfully someone suggested he change its name to Oldsmar shortly thereafter. Olds spent $400,000 on purchasing the land, but he would go on to pour in over $4 million to develop the settlement. Having already started the Oldsmobile and REO companies, the planned community was the fifty-two-year-old Olds’ final challenge. He financed the construction of miles of extra-wide roads and paved sidewalks, and built a comprehensive water system--a difficult project in Florida’s lowland aquifer. Olds encouraged farming in his new town, and in the meantime, went about trying to attract other forms of business and entrepreneurial spirit, spending $100,000 on an oil well that unfortunately never yielded anything but sulphurous water. Olds saturated Detroit with advertisements for his idyllic new town, hoping to lure thousands of autoworkers to the better climate. In expectation of their arrival, Olds constructed shoddy houses with poor plumbing systems. Few workers came, as Olds had never been popular with his workers. Unable to attract a labor force, Olds realized he would have trouble convincing companies to move to Oldsmar. His nearest success came when he provided financial backing to the Kardell Truck Company provided it move to town, but the venture proved unsuccessful. Oldsmar remained a sleepy fishing and farming town--with nice roads. In 1923 Olds had millions invested in Oldsmar. When he realized the town wasn’t going to grow, he attempted to liquidate his assets, selling parcels of land and a nearly finished racetrack. He left the town having incurred over $3 million in losses. Olds had envisioned a city of 100,000 inhabitants, but when he abandoned Oldsmar, he left behind only 200 permanent residents.

July 11

1916 The Rise of Federal Roads
In a White House ceremony, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Aid Road Act, the first grant-in-aid enacted by Congress to help states build roads. In 1916, roads throughout America were generally poor and most were susceptible to weather. The advent of the Ford Model T brought on new interests in higher standards for roads, and by the early 1900s, motorist clubs like the American Automobile Association (AAA) had rallied around the call for federally funded long-distance highways. Farmers balked at the idea, arguing that paying taxes so city people could go on car tours was unfair. As the car became more important to farmers, however, the ground became fertile for legislation to raise the quality or roads across the country. In 1907, the legal issue of the federal government's role in road-building was settled in the Supreme Court case Wilson vs. Shaw. Justice David Brewer wrote that the federal government could "construct interstate highways" because of their constitutional right to regulate interstate commerce. By 1912, bills concerning federal funding of the highways were considered on the House floor, although a split in constituencies had divided the advocates. Farmers wanted sturdy, all-weather postal roads, and urban motorists wanted paved long-distance highways. Many state officials claim that any federal-funding package would only be used as a "pork barrel" to interfere with the operations of the state. In the end, a bill was passed that included the stipulation that all states have a highway agency staffed by professional engineers who would administer the federal funds as they saw fit. The bill on offer leaned in the favor of the rural populations by focusing on rural postal roads rather than interstate highways. The cause of interstate highways would not be addressed until many years later during U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration, but the Federal Aid Road Act was the cornerstone for today's highway system and the precedent for all highway legislation to come. The rural road improvement that happened as a result of the Act helped rural Americans participate more efficiently in the national economy.

July 12

1904 Climb to the Clouds
Driver Harry Harkness won the first Mount Washington, New Hampshire, hillclimb race driving a sixty-horsepower Mercedes Benz on this day in 1904. The earliest ascent of Mount Washington in an automobile occurred in 1899, but the aptly named "Carriage Road" had been carrying coaches to the top of Mount Washington since 1861. Answering the public's desire for auto racing--hillclimb races in particular--local authorities arranged for the first "Climb to the Clouds." The race attracted entries from car companies who wished to show off their performance capabilities. A contemporary account describes Harkness' win: "In a chill driving mist that would compel cautious running even on a wide level road, Harry Harkness rushed Mount Washington in the Climb to the Clouds today and placed the record figures for this year at twenty-four minutes, thirty seconds. Something more than the achievements of the drivers of American stock cars was to be expected from the sixty-horsepower, $18,000 Mercedes, and from this comparative view the feat was not extraordinary." In contrast to Harkness and his expensive import, F.E. Stanley, the creator of the Stanley Steamer, drove his eight-horsepower steam engine to the top in twenty-eight minutes and nineteen seconds. Steam cars had dominated hillclimb events until companies like Mercedes could engineer cars that would handle the massive internal combustion engines required to propel them up inclines at higher speeds. The accomplishment of the drivers in these events is perhaps more remarkable than the feats of the cars themselves. Consider the newspaper account of Harkness' run: "To guide 2,200 pounds of mechanism up an eight-mile narrow mountain road, and to pull up just 4,600 feet above the starting point after averaging twenty miles an hour without a stop is a sure enough test of man and machine." In order to compete with Harkness' impressive posted time, Stanley stripped his machine bare for his ascent. The Stanley's engine had only fifteen moving parts, ran silently, and managed only seven horsepower, but at twenty miles per hour it would bump and knock around a mountain road even more than its heavier competitors. Stanley eliminated even his seat cushion for the climb, and when he stood at the podium to accept the trophy for the steam car class "he was rather used up with the jolting he got along the way." The Climb to the Clouds still runs today in late June.

July 13

1995 U.S. Cars in Hanoi
On this day in 1995, the Chrysler Corporation opened a car dealership in downtown Hanoi, Vietnam. One week later, Chrysler opened another dealership in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, with the intention of marketing 200 import vehicles per year through the two dealerships. The openings were a part of Chrysler’s long-term goal of implementing auto production in Vietnam--something that rivals Ford and Toyota were also pursuing at the time. On September 6, Chrysler received permission from the Vietnamese government to assemble vehicles in Vietnam, allowing Chrysler to construct a production facility in Dong Nai Province, Southern Vietnam, with the aim of manufacturing 500 to 1,000 Dodge Dakota pick-up trucks for the Vietnamese market annually. Chrysler Vice-President of International Operations Tom Gale stated, “We’re taking a very long term view with our program in Vietnam. Southeast Asia is a significant market on our international growth strategy, so it is vital to establish a foothold there now. Since it is a young market, it will take several years before we can produce at capacity level.” Chrysler planned to achieve production of 17,000 vehicles annually in three car types: the Neon, the Dakota, and the Jeep Cherokee. Of the significant hang-ups faced by the foreign car companies attempting to set up shop in Vietnam was the Vietnamese government’s refusal to give up rice pasture land for the construction of new production facilities. The American car companies also met resistance from some Vietnam veterans groups, but Chrysler held that Chrysler would not have gone forward with their move unless he thought it met with the nation’s approval. On this issue, Gale said, “By starting business here we feel we’re helping the healing process. We have consulted with veterans groups and the U.S. government. Some feel it’s time to move on. Many of the veterans groups support American investment in Vietnam as an outlet to increase access to the country.” Projections showed that by the year 2000 the car market in Vietnam would increase to 60,000 vehicles sold annually. The crash of the Asian market in 1998 will limit those projections considerably.

July 14

1955 Karmann-Ghia Debuts
Volkswagen introduced the Karmann-Ghia coupe at the Kasino Hotel in Westfalia, Germany. As the European car market finally recovered from the war, Volkswagen felt that it needed to release an “image car” to accompany its plain but reliable “Bugs and Buses.” Volkswagen was not the only automotive company looking for a flagship car at the time. Chevrolet had released the Corvette, and Ford the Thunderbird. The Chrysler Corporation had contracted with the Italian design firm Ghia to create designs for a Chrysler dream car; however, none of the designs came to fruition. Meanwhile, Volkswagen had contracted with German coach-builder Karmann for their own image car, and Karmann, in turn, had sub-contracted to Ghia for design offerings. Eventually Ghia supplied Karmann with a version of their Chrysler design, modified for the floor plane of the Volkswagen Beetle. The Karmann-Ghia was released as a 1956 model by Volkswagen. The car’s sleek lines and hand craftsmanship attracted the attention Volkswagen had hoped for. Nevertheless, as sporty as the Karmann-Ghia looked, it suffered from its thirty-six-horsepower flat four engine in the area of power. Still, the Karmann-Ghia sold 10,000 units in its first full production year ,and with the release of the convertible in 1958, production reached 18,000 units for one year. Sales climbed steadily through the 1960s, peaking at 33,000 cars per year. While General Motors and Ford focused on their Corvette and Thunderbird, respectively, Volkswagen found that the Bug had increased in popularity, especially in the U.S. market. Executives decided to focus their marketing attention on the Bug, abandoning the Karmann-Ghia, which was last produced in 1974.

July 15

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

July 16

1955 Moss’ Road to Fame
Stirling Moss won his first Grand Prix race, the British Grand Prix in Aintree, driving a Mercedes Benz W196. Moss is considered the greatest racer that never won a World Driving Championship, having finished second to Juan Manuel Fangio for four consecutive years. Most impressive is Moss's record of having won 16 of 66 Grand Prix starts and 194 of his 466 starts in major events. Moss was born September 17, 1929, in London, England. His father, a dentist, had competed in the Indy 500 in 1924 and 1925. Moss began his racing career, against his parents' wishes, in 1946 as a driver for Cooper in the Formula 3 division. He solidified his reputation by posting successful results in hill-climbing events. By 1950 Moss had become one of the favorites in Grand Prix racing, and it is often said that his results would have been better had he not insisted on racing British cars whenever possible. "Better to lose honorably in a British car than to win in a foreign one," he was once heard saying. But his loyalty to British cars also accounted for some of Moss's finest moments. At the Italian Grand Prix in Monaco in 1961, Moss entered an under-powered Lotus, presumably no match for the faster Ferraris in the field. When out ahead early against the Ferraris, Moss gambled that the Ferrari drivers would be confident in catching him late in the race. By lap eighty-one, leading Ferrari driver Richie Ginther had made up most of the ground that he'd yielded to Moss early on, but Moss had held something in reserve. Just when it seemed inevitable that Ginther would pass, Moss held him at bay for a dramatic victory. Moss's career effectively ended with a crash at Goodwood in 1962 that left him partially paralyzed on his left side. He rehabilitated himself to make an astonishing comeback in May of the following year at a private session at Goodwood, where Moss rounded the track for nearly thirty minutes, pulled in and declared, "I'm retiring."

July 17

1964 His Father’s Son
Donald Campbell, the son of Britain’s most prolific landspeed record holder, Sir Malcolm Campbell, drove the Proteus Bluebird to a four-wheel, gasoline-powered landspeed record with two identical runs of 403 miles per hour at Lake Eyre, South Australia. Campbell contracted rheumatic fever as a child while accompanying his father to South Africa for the elder Campbell’s assault on the 300 miles per hour barrier. The fever nearly cost Campbell his life, and reshaped his childhood, confining him to a wheel chair for almost three years. Young Campbell lived in his father’s dark shadow, as Sir Malcolm was said by some to be a proponent of tough love, and by others to be a cruel-hearted disciplinarian. Whatever the case, the relationship between father and son was strained with Malcolm, expecting too much from his son, and Donald avoiding the expectations as best he could. With the breakout of World War II Donald seized his chance to live up to his father by signing up for the Royal Air Force (RAF)--Malcolm had flown in World War I. But he was refused when the RAF learned of his history of rheumatic fever. Instead Donald became a constable in England. Meanwhile, his father was a successful military attaché in the Middle East. Donald recalls the trying time, “It appeared I was something of a failure. The Old Man was doing a real job of work and here I was playing policemen and getting into bloody silly accidents.” The “accident” was a motorcycle crash with a truck that Donald suffered while on duty. After the war, Sir Malcolm continued to pursue speed records until his death. It wasn’t until after his father had passed away that Donald considered pursuing speed records. When it became known his father’s waterspeed record was in danger, Donald asked his father’s long time chief mechanic and close family friend, Leo Villa, to help him set a new mark. It was his chance at redemption. Donald had trouble raising money for his pursuit as his father had left nearly his entire estate to his future grandchildren. Donald raced his father’s old boat for nearly six years before breaking his first waterspeed record. He broke 200 miles per hour, a barrier man thought unbreakable on water and then proceeded to raise the mark to over 260 miles per hour. His single-minded quest for records left behind two failed marriages. Progressively more ambitious, Donald set his sights on the more prestigious landspeed record. He crashed badly, nearly dying, in his first attempt in the Proteus Bluebird at the Bonneville Salt Flats. After undergoing physical rehabilitation and the struggle to raise money for a new car body, he was ready to try to break the 400 miles per hour mark again. Many, including some of his crewmembers, thought the crash had ruined his nerves. Donald appeared to be driving too cautiously. But when American Craig Breedlove set an unofficial record of 404 milrs per hour in a rocket car, Donald knew he had to act. His record run at Lake Eyre, in the face of so many doubters, was his defining moment. Still he wasn’t satisfied. Worried by Breedlove’s record and his father’s ghost, he decided to go for the double, holding both land and water speed records at once. Months later on Lake Dumbleyung in Western Australia, Donald tested his own limits for the last time. “Full power… tramping like hell… I can’t see much and the water’s very bad indeed. I can’t get over the top… I’m getting a lot of bloody row in here… I can’t see anything.. I’ve got the bows up… I’ve gone.” His last words.

July 18

1948 Maestro’s First Class
Juan Manuel Fangio, a.k.a. “the Maestro,” made his Formula One debut finishing twelfth at the Grand Prix de l’ACF in France. Fangio was thirty-seven years old at the start of his first Formula One race, but his late appearance onto the racing scene did not diminish his impact. Born to an Italian immigrant family outside of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Fangio learned to race on the deathtrap tracks of Argentina for little reward. Finally his excellence was recognized by Argentine dictator Juan Peron, who agreed to sponsor Fangio’s racing career. Formula One Grand Prix racing began in 1950, and Fangio took second place in the World Driver’s Championship driving for Alpha Romeo. The next year he won. A crash kept him out of the circuit for the next two years but in 1954 he switched to the Mercedes team and won his first of four consecutive World Driver’s Championships. He is the only man to ever have won five titles. Fangio was known for his spectacular technical ability and for his demure manner. He spoke always with the quiet confidence that comes from a specific talent. Said Fangio, “great drivers can do their best times in two or three laps of a circuit, while others take 10, 20, or 30.” Fangio’s greatest achievement came in his last full season at the German Grand Prix in Nurburgring. He needed to fend of Ferrrari’s driving team of Hawthorne and Collins to wrap up his fifth world title. Fangio started the race with half-full tanks, intending to build an insurmountable lead in his lighter car. When he pitted, however, the Ferrari’s thundered by, stretching to a fifty-six second lead. The chances looked dim for the Maestro. Gradually, though, he pulled himself back into the race. On three consecutive laps he bettered the track record for the 14.2 mile Nordeschlifer (“North Ring”) by an incredible twelve seconds. Fangio was racing faster than his qualifying times recorded on an empty course. Hand over fist he pulled the Ferrari cars in, their team managers urging them on in disbelief. Fangio stated, “I believe that on that day in 1957 I finally managed to master the Nurburgring, making those laps in the dark on those curves where I had never before had the courage to push things so far.” After a few races in 1958, Fangio retired. The mild-mannered Argentine reflected that since he retired, the only racers to have approached his mastery of the sport were Jim Clark and Ayrton Senna. Both men died in their cars.

July 19

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

1934 Hidden Lamps
Harold T. Ames filed a patent application for his retractable headlamps. The design would later become one of the defining details on Ames’ most triumphant project, the Cord 810. Ames, then the chief executive at Duesenberg, asked Cord designer Gordon Buehrig to make a “baby version” of the Duesenberg car. Buehrig’s response, the Cord 810, is widely held to be one of the most influential cars in American automotive history. It was the last great offering of the Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg triumvirate, as the company became insolvent at the end of the Depression. In 1952 the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) chose the 1937 Cord as one of eight automotive works of art for a year-long exhibition. MoMA’s summation of the Cord’s lines are as follows: “Many of the Cord’s lines are borrowed form aerodynamics… The Cord suggests the driving power of a fast fighter plane. It is, in fact, a most solemn expression of streamlining.”

July 20

1894 The Rise and Fall of Errett Cord
Errett Lobban Cord was born in Warrensburg, Missouri, on this day in 1894. Cord moved to Los Angeles while he was in high school and remained there after his graduation, starting a number of car dealerships. His prowess as a salesman led him to pursue bigger goals and look for a way to invest the $100,000 he had managed to save in a few years of work. “Then I started looking around,” he said, “I wanted to do something with that $100,000.” Cord found the struggling Auburn Automobile Company in Auburn, Indiana, a company on its last legs, having completed only 175 cars in 1923. Cord convinced Ralph Bard, head of a Chicago group that had purchased Auburn, to take him on as general manager at no cost, with the stipulation that if Cord turned the company around he would be allowed to purchase controlling interest. He launched a sales blitz, rapidly clearing out Auburn’s inventory and enabling it to show a profit. By 1926 Cord was company president and the following year the company established dividends at $4 a share and 8% in stock. Cord then launched an aggressive business strategy, purchasing companies in many manufacturing fields and trading his stock on the New York Stock Exchange. He acquired Duesenberg in order to add a luxury car line to his Auburn cars. Sound stock management allowed Cord to expand his operations during the Depression while many other companies were merely struggling to survive. Cord established an empire consisting of Auburn, Duesenberg, Stinson Aircraft, Lycoming Motors, Limousine Body, and a number of engineering plants. He place his new acquisitions in a holding company called the Cord Corporation. In 1933 he added New York Shipbuilding and Checker Cab to his conglomerate. During the 1930s sales of Cord’s cars stumbled. Their heavy pricetags could not be born by the tightening market. Nevertheless, during the late 1930s Cord’s company produced some of the finest classic cars in automotive history, but Cord’s empire fell as precipitously as it had risen. He and Morris Markin, President of Checker, were investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for stock manipulation. In one case Cord and Markin had purchased 70,000 shares of Checker at $7. Their action created the illusion of great activity in their stock, driving the price up. Markin and Cord unloaded their shares at an average price of $59 per share. Both men denied the charges, but neither contested a court injunction preventing them from further impropriety. The same day of the verdict Cord sold all of his interest in the Cord Corporation for $2.6 million.

July 21

1904 and 1925 Rigolly and Campbell Set Speed Records
On this day in 1904 Louis Rigolly, driving a fifteen-liter Gobron-Brillie on the Ostend-Newport road in Belgium, became the first man to break the 100 mile per hour barrier in a car by raising the landspeed record to 103.55 miles per hour. On the same day in 1925, Sir Malcolm Campbell was first to best the 150 miles per hour mark when he drove his Sunbeam to a two-way average of 150.33 miles per hour at the Pendine Sands in Wales.

July 22

1908 The Fisher Men
Albert Fisher and his nephews, Frederic and Charles Fisher, established the Fisher Body Company to manufacture carriage and automobile bodies. Albert Fisher personally supplied $30,000 of the company’s total of $50,000 in initial capital. Charles and Frederic had been trained in their father’s carriage building shop and supplied the technical know-how required at the company’s inception. Fisher Body quickly abandoned carriage building to concentrate on car frames. By 1910, Fisher supplied some car bodies for General Motors (GM), and in 1919 GM purchased controlling interest in the company to shore up a supplier for its car bodies. At that time, Fisher was the largest supplier of car bodies in the world. The Fisher brothers were early advocates of closed-body, steel and wood frames, and they pre-empted their competition by creating more closed-bodied cars than open-bodied. They were also early in their adoption of aluminum and steel frames. Fisher Body completed a total merger in 1924 after their initial contracted agreement to supply bodies to GM had expired. On June 30, 1926 GM traded 667,720 shares of its own stock, at a market value of $136 million, for the remaining 40 percent of Fisher Body. The firm became the Fisher Body Division of GM, and was still headed by the Fisher family. The Fisher family remained in control of the Fisher Body Division until 1944, though brothers Lawrence and Edward were on the Board of Directors until 1969. The Fisher family’s impact on the automotive industry is second only to that of the Ford family. Every GM body between 1919 and 1944 passed the approval of a Fisher man.

July 23

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

July 24

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

July 25

1945 Odd Couple
Henry Kaiser and Joseph Frazer announced plans to form a corporation to manufacture automobiles on this day in 1945. The two men formed an unlikely pair. Kaiser, raised in modest circumstances, was a true American self-made man. By 1945, he sat atop an empire of shipbuilding, cement, steel, and other basic building businesses, and had amassed a considerable fortune. His company’s shipbuilding feats had made him a media favorite during World War II, with reporters labeling him “the Miracle Man.” By contrast, Frazer was a direct descendant of Martha Washington, and he’d attended Hotchkiss and Yale. Frazer never finished his studies at Yale, opting to take a manual labor job at Packard. At Packard he rose steadily through the management structure, becoming by the mid-1940s a solid, respectable executive. The two men first encountered one another when in 1942 Kaiser urged car companies to plan ahead for post-war production; Frazer answered on behalf of Packard, labeling the suggestion “half-baked” and “stupid.” The men met again in 1945 in San Francisco and two weeks later Kaiser-Frazer was born. With Frazer’s contacts in the auto industry, and Kaiser’s capital and experience with huge government contracts, the two men were optimistic about their chances. In addition, labor groups were encouraging competition to the Big Three and had announced a willingness to cooperate with any new entries into Detroit. Kaiser and Frazer had to generate enough capital to acquire and build full production facilities. They had to find reliable sources for raw materials and negotiate labor contracts, and they had to do it all before the Big Three could convert back from wartime production if they were to have a chance a surviving. Amazingly, they pulled it off, leasing the Ford Willow Run Plant and producing 11,000 cars in 1946. Unfortunately, their financiers gave them trouble: while losses were anticipated during their first year, the two men didn’t expect to be punished so severely by squeamish investors. The company lost $19 million and their stock plummeted. A year later, however, Willow Run produced 100,000 cars and Kaiser-Frazer recorded $19 million in profit. Success was within their grasp, and the next year they made $10 million--but the downturn in profits and the impending release of Big Three post-war models caused the company’s stock to slip. Without money Kaiser-Frazer couldn’t afford to come up with new models, and consumers turned away from them. In 1949 the company lost $30 million and was poised to endure the fate of so many other independents after the war. The differences between the two partners manifested themselves during the bad times, and management failed to respond positively to the difficulties. Frazer left the business and Kaiser presided until 1953 when he sold out to Willys-Overland. Ironically, in Kaiser’s last year the company turned out a few remarkable cars including, arguably, America’s first compact car.

July 26

1932 Duesenberg’s Doozy
Frederick S. Duesenberg died in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, of complications from injuries suffered in an automobile accident on July 2, 1932. Frederick and his brother Augie created the Duesenberg Automobile and Motors Company. Born in Lippe, Germany, Frederick moved to the U.S. in 1885. In 1897 he started a bicycle business, and in 1899 he built a highly efficient gasoline engine to be used for motorcycles. This was the beginning of his automotive career. He took a job with the Rambler Motor Company and worked there, learning the business, until 1905, when he convinced his brother Augie to go into business selling engines. The two brothers designed the Mason engine, with its famous “walking beam” overhead valve design, and started the Mason Motor Car Company, and when they sold the business in 1913, they were mature players in the automotive industry. In 1913, the brothers opened a business in St. Paul, Minnesota, building engines for cars, boats, and airplanes. The Duesenbergs spent much of the next ten years developing a high-performance straight-eight engine for luxury cars. In 1920, they opened Duesenberg Motors in order to release the Duesenberg Model A, the first car equipped with both a straight-eight and hydraulic front-wheel brakes. In spite of the car’s quality, the Model A floundered in sales and the company failed in 1924 without ever having got off the ground. Financier E.L. Cord entered the scene, purchasing and financing Duesenberg Motors while allowing the brothers to continue their work. In the mid-1920s Duesenberg made handcrafted, extremely powerful luxury cars. The Model J, the company’s flagship car, boasted a 265-horsepower engine and could cost up to $25,000 with a custom body. Duesenberg ran simple ads, exhibiting no pictures of their cars while the text read, “He drives a Duesenberg.” But the pinch of the Depression doomed Duesenberg’s future as a luxury car manufacturer. Then in 1932, Frederick died, ending the brothers’ career together as innovators. In 1937 Cord’s empire collapsed and the Duesenberg Company disappeared.

July 27

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

July 28

1973 Get-Away Car
Bonnie and Clyde’s bullet-riddled 1934 Ford V-8 sedan was sold at auction for $175,000 to Peter Simon of Jean, Nevada. The Ford V-8 model succeeded the new Model A, and it was well received due to its speed and power—perhaps this is why it seemed most popular among the criminal element. Henry Ford first received a personal letter congratulating him on the car’s performance from famed outlaw gunman John Dillinger. Dillinger wrote, “Hello Old Pal. You have a wonderful car. It’s a treat to drive. Your slogan should be Drive a Ford and Watch The Other Cars Fall Behind You. I can make any other car eat a Ford’s dust. Bye-bye.” Later, Clyde Barrow wrote a similarly laudatory note to Henry Ford: “Dear Sir, While I still have breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned and even if my business hasn’t been strictly legal it don’t hurt to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.” Almost enough to make you think Ford hired both high-profile criminals for an ad campaign, but alas, Ford made no use of either personal endorsement.

July 29

1909 Cadillac: From Ford to GM
The Buick Motor Company acquired the Cadillac Motor Company on behalf of General Motors for $4.5 million on this day in 1909. Cadillac was born from the ashes of the Henry Ford Company, a business organized by William Murphy to produce a car by Henry Ford. Murphy had been one of the original backers of the Detroit Automobile Company, which had dissolved in 1901after Ford had failed to build a car he was willing to put to market. Such faith did Murphy have in Ford that he gave him another chance in the Henry Ford Company, opting to use Ford’s name due to the recognition he had received from his recent racing ventures. Ford was so wrapped up in racing that he again failed to produce and Murphy fired him. He then asked Henry Leland, a partner in Detroit’s successful Leland and Faulconer Machine shop, to appraise the business before he sold it. Leland persuaded Murphy and his partners to stay in business, promising them that he could design a car successful enough to make it profitable. In August 1902, they formed the Cadillac Car Company. Leland gradually took control of Cadillac’s daily operations, and by the end of 1903 2,500 Cadillacs had been produced. The founding of Cadillac helped solidify Detroit’s position as the center of the automobile industry, and in 1904 Leland became president and general manager of Cadillac and agreed to merge Cadillac with Faulconer and Leland. Sales continued to rise and Cadillac established a reputation for exacting quality under Leland’s detail-oriented supervision. In a triumphant demonstration of the interchangeability of Cadillac’s parts, in 1908 three Cadillacs were disassembled by the Royal Automobile Club in England, reassembled at random, and driven away by the mechanics. In November 1908, Benjamin Briscoe made a bid for Cadillac, but he was unable to generate enough backing to carry the deal. William Durant seized the opportunity to add the valuable brand to his newly formed General Motors Corporation, and arranged a deal of stock transfer with the Lelands, but the Lelands ultimately refused it--they wanted cash. Finally, Durant got the cash together and purchased Cadillac, through Buick, on behalf of General Motors. Durant kept the Lelands on as management, saying, “I want you to continue to run Cadillac exactly as though it were still your own. You will receive no directions from anyone.”

July 30

1985 Saturnine Workers
The Saturn Corporation announced that their first plant would be built in Spring Hill, Tennessee, on this day in 1985. In 1982, General Motors (GM) initiated a small car project code-named Saturn. Once the design was set a new idea was posed--that Saturn should become a unique factory experiment. In January 1985, GM announced Saturn as a subsidiary to function with relative autonomy from other GM divisions. The first Saturn car was driven off the assembly line in 1990. The company announced its “Saturn Philosophy,” detailing a unique attitude towards manufacturer-dealer-customer relations as well as providing for a labor contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW), separate from GM’s existing contract, in which Saturn employees were to have direct input into the management of the company. Saturn was an attempt to break down the historically vertical management structure of U.S. car companies. After its release, Saturn scored high marks with J.D. Power and Associates rankings of quality by consumers, setting an historic trend of customer satisfaction for the company. In May 1993 Saturn had its first profitable month, and in 1995 Saturn enjoyed record sales, expanding its operation to Japan. After a successful three-year stretch, 1998 saw Saturn’s first year-to-year sales decline, dropping 9.9% in volume from 1997. The auto manufacturer announced that operation would cease, in order to reorganize inventory and respond to the downturn. That same year saw Saturn’s unique labor contract suffer. After a bitter, hard-fought feud within the union membership, Saturn workers voted overwhelmingly to retain their original UAW contract rather than adopt the master contract used at other GM auto plants. Just a few months later, Saturn workers went on strike, protesting that the automaker had failed to live up to its promise to give workers a voice in the plant’s operation and strategy.

July 31

1916 NASCAR’s Good Ol’ Gal
Louise Smith, NASCAR’s first female act, was born on this day in 1916. Known as racing’s “Good ol’ Gal” she competed in stock car racing during its decidedly “good ol’ boy” years. A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Smith raced various Modified, Sportsman, and Grand National series events between 1946 and 1956. Her fearless attitude made her a novelty at a time when most women were homemakers. “I enjoyed every minute,” said Smith, reflecting on her career. “I traveled all over North America, racing everywhere I could, and I had fun with it. Didn’t make a whole lot of money, but if I could do it again today, I’d do it and I think I’d make it.” In the earliest years of NASCAR, Bill France, NASCAR’s founder, president, and chief promoter, used Smith to attract spectators. Smith got her start when NASCAR held a race near her hometown at the Greenville-Pickens Speedway, and a local suggested Smith on the grounds that she could “outrun every highway patrol and lawman in Greenville.” France agreed to give her a shot. In her first race, Smith explains, “They told me if I saw a red flag to stop. They didn’t say anything about the checkered flag. I wondered where all the cars were and then as I was all alone on the track, I noticed them in the pits. They finally threw the red flag and I pulled in. I had finished third.” In Smith’s ten-year career, she captured thirty-eight victories. In the mid-1970s, she became involved with the sport agains, sponsoring drivers Ronnie Thomas, Bobby Wawak, and Larry Pearson.