This Month in Automotive History

May 1

1902 Petrol Loco
The first prototype gasoline-powered Locomobile was completed at the company's factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Francis and Freelan Stanley created the original steam-powered Locomobile in 1898. "Yankee tinkerers," the Stanley brothers had been working on designs for steam-powered carriages for many years. Success came when one of their cars appeared at a Boston fair in October 1908. Interest in their cars, stemming from the debut of their lightweight, affordable vehicle, led them to undertake the construction of one hundred cars. To put the brothers' ambition in perspective, one need only recognize that the largest American gasoline-powered auto producer in the country, Alexander Winton, made twenty-two cars in 1898; Pope Electric of Hartford, Connecticut, produced a few dozen. The Stanley Brothers' resolve to "mass-produce" inexpensive cars marked an important transition in automobile manufacturing. But only a few months into their venture, the Stanley Brothers sold their enterprise to Amzi Barber, America's sheet-asphalt tycoon. It was under Barber's direction that the Locomobile name became a brand. The 1899 Locomobile sold for $600 and, as its advertisements boasted, it was noiseless and odorless. Refreshing to think of, but the Locomobile's water tank held only twenty-one gallons, enough for just a twenty-mile journey. Besides, starting a steam-powered engine was time-consuming and dangerous, as boilers frequently burned out. The gasoline burners that heated the boilers could backfire, potentially setting the car on fire. Sales of the Locomobile peaked in 1900 at sixteen hundred, a remarkable figure at such an early date. The total was far greater than any other American automaker could produce and it rivaled the French automaker, De Dion-Bouton, as the greatest car production in the world. Sales fell the next year, however, as the primacy of gasoline-powered automobiles was established. Gas-powered cars could go farther, faster, and with fewer hassles than steam-powered cars of comparable sizes. Barber hired automobile engineer Andrew Riker to design him a gas-powered vehicle. The car he designed sold for $5,000. The new Locomobile appealed to rich consumers, and the company shifted its focus from low-cost production for the masses to high-cost production for the elite few. The last Locomobile steamers were produced in 1904. The end of the steam era saw the end of the company's importance. Other firms had been building gas-powered automobiles better, for longer. Locomobile survived through World War I producing trucks for the war market. After the war it became one in the overflowing market of luxury cars. The company died in 1929 after having been briefly incorporated into one of William Durant's holding companies.

May 2

1918 Durant's Deal
The General Motors Corporation acquired the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware. The deal was effectively a merger engineered by William Durant. The original founder of GM, Durant had been forced out of the company by stockholders who had disapproved of Durant's increasingly reckless expansionist policies a few years earlier. Durant started Chevrolet with Swiss racer Louis Chevrolet and managed to make the company a successful competitor in the economy car market in a relatively short period of time. Still the owner of a considerable portion of GM stock, Durant began to purchase more stock in GM as his profits from Chevrolet allowed. In a final move to regain control of the company he founded, Durant offered GM stockholders five shares of Chevrolet stock for every one share of GM stock. Though GM stock prices were exorbitantly high, the market interest in Chevrolet made the five-for-one trade irresistible to GM shareholders. With the sale, Durant regained control of GM.

May 3

1987 The Allisons of Talledega
The late Davey Allison recorded his first NASCAR Winston Cup victory at the Winston 500 in Talladega, Alabama, driving his #28 Ford Thunderbird. Davey, the son of racing legend Bobby Allison, was born into racing as a member of the Alabama Gang. His father Bobby was Alabama's most successful stock-car racer ever. Both men have come to be remembered for their triumphs and their tragedies at the Alabama Superspeedway in Talladega. On this day in 1987, while Davey won his first race, his father Bobby suffered a terrible crash in which his rear tire was pierced by a chunk of metal, causing his car to flip into the grandstand at over 200 mph. After the crash, NASCAR mandated that all cars would carry carburetor plates to restrict the intake of their engines. Since then, all NASCAR races have been won at average speeds of around 170 to 190 mph.

May 4

1920 Miller Time
Harry Miller was issued a U.S. patent for a race car design that introduced many features later incorporated into race cars in the following decades. Among Miller's countless patented breakthroughs were aluminum pistons and engine blocks, off-beat carburetors, inter-cooled super-chargers, and practical front-wheel drive. Born to German immigrants in Menomonie, Wisconsin, in 1876, Harry Miller shunned his father's encouragement to become a painter and chose instead a career in engineering. He dropped out of high school at the age of fifteen to work in a local machine shop. A gifted tinkerer, Miller invented for the joy of it. He built what is said to have been the first motorcycle ever made in the United States by hooking up a one-cylinder engine to his bicycle. In the mid-1890s, Miller built the country's first outboard motor, a four-cylinder engine that he clamped to his rowboat. Miller never sought a patent for either invention. Miller left Wisconsin in 1897 for Los Angeles, where he opened a machine shop. In 1905, he built his first car. His major breakthrough came in 1916, when he designed a race car for famed racer Barney Oldfield. His product, the Golden Submarine, was the fastest race car of its time. The Submarine made Oldfield the dominant force in the unregulated match races of the period. Having gained great recognition with the Golden Submarine, Miller directed his energy toward creating better race cars. He was the first man to concentrate exclusively on building race cars for sale. By the late 1920s, Miller was designing and building precision-tuned race cars and selling them for the exorbitant price of $15,000. Miller's ultimate achievement was the Miller 91, which he built for the 1926 Indy 500. The Miller 91 produced a minimum of 230 hp at 7,000 rpm, and it could be boosted to 300 hp at 8,500 rpm. At 3.3 hp per cubic inch, Miller's car compares remarkably with today's super-charged Indy cars, which produce 4.5 hp per cubic inch. Take into account that Miller's materials were limited--gaskets and lubricants were primitive, aluminum and chrom-moly steel rare, welding unreliable, and fuel capable of only meager compression ratios--and you see just what kind of genius Harry Miller was. With the benefits of modern technology, Miller's original 1926 racing engine would eventually produce over three times its original horsepower. His design remained competitive for nearly five decades. In 1992, one of Miller's 1500 cc race cars was purchased by the Smithsonian Institution, which displays the car alongside the last century's greatest engineering miracles.

May 5

1914 Cannonball's Run
Erwin "Cannonball" Baker began the cross-continental motorcycle trip that would influence the way Americans would think of the "big bike" forever more. Big, strong, and lanky, Baker discovered after buying his first motorcycle that he possessed something like superhuman endurance for riding. In 1912, he began training for his long-distance odyssey by arranging for a number of smaller feats. He rode across Cuba, Jamaica, and Panama before taking a steamer to California, where he trained until 1914. At that time, the state of the country's roads was inconsistent; while roads could be decent in stretches surrounding cities, rural routes were almost uniformly dismal. Baker began a letter-writing campaign from California, pleading for individuals from across the country to help him plot a contiguous course across our continent. He had to devise a way of getting gasoline during the stretches of road where it wasn't readily available. Baker's entreaties were received by an enthusiastic public, who offered to pack gasoline to him by burro if need be. On this day in 1914, just three months shy of the First World War, Cannonball Baker, wearing leather riding trousers and carrying a one-gallon canteen, mounted his V-twin 1000cc Stutz Indian motorcycle and headed east toward Yuma, Arizona, with a raging sandstorm at his back. To combat thirst, Cannonball used the old Native American method of carrying a small pebble under his tongue. On the second day of his trip Baker ran out of gas just a few miles short of Agua Caliente, Arizona, and was forced to push his bike in the 119-degree desert heat. Equipped with a Smith & Wesson .38, Baker fought off a pack of dogs in Fort Apache. Dogs continued to hamper his trip; in Ellsworth, Kansas, a shepherd dog attacked his bike. "This dog seemed to have a great desire for the Goodyear rubber of my front tire," explained Baker. "The dog took a fall out of me which put me in bad shape, as I slid along the road on my elbows and knees. I kept the tire and the dog lost his life." In all, Cannonball traveled 3,379 miles across the U.S. Due to the poor roads and primitive "cradle-spring" shock absorption of his bike, he rode most of the way standing up. His feat made him a hero. Without a doubt, Cannonball's run re-shaped the future of American motorcyclists. While Europe still clings to tight-handling sport bikes, Americans want nothing more than to hop on a big Harley and cruise the wide roads that stretch from sea to shining sea.

May 6

1928 DeSoto Also Rises
Chrysler introduced the DeSoto as the corporation's new brand. The DeSoto Six was Chrysler's answer to the market demand for a car that fit between its large cars and its popular four-cylinder models. Marketed in the moderate price class, the DeSoto offered features that no car within comparable price range had ever offered, such as improved insulation, a reinforced frame, and chrome alloy steel transmission gears. Introduced not long after Chrysler purchased Dodge, the DeSoto label sold eighty thousand cars its first year, forcing Chrysler to increase its production facilities. In the fall of 1936, after having moved between various Chrysler plants, DeSoto moved to a production facility of its own on the west side of Detroit. The new state-of-the-art facility became one of Detroit's showcases for automobile production and one of the city's most heavily visited tourist sites. The interest in the DeSoto plant was partially a response to the company's innovative 1934 release, the DeSoto Airflow. The Airflow created a new standard for weight distribution in the automotive industry, reducing vibration to a frequency that, for the first time, was comfortable for passengers. Engineers moved the DeSoto's engine forward over the front axle and increased the gauge of the front springs. Moving the engine forward allowed the designers to move the back seat in front of the rear axle, thereby reducing the shock inflicted on passengers sitting there. The Airflow was also equipped with smaller wheels that used larger tires, and a unibody design that made the car safer and stronger.

May 7

1952 Nance vs. The Big Three
James J. Nance resigned form his position at Hotpoint to become the president and general manager of the Packard Motor Company. Nance would direct Packard successfully for two years. Under his direction, the small Detroit-based manufacturing firm tightened its books and invested in technological upgrades essential for postwar competition. However, even successful small firms like Packard were struggling to compete with the Big Three in the massive postwar market. Consequently, in 1954 Packard agreed to merge with the much larger Studebaker Corporation. Together, Packard-Studebaker comprised the fourth largest car manufacturing company in the country. Paul Hoffman, Studebaker's president, believed that Packard would bolster floundering Studebaker by supplying it with well-respected cars in the profitable high-price range where Studebaker struggled most. He also believed that the young and aggressive Nance could help turn his company around. The merger was a complicated one, however, as Studebaker laborers blocked the process, unwilling to re-negotiate their labor contracts. Eventually, though, the deal went through in October of 1954. Hoffman named Nance president of the new company. Nance immediately set to work implementing the same policies he'd implemented at Packard. He reversed Hoffman's existing policies regarding car design and labor relations, and he generally ignored the input of his new partners. The result was predictable: the changes failed to reverse Studebaker-Packard's fortune. Nance blamed Hoffman and the rest of the Studebaker executives. In 1956 the whole kit and kaboodle was sold again to the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Company.

May 8

1933 Calling All Cars!
The first police radio system, connecting headquarters to patrol cars and patrol cars to one another, was installed in Eastchester Township, New York, by Radio Engineering Laboratories of Long Island City, New York. The township contracted with the company for one transmitter of 20 watts for the headquarters and two transmitters of 4.5 volts each for the two patrol cars. Among its other uses, the police radio system became a popular prop for radio, television, and film drama. From the basic "Calling all cars!" exclamations of early radio drama to the poignant use of police radio in the 1965 film The Chase (with Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, and Robert Duvall), the police radio system became a dramatic device as essential to twentieth-century narratives, as was the royal emissary in the days of Shakespeare.

May 9

1992 Roberto Guerrero
Roberto Guerrero set an Indianapolis 500 qualifying record, driving his Lola-Buick to an average speed of 232.483 mph and setting the single lap record at 232.618 mph. Born in Medellin, Colombia, in 1958, Guerrero began racing when he was twelve years old. He won two national Kart championships in his home country before being sent abroad to the prestigious Jim Russell Driving School in England. He quickly found success in the Formula Ford ranks in England. Guerrero's performance as an Indy Car Series racer is best described as workmanlike. While he's not won many races, he manages to finish in the top twenty in the point standings every year. His best success has come at the Indy 500 itself. It seems the magnitude of the event spurs Guerrero on. In his first Indy 500 in 1984, he finished second behind Rick Mears. It was the best rookie finish since the great Graham Hill won the event as a rookie in 1966. Guerrero finished third in 1985, fourth in 1986, and second in 1987. A naturalized American citizen, Guerrero currently resides in San Juan Capistrano, California. He races for Pagan Racing.

May 10

1922 Captain Eddie's Car Company
The one-thousandth Rickenbacker car was produced. Named after the company co-founder, American World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, the Rickenbacker Car Company took off in 1922. Rickenbacker, a national darling for his dogfighting exploits, passed on offers from the aviation industry in Washington and from the movie studios in Hollywood in order to start his own car company. In January of 1922, the Rickenbacker car debuted at the New York Auto Show. Priced at $1,500 and equipped with a powerful V-6 and a flywheel at both ends of the crankshaft to reduce the teeth-chattering vibration to which consumers had become accustomed, the Rickenbacker sold 1,500 units on its first day. In two years the company climbed from eighty-third in the industry to nineteenth. "The Car Worthy of the Name," as it was called, was also the first model to introduce four-wheel braking into the economy car class. The 1925 Rickenbacker came with a V-8 and the snappy "hat in the ring" emblem that Rickenbacker's squadron had painted on their planes. In 1926, Rickenbacker marketed the Super Sport as "America's Fastest and Most Beautiful Stock Car." But Rickenbacker resigned in September of that year, and four months later his company was dead. The rapid demise of Rickenbacker owes partly to the public's mistrust of the company's early introduction of front-wheel breaking, but more to the fragile ego of its war hero founder. During a period of cut-throat price wars, Rickenbacker came under heavy personal criticism at the hands of automobile dealers, who taunted him, "You're a hero today and a bum tomorrow." Rickenbacker could not separate his company's policies from his person and, injured, he resigned. The company was grounded without its captain's name.

May 11

1916 Delco and GM
Charles Kettering and Edward Deeds agreed to sell their Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco) to the United Motors Corporation, a holding company founded by William C. Durant in his attempt to regain control of General Motors. Deeds and Kettering both left the National Cash Register Company--where Kettering had invented the motor that made the electric cash register possible--in order to start Delco. Originally a research and development company, Delco began manufacturing in order to meet the demand for the self-starter that Kettering invented for Durant's Cadillac Corporation. Despite the fact that Durant had spurred on Kettering to invent the self-starter, Delco would sell self-starters to anyone who ordered them. After Durant regained control of GM in the spring of 1916, he moved to make certain that GM would have primary availability to Delco's parts. In a dramatic restructuring which pulled together some of GM's most vital part suppliers, Durant integrated five previously independent companies under the name of the United Motors Corporation. All of these companies would later fall under the GM name. Kettering went on to play a vital role in GM's research and development over the next two decades.

May 12

1969 Corvair Gets Canned
Chevrolet announced that it would discontinue production of the Corvair. The Corvair, which had come under heavy attack in Ralph Nader's 1965 diatribe Unsafe At Any Speed, never achieved great success, thanks mostly to its reputation for poor safety. Nader called the Corvair "one of the nastiest-handling cars ever built." The rear engined model was accused of flipping over in moderately severe accident conditions. In the end, over five hundred individual court cases dealing with the Corvair were filed against General Motors. GM never lost one of these cases, although it did settle out of court in a number of them. Debate continues over whether or not the Corvair was actually an unsafe car. Some contend that the front-wheel drive and the heavy horsepower of the car were too much for some drivers to handle. Whatever the case, the public's attitude toward the Big Three car executives changed dramatically during the course of the debate over Nader's book. The insidious tactics used by GM to silence Nader may have been more damaging to the company's reputation than the poor handling of the Corvair. In the end, the debate killed the sale of the Corvair, and its discontinuation followed a 200 percent decrease in the model's sales between 1965 and 1969.

May 13

1980 Union on the Board
Douglas A. Fraser, president of the UAW, was named to the Chrysler Corporation Board of Directors, becoming the first union representative ever to sit on the board of a major U.S. corporation. Born in 1916 in Glasgow, Scotland, to a Socialist father, Fraser was brought up to the tune of organized labor. He dropped out of high school and began work at a Dodge plant as a metal polisher. Fraser soon moved to the DeSoto plant in Detroit, where he began his career in labor activism. Rising through the ranks of his local UAW chapter, Fraser eventually caught the eye of powerful UAW figure Walter Reuther. Reuther's similar immigrant and Socialist background meant that the two men shared ideas in common. Fraser worked as Reuther's administrative assistant through the groundbreaking years of the 1950s, during which the UAW solidified policies on retirement pensions and medical care for its members. Like Reuther, Fraser believed that to achieve its goals the UAW needed to be willing to make reasonable compromises. It wasn't until 1977 that Fraser was elected president of the UAW. He inherited the title as the automotive industry suffered its greatest recession since the Depression. Fraser is credited with having led the UAW through the uncertain years of the globalization of the automotive industry. As it became evident that the Big Three could build their cars wherever they wanted, Fraser fought to make sure that the union stayed flexible in its negotiations with industry executives. His detractors sometimes accused Fraser of pandering, but those who knew him described him as a stern proponent of international labor causes. His flexibility owed to his desire to keep the union an open-minded and competitive organization. The New York Times described Fraser as "an extremely tough-minded unionist, like most who rise through the ferocious fighting that can characterize union politics." In 1973, Fraser helped to solidify the industry's "thirty and out" policy. During his presidency, Fraser attempted to address the less tangible hardships facing autoworkers. Gone were the days of unfair hours and dangerous conditions, but the monotony that faced the average autoworker was still a cross to bear. In 1982, Fraser enacted his most daring and visionary maneuver as UAW president. Faced with Chrysler's imminent collapse, Fraser negotiated away millions of dollars already guaranteed to his union in order to help save a company with valuable jobs. In return, Chrysler traded stock options to the union. The resurgence of Chrysler bore out Fraser's unpopular decision. Respected by his adversaries, Fraser received the unprecedented accolade of being named to Chrysler's board. "His word is enough for us," one Chrysler executive explained. "He gets into plant problems like no other union leader I know." Conceding that his position on Chrysler's board was largely symbolic, Fraser nevertheless strove to bring the issues of the laborer into the boardroom. It is one thing to vote to close a plant on paper and quite another to vote after hearing in detail the hardship the decision will cause. Douglas Fraser was a proud and unselfish leader who must be remembered for maintaining his ideals, even after his prosperity made them unnecessary.

May 14

1960 Mr. Speed
Mickey Thompson, a.k.a. "Mr. Speed," broke Bernd Rosemeyer's twenty-two-year-old record for the standing mile and standing kilometer, when he drove his "Assault" car to record speeds of 149.93 and 132.94, respectively. Thompson's illustrious career began when, as a boy of eleven, he attempted to build a street rod out of collected Chevy parts. Ten years later he made his first trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats. Though Thompson raced in all kinds of events, including off-road racing, he is best known for his achievements in engineering and racing speed trial cars. He set 295 records at Bonneville alone, and he was the first man to drive a car faster than 400 mph. Thompson enjoyed mixed success at the Indy 500, where he first fielded cars in 1962. Teaming with British chassis designer John Crosthwaite, Thompson built the first Indy Car with a rear-mounted V-8 and fully independent suspension. Thompson's car engines were bored and stroked to 255 cubic inches, but they had 70 hp less than the racing Offy's that dominated the Indy field that year. Of Thompson's three small cars, only one qualified for the race. His car ran much of the race not far from the lead until a mechanical failure forced it from the race. Thompson won the Mechanical Achievement Award for his original design. The next year, while the Lotus-Fords had integrated his innovations, Thompson gave the field even more to think about by widening his car bodies, tires, and wheels. The Lotus-Fords took the spotlight with their power, but one of Thompson's cars finished an impressive ninth place. Nineteen sixty-four spelled tragedy for Thompson's Indy Cars, and the outcome of the race forced him from the sport. After introducing radical new car bodies, Thompson's team had problems from the start. In the end, only Dave MacDonald qualified a Thompson car. Early in the race, MacDonald lost control of his car, crashing into Eddie Sachs and killing both of them. Thompson's designs came under heavy criticism after the accident, and he stayed away from Indy Cars. In the late 1960s, Mr. Speed made numerous assaults on speed records at Bonneville. In the 1970s Mickey became interested in off-road racing after he watched the off-road Mint 400 race from his airplane. "It was the most exciting race I'd ever seen," Thompson told a reporter. He went on to design an off-road vehicle before forming SCORE (Short Course Off-Road Events.) Thompson, almost single-handedly, turned off-road racing into an indoor event. At the time of his tragic death in 1988, Thompson had led a full life of racing. He reportedly met his wife, Trudy, in a drag race; she won, so he married her. The couple was gunned down outside their home in San Juan Capistrano, California. The case remains unsolved, despite redoubled efforts by the L.A. County Sheriff's department. The reward for information leading to the arrest of Mickey Thompson's killer is $1 million.

May 15

1918 There Once Were No Cars In Nantucket
Nantucket Island voted to lift its controversial twelve-year ban on automobiles. First famous as an insular whaling community off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Nantucket Island has become one of the Northeast's most exclusive tourist attractions. The original inhabitants of Nantucket were predictably resistant to the idea of automobiles overrunning their island. While the advent of the motor car didn't spell disaster for the island then, the early residents' fears may yet become a reality. As Nantucket's popularity rises, even the year-long waiting list for the car ferry can't seem to stem the tide of vehicles. The island's tourist board has attempted to institute an affordable and reliable island shuttle, but vacationers in this country want to go wherever their cars will take them. A delicate ecological structure of bogs, tidal thickets, and dune beaches, Nantucket is susceptible to the pollutants and erosion problems brought on by the increasing numbers of vehicles. The new Nantucket "natives," largely seasonal retirees, have pooled their not insignificant resources with the purpose of protecting the island. Others, though, accuse the conservationists of only wanting to conserve an uncrowded escape from their East Coast power perches.

May 16

1956 House of Style
General Motors dedicated its brand-new, $125 million GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. The Center, or at least its breathtaking style and dimension, was the product of Alfred Sloan and GM stylist Harley Earl. Born to Hollywood affluence, Earl never lost his movie-star flair. He is famous for being the automotive industry's first "stylist." In reality, he was a car architect. He achieved fame for his design of GM's 1927 LaSalle. The LaSalle was the first production car to offer a sleek, long and rounded look to its buyers. By later standards the LaSalle still looks, in its designer's words, "top-heavy and stiff-shouldered," but at the time of its unveiling, it was enough to make Earls' career. He was brought to GM by Alfred Sloan, the company's almighty president. Sloan created a new department for Earl, at the head of which Earl would oversee the styling for all GM cars. Earl began his incremental quest for longer, lower cars. Why? Said Earl, "Because my sense of proportion tells me that oblongs are more attractive than squares, just as a ranch house is more attractive than a three-story, flat-roofed house or a greyhound is more graceful than an English bulldog." Earl's sense of proportion never exactly fit with the other vice presidents at GM. First of all, he stood six feet, four inches tall. The well-tanned Earl kept identical suits in his office so that he would never wrinkle over the course of a workday. This stylish approach to life rubbed many of Detroit's staunch executives the wrong way. Earl's major conflicts came with the GM body division, headed by the Fisher Brothers. The Body Division was in charge of turning Earl's artwork into roadworthy realities. Earl was often dissatisfied with their product, and he showed open contempt for the Fisher Brothers, whom he dubbed "the Seven Dwarves." The Fishers, in turn, weren't sure Earl was as practical as he could have been. Earl remains a larger than life figure in the pantheon of automotive history. Often credited with breakthroughs that he managed to promote better than the ideas' originators, Earl can be viewed in hindsight as a showman. But his artistic sense cannot be denied, nor can his impact on the artistic leanings of the automotive industry. Earl, as much as anyone, was responsible for the glorious aesthetic renaissance of 1950s Detroit. When Alfred Sloan suggested that GM should build a compound to house the company's research activities, it was Earl who urged him to create a structure that was architecturally and aesthetically distinctive. Ignoring his peers' pleas for practicality, Sloan allowed Earl to enlist the architectural skills of Eliel and Eero Saarinen. Today, the GM Technical Center is one of the landmarks of twentieth-century architecture. The aluminum-sheathed dome that houses its stylish auditorium stands a fitting monument to Harley Earl's legacy.

May 17

1994 So Long, Al
Al Unser Sr. announced his retirement from auto racing, ending one of the greatest Indy Car careers of all time. The product of one of America's greatest racing family dynasties, the Unser family of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Al Sr. is the youngest of the second generation of Unser racers. Over the course of his five-decade career, Al has raced midgets, sprints, stock cars, sports cars, Formula 5000, champion dirt cars, and, of course, some of the greatest Indy Cars made. His achievements at the Brickyard are unparalleled. Al is first in points earned, second in miles driven and total money won, and tied for second in starts. Winning the 1987 race, Al became only the second man to win the Indy 500 four times when he won the race after starting in the twentieth position. The next year he broke Ralph DePalma's seemingly unbreakable record for most laps led at the 500. Al's 1970 season was one of the greatest ever, as he won ten races on ovals, road courses and dirt tracks to capture the national championship. He won back-to-back Indy 500s in 1970 and 1971, and in 1978 he became the first driver to win the "Triple Crown" of Indy racing by placing first in the Pocono 500 and the California 500, as well as at Indy. In 1985, Al won his third and last national championship by edging his son, Al Unser Jr., by one point in the last race of the season. The win also made him the oldest Indy Car champion ever at age forty-six.

May 18

1958 Lotus Flowers
The Lotus made its Formula One debut at the Monaco Grand Prix with Cliff Allison finishing in fifth place. The Lotus Engineering Company was founded by Colin Chapman in 1952 as a result of Chapman's great success in building and racing trial cars. Located in Norfolk, England, Lotus has become over the last few decades one of racing's most dominant teams. Currently limited to Formula One competition, Lotus was initially a diverse racing team. Lotus dominated Le Mans in the '50s. The mid-'60s saw the Golden Age of Lotus racing as its British drivers Jim Clark and Graham Hill enjoyed great success. Jim Clark won the first World Driver's Championship for Lotus in 1963. Lotus has in recent years been represented by such virtuoso drivers as Emmerson Fittipaldi and Alessandro Zanardi.

May 19

1991 Racing Against Racism
In a sport not known for embracing diversity, racer Willy T. Ribbs became the first African-American driver to qualify for the Indy 500 on this date in 1991. Ribbs, a Californian, objects to the obstacles placed in front of African-American racers: "Here we are, moving into a new millennium, and auto racing still looks like 1939 baseball." Ribbs's achievement at Indy is especially remarkable, as the cost of running at Indy normally deters racers who don't have powerful corporate sponsors. While stock-car racing is more accessible financially, the sport hasn't fared any better in attracting African-American participants. NASCAR officials, however, don't feel the lack of African-American racers is a reflection of racism within the sport. Longtime president Bill France explained his case: "America is what America is today. Anybody can be anything, regardless of your race or your national origin. You can't cast a wand and make everything happen that somebody wants to happen." In the fifty years of NASCAR history, only six African-American drivers have made it to the Winston Cup, stock car's top category; only Wendell Scott ever won a race. One explanation for the dearth of African-American racers is that car racing is a hereditary sport. Most racers come from racing families. By that criterion, however, the Scott family could have continued racing. Wendell Scott, using secondhand equipment, set the sport on fire twenty-five years ago with his fearless attitude and abundant talent. "Had the sport offered more help to the Scotts, others would have been inspired by us in another generation," said Wendell Scott Jr. "They nipped us in the bud." An example: In 1963, Scott won a race in Jacksonville and the race officials, fearing a reaction from the crowd, presented the trophy to another driver. They gave Scott the trophy after the crowd had left. Ribbs also believes that corporations are reluctant to offer sponsorship to African-American drivers, because they don't believe these racers will be financially beneficial to their brands. Even the NASCAR team owned by former NFL running-back Joe Washington and former NBA legend Julius Erving cannot guarantee an African-American driver behind the wheel of its car. Washington and Erving started the first wholly minority-owned team since Scott and his sons left competition over twenty-five years ago. Kathy Thompson, a representative for the team, explained their predicament: "To get into a Winston Cup car is dangerous. I wouldn't want to race against Dale Earnhardt or Jeff Gordon without experience. That's suicide. I wouldn't want that on my conscience, somebody getting out there who wasn't ready." The fact remains that large African-American communities exist in the regions where NASCAR's fan base is strongest. It wouldn't take much for NASCAR to foster a more openly encouraging attitude toward minorities in racing--and who knows, maybe the sport will be rewarded with a great champion. Baseball came a long way after 1939.

May 20

1899 Speed
Jacob German, operator of a taxicab for the Electric Vehicle Company, became the first driver to be arrested for speeding when he was stopped by Bicycle Roundsman Schueller for driving at the "breakneck" speed of twelve miles per hour on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. German was booked and held in jail at the East Twenty-second Street station house. He was, of course, not made to hand over his license and registration, as neither item was required until two years later in the State of New York. It seems fitting that our country's first arrest for reckless driving should be leveled at a New York cabbie.

May 21

1901 Speed Limit
Connecticut became the first state to enact a speeding driver law. The State General Assembly passed a bill submitted by Representative Robert Woodruff that stipulated the speed of all motor vehicles should not exceed 12 mph on country highways and 8 mph within city limits.

May 22

1977 Unisex 500
Janet Guthrie became the first female to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. Guthrie failed to finish the 1977 race due to mechanical troubles. The next year, however, she not only finished the race but landed in ninth place, a remarkable achievement considering her meager race funding. Guthrie explains her career beginning as the result of her passion for adrenaline rush and the purchase of her first sports car. "I've always loved adventure," she said. "I went parachuting when I was sixteen, and got my pilot's license when I was seventeen. I went to school for physics... and when I got out of school I bought a Jaguar, from my $125 a week salary and my superb sense of moderation." After thirteen years of racing, Guthrie's break came when she was asked to test a car at Indy. Her participation brought her immediate fame. Many men objected strongly to her driving at Indy. "The alarm and commotion took me by surprise," she said. "The woman part of my participation was irrelevant to anything on the track. But people thought we were plotting a revolution... they said women will endanger our lives." Guthrie responded to the criticism simply by racing the best she could. "In racing there is no room for a readout from your nervous system. Your body becomes part of the machine." Guthrie gave up her dream of becoming an Indy Car driver for financial reasons, which she cites as a major obstacle to women becoming involved in the sport. "Drag racing gets more women because it costs about a tenth of Indy Car racing. It's a very expensive sport. I managed to make do with $120,000 I got from Texaco, but most drivers have between two and three million dollars to work with."

May 23

1934 Bonnie and Clyde
Clyde Champion Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death by Texas and Louisiana state police officers as they attempted to escape apprehension in a stolen 1934 Ford V-8 near Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Bonnie and Clyde met in Texas in 1930 when the nineteen-year-old Bonnie was tending bar. At the time, Bonnie was married to an imprisoned murderer. Soon after the two met, Clyde was arrested for burglary and sent to prison. Bonnie smuggled a pistol into the prison, and Clyde broke out. Over the course of their crime spree together, Bonnie and Clyde were believed to have committed thirteen murders and several robberies and burglaries. For over two years, the couple evaded local police officers in rural counties of Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico. Not until the FBI, then called the Bureau of Investigation, became involved in the case did law-enforcement officials gain ground on Bonnie and Clyde. The Bureau of Investigation, curiously enough, could only investigate the two on the grounds of the National Motor Vehicle Act, which stipulated that federal agents had jurisdiction to pursue suspects accused of interstate transportation of a stolen automobile. Investigators initially traced a stolen vehicle to the house of Clyde Barrow's aunt. As officers stepped up the pressure to catch Bonnie and Clyde, the well-armed couple went about adding to their own firepower. They were joined by Clyde's brother, Buck Barrow, along with his wife. Later they were joined by escaped murderer Raymond Hamilton. In the spring of 1934, following tireless investigations, federal agents traced the gang to a remote county in Southwest Louisiana. A certain Methvin family was said to have been aiding and abetting the Bonnie and Clyde gang for over a year. It was learned that Bonnie and Clyde, along with some of the Methvins, had staged a party at Black Lake, Louisiana, on the night of May 21. Two days later, just before dawn, a posse of police officers from Texas and Louisiana, including Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, laid an ambush for Bonnie and Clyde along the highway near Sailes, Louisiana. In the early morning, Bonnie and Clyde appeared in their automobile. The officers reported that the coupe attempted to flee, but more likely, owing to the fact that Bonnie and Clyde had killed five policemen, the posse opened fire without warning. For two minutes, deputies showered the car with bullets. Both Bonnie and Clyde were killed in the barrage. Their bullet-riddled 1934 Ford later became a valuable collectible. Bonnie and Clyde gained a place in popular mythology as dustbowl Robin Hoods. The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, starring Warren Beatty as Clyde and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie, portrayed a charming and irreverent pair who took their game too far. Examination of the couple's past, as well as an examination of their victims, shows that Bonnie and Clyde were more likely carefree killers. Their popularity owed to the mistrust of the authorities of the Dustbowl during the Depression era, and to the couple's uncanny ability to elude the police for over two years.

May 24

1899 Park it Right Here
The first public parking garage in the United States was established in Boston, Massachusetts by W.T. McCullough as the Back Bay Cycle and Motor Company. McCullough advertised the garage's opening as a "stable for renting, sale, storage, and repair of motor vehicles."

May 25

1985 Mecca of Motorsports
The Charlotte Motor Speedway, a.k.a. the Mecca of Motorsports, held its first race. The Speedway, and the city of Charlotte itself, are symbols of the new era of NASCAR racing. Home to more NASCAR teams than any other city, Charlotte, North Carolina, has embraced the sport with all its might. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Charlotte became one of the nation's premier banking communities, and as such enjoyed a dramatic influx of capital. Along with Atlanta, Charlotte became a dramatic symbol of the "New South," a term used to describe a burgeoning suburban middle class that has downplayed its link to the region's separatist history. The Charlotte Motor Speedway was the culmination of the city's effort to create the greatest racing facility in the world for drivers and spectators. The Speedway boasts expanded pedestrian walkways, a modern parking facility, and a tunnel under Turn Three. Linked to Charlotte and I-85 by a high-volume connector road, the Charlotte Motor Speedway is capable of accommodating the crowds necessary to fill the 112,000-seat arena, "the largest outdoor sports stadium in the Southeast." A state-of-the-art lighting system allows racing during the cool hours of the evening. The track itself is a 1.5-mile oval that is banked at 24 degrees. On this day in 1985, Darrel Waltrip became the first man to win a race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

May 26

1937 The Battle of the Overpass
Union leaders and Ford Service Department men clashed in a violent confrontation on the Miller Road Overpass outside Gate 4 of the Ford River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The clash came three months after the UAW achieved its first landmark victory at Ford, when they had forced the company to negotiate a policy toward organized labor by staging a lengthy sit-down strike at the Rouge complex. The sit-down strike had succeeded largely because of the support of Michigan Governor Frank Murphy, who protected the strikers' right to bargain collectively. However, the labor agreement did little in the way of changing the day-to-day life of Ford workers. At the time of the victory, the UAW was still a relatively small, well-organized group. Legally, Henry Ford was forced to give ground, but he did not relinquish his opposition to organized laborers. Instead, he allowed Harry Bennett, head of the Ford Service Department, to build an increasingly muscular force of Ford officials charged with the job of maintaining discipline in the work place. Bennett had, in the past, used what amounted to thug tactics to intimidate workers. After the sit-down strike, tensions ran high between employees and labor officials. On this day in 1937, UAW organizers Walter Reuther, Bob Kanter, J.J. Kennedy, and Richard Frankensteen were distributing leaflets among the workers at the Rouge complex when they were approached by a gang of Bennett's men. The Ford Servicemen brutally beat the four unionists while many other union sympathizers, including eleven women, were injured in the resulting melee. The attack was no surprise to Ford employees. One man summed up the tone at the Rouge factory: "I was glad to have a job but scared to go to work." One of the Ford Servicemen involved in the incident was Elmer Janovski, a twenty-six-year-old ex-bootlegger who had been personally hired by Bennett. "We were told there was trouble--Reuther and Frankensteen were passing out flyers," said Janovski. "I started fighting with them. I didn't poke Reuther, but I poked the others, including the newspaper cameraman." The newspaper camera operator in question was what made the Battle of the Overpass an extraordinary event. The day after the struggle, all of America was witness to the primitive tactics with which Henry Ford subdued organized laborers who had the law on their side. The publicity didn't end Ford's opposition to organized labor, but it certainly made his eventual acquiescence inevitable. Reuther later recalled the event. He said that anti-union thugs "surrounded us and started to beat us up.... The men picked me up about eight different times and threw me down on my back on the concrete and while I was on the ground, they kicked me in the face and head and other parts of my body." Ironically, Janovski was fired from Ford and bounced between a number of low-paying jobs at automobile factories before he, too, joined the union. Some time later, he ran into Reuther at a labor rally in Detroit. "I told him that I was one of the guys on the other side at the Overpass," he said. "Reuther told me, 'It's all forgotten... we're all happy now... we're all brothers.' " Today, a reported 5,000 of River Rouge's 13,000 employees cross the Miller Overpass on the way to work. The landmark is a physical reminder of the suffering undertaken by brave workers who strove for a better quality of life.

May 27

1927 The People's Car
Production of the Ford Model T officially ended after 15,007,033 units had been built. The Model T sold more units than any other car model in history, until the Volkswagen Beetle eclipsed its record in the 1970s. That a car produced domestically in the first three decades of the century could compete in production numbers with a car first produced in the '60s and distributed worldwide is testament to the dramatic genius of the Model T. Before the "Tin Lizzy's" introduction, no car was reliable or affordable enough to be any good to the average man. In 1908, the Model T had a price tag of $850 and sold 6,389 units. In 1910, the price had dropped to $690 and the Tin Lizzy sold 34,528 units. By 1915, the price tag of Ford's "people's car" had reached an astounding $350 and sold, accordingly, 472,350 units. Ford's mass-production miracle even exceeded his own prophetic expectations. The Model T may have accomplished what the Monroe Doctrine only proposed. Here is Henry Ford's vision: "I will build a motor car for the great multitude, constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise ... so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one--and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."

May 28

1918 A New Record for Oldfield
Barney Oldfield ran a qualifying lap in his front-wheel-drive Christie at 102.6 mph. It was the first time any driver had rounded the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in excess of 100 mph. Oldfield ended up finishing fifth on race day, as Dario Resta beat the field in his Peugeot. Barney Oldfield is remarkable for having set so many landmarks in so many different places in so many different cars. He had a knack for creating history. It was Oldfield who first drove Ford's 888 cars to success; Oldfield who made Harry Miller famous in the Golden Submarine; Oldfield who beat Ralph DePalma in a series of match races. He somehow always managed to associate himself with the famous figures and venues of his time. He even served a ban for drag-racing the African-American heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Johnson.

May 29

1950 Broken Tucker
Preston Tucker's lawsuit against his former prosecutors was thrown out of court. Tucker had been indicted for stock fraud after managing to produce only fifty-three of his long-awaited Tucker cars. The court case ruined Tucker's chances of ever releasing the car on a grand scale. Tucker charged the Big Three with trumping up a conspiracy to ground his competitive operation. Eventually all the charges against Tucker were dropped. Hungry to clear his name, Preston Tucker sued his former prosecutors on various grounds related to the destruction of his reputation. It was generally believed that Tucker's initial acquittal was an act of charity granted to an overly-ambitious, failed entrepreneur. Tucker's case was dismissed after little consideration. It was Preston Tucker's last-gasp effort to save his name, and it failed. Tucker's reputation has fared far better in recent years with the help of a Hollywood movie, starring Jeff Bridges, that portrays Tucker as a visionary in a practical age.

May 30

1911 Miles and Miles at Indy
Ray Harroun won the inaugural Indianapolis 500, averaging 74.6 mph in the Marmon Wasp. The Indy 500 was the creation of Carl Fisher. In the fall of 1909, Fisher replaced the ruined, crushed-stone surface of his 2.5-mile oval with a brand-new brick one. It was the largest paved, banked oval in the United States. Fisher then made two decisions vital to the success of the Indy 500. First, he determined to hold only one race per year on his Indianapolis Motor Speedway; second, he elected to offer the richest purse in racing as a reward for competing in his annual 500-mile event. By the second year of the Indy 500, 1912, it was the highest-paying, single-day sporting event in the entire world. The purse alone guaranteed that Indy would attract the media's undivided attention. Add to Fisher's marketing tactics the fact that European racing suffered from an absence of major events due to the ban on public road racing, and you have the ingredients that made Indy instantly successful. The media attention, in turn, meant that the best drivers in the world would come to Indy to make their reputation. Manufacturers acknowledged that a car bearing their name would mean millions in free advertising. It's a simple formula by today's standards, but in Fisher's time the risk of putting so much money down was rarely taken. In the very first race at Indy, Harroun's Marmon became nationally recognized. The car was owned, built, and entered by the factory, and Harroun drove as a hired employee. Among the Marmon Wasp's novel features, it is cited as the first car fitted with a rear-view mirror. But if the Indy 500 was responsible for attracting the industry to racing, it was even more responsible for creating racing as an industry. In 1911, the typical race car was built off the chassis of a big luxury car. They had huge four-cylinder engines. Instead of the heavy body of the luxury cars, the race cars were fitted with "doghouse" bodies that just covered the car's engine and cockpit. The floorboards were wood boards, the wheels were made of ash wood, and the seats were metal buckets bolted firmly to the floorboards. The cars were equipped with rear-wheel drum brakes only. Bolster tanks, like tubular sofa bolsters, held the oil and gasoline. Due to the ill-fitting pistons, gaskets, and valves that comprised the cars' innards, the best cars dropped nearly a dozen gallons of oil on the brick racetrack over the course of the 500-mile event. So these cars, equipped with no suspension, raced at speeds near 80 mph on a brick track covered in oil. Only a decade later in 1922, nearly all the cars that started the Indy 500 were purpose-built race cars. All of them carried aerodynamic bodies, with narrow grills and teardrop-shaped tails. Knock-off wire wheels made for quick, efficient tire changes, and the new straight-sided tires lasted much longer than their early pneumatic counterparts. The best cars were equipped with four-wheel hydraulic brakes, and inline 3.0-liter V-8 engines made of aluminum. The cars were smaller, lighter, more efficient, and far more expensive. They resembled nothing that could be purchased in a storeroom. Ray Harroun's speed of 74.6 mph would have finished him 10th at the 1922 Indy 500. It wasn't the speeds that had changed so much as the driver's control over the car. Racing, at least partly because of Indy, had become a sport rather than an exhibition. In the Mid-1920s, the Miller and Duesenberg cars took racing to another level. Indy became what it is today, a high-paying event for the world's most expensive cars.

May 31

1904 Stranger Than Friction
Byron J. Carter received a U.S. patent for his "friction-drive" mechanism. The friction-drive replaced the conventional transmission to provide more precise control of a car's speed. A newspaper at the time of the device's release explained that the friction-drive mechanism "used friction discs, instead of gears, so arranged as to be instantly changed to any desired speed. The discs also change to forward or backward movement, and can be used as a brake to stop the machine by reversing the lever." Carter's friction drive never really caught on, however. Conventional transmissions served their purpose adequately, and the friction discs proved to be susceptible to poor road conditions. Carter's ingenious design did, however, attract the attention of William Durant, General Motor's megalomaniac expansionist leader. He bought the Cartercar design thinking it might turn into something big; it never did. The technology involved in the friction-drive is, however, related to today's disc brakes.