yes, first known use of 4WD on a car. Probably FWD was early on, too, but I haven't figured that one out yet. I'd presume that without power assist on those primitive cars, FWD must not have been pleasant. Eerliest that comes to mind would be the Cord L-29 in 1929, which was the first American production line FWD car. I'm sure someone else tried it before.
The L-29 was a lovely car, preceeding the more famous Cords we are used to seeing. It was in the 20s style, upright and stately, not flowing and bulbous like the 30s cars. Frank Lloyd Wright owned an L-29 and was very fond of it.
Heck, Shifty, that one's easy. Cugnot's steam-powered wagon in 1769 (I think) was FWD. One front wheel did it all; drive, steer, support the boiler, everything. It took him about 100 feet to crash because 3 men and a draft horse couldn't have budged that tiller.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Believe it or not, bhill, you can still see that thing in Paris. It's in the basement of a church. (The French never throw anything away) When I looked at it, I really couldn't believe it worked or could actually drive. The mechanism seems unworkable...but the IDEA was there, that's true. A personal transportation steam tricycle is what it was.
To say that Americans have been lax in automotive innovations is vastly unfair; although one must conceed that many innovations( during the last 40 years) are the result from Asian and European manufacturers, the USA has not stood still. It has been claimed that the disc brakes have been "foreign adaption" for example. The fact is that the Crossley's used the Hawley disc brake set up long before disc brakes had been heard of. It is true that they were subject rust/free up concerns, but unlike the Chyrsler "disc brake" ( which was an enclosed drum brake with several shoes, pressing against the out wall of a 2 piece drum) of the early fifties, they used a conventional rotor and mechanical caliper design. It might also be pointed out that Studebaker in 1963 became one of the first( popular or mainstream manufacturer) to offer caliper front disc brakes either as a factory option or standard across every model sold. Seat belts were offered as an option during the 1950's by Nash among others and we continued the development of safety as an issue; note the development of the collaspable steering column in the 60's. Also, was the issuance by Rambler, Studebaker (most vehicles), and Cadillac in 1962 with unified tandem master cylinder, allowing the braking system to be split into frnt/rear independent systems. Other companies had tandem brake systems before this, required dual master cylinders to do, thus, creating an engineering nightmare. Although, we did not create the 5 speed transmission, "freewheeling overdrive," was a developement that took place back in the 30's, thus allowing 4/5 forward speeds depending on the setup available, from a otherwise normal 3 speed manual transmission. It is true that most of the OHC engines as of late have come from the Asian and European countries; however, it might be interesting to note that an American company called Tincher advertised their ohc engine as early as 1906! While the Asian and european countries had some of the simplest HVAC systems around thru the 1970's; we led the way in refining the heater/ac/vent system complete with automatic temp controls. We were among the first to make the conversion to electronics in our vehicles. Although it is true that Europeans had practical (for the time) electronic fuel injection vehicles during the late 60's, they proved to be rather unreliable and soon changed to a much simpler systems.. But, the fact remains that before the turn of century Edward Pennignton had developed a fuel injection system (however crude it may have been)and built a few vehicles that did work with his system of fuel injection. And, fuel injection was available on a few performance GM vehicles in the late fifties and on the Vette' for a number of years....But, we developed DIS ignition systems (Buick in 1980's); solid state igntion before that, remember 1975's GM HEI system?...and computers to control emmissions as early as the late 70's. There is more, but I think that one gets the point..... All I suggesting is that our memories are highly selective; we need to step back for a moment and actually think about what we're saying....The Americans are not as "lazy" as some have suggested....It's just that others led development in certain areas. No one group can lead in every area, but the fact is that no matter who does the development, we all benefit and in the end, that's what really counts.
That's true, all countries contribute, but it sounds to me like you are playing the apologist, which isn't fair either. Crosley disc brakes didn't work, period. It was Jaguar who made a workable disc brake. Jaguar? A nearly broke company from a bombed out country? Now why couldn't the USA, conqueror of the world in 1945, come up with a working disc brake? We certainly already had them on our warplanes. Why did we have to rely on a maker of refrigerators to come up with a half-heated attempt?
VW electronic fuel injection in 1968 was pretty darn good, Good enough for everyone to follow. 1955 Benz mechanical injection was quite good. You do not see many 1957 Chevys and Pontiacs with the Bendix injection because it didn't work very well and nobody ordered it for that reason.
Well, seat belts, yeah sure, if you want to think of a strip of canvas bolted to the floor as an amazing technological breakthrough. I was thinking of more impressive types of achievement.
I still maintain it was laziness through and through. We were selling every car we could make in the late 40s, all the 50s and the 60s, and there was simply no incentive to produce a more technically advanced car. Kaiser cars were supposed to be front-drive, but they turned out to be totally conventional, and of course we know the Tucker Corporation imploded due to poor management and a very undeveloped product (and making lots of powerful people very mad at him didn't help either)
On the other hand, the Europeans, having to start again from scratch, were more stimulated to experiment and to abandon the old ways.
I think it was a classic case of prosperity making us fat and lazy. We even needed Germans to get us to the moon (but aha, we had the cash and the WILL and VISION to do it, which is also very important, as important as genius).
So I feel America's second place in automotive innovation is a failure not of talent or genius but of the vision and will to do something better. The entire system by which we made cars in the 50s through 80s was designed to produce a technically mediocre, although stylistically vital, product.
I've found many of the comments here quite interesting. One point I would like to throw in is that many of the advancements mentioned might have been developed in Europe, but it was the American motor industries that brought then to the general public.
I know that people can have nostalgic memories of cars they once owned but lets face it, I grew up in the UK in the seventies and its got to be said we had some really dreadful cars back then.
I joined the motor trade in the early eighties so have seen the dirty sides of a lot of these cars. Citroens in general were pretty unreliable, parts were expensive and difficult to find (on one occasion it took 11 weeks to have a CV joint delivered, and this not uncomman), & Peugeots, reliable although again parts could be difficult to find. Fiats and Alfa's were the same, finding parts was a joke. Fiat don't manufacture part for cars over three years old (unless that part is used on a current model! And corrosion, the merest hint of water would see then dissolving into puddles of rust.
BMW's, Mercedes and WV's. Normally driven by old business men or YUPYIES. Very reliable however, this tended to be the downfall for many as owner just drove then until they fell apart. Then parts, although available were hideously expensive.
Ford & GM (Vauxhall) Generally reliable, Ford parts network was second to non! It was a major let-down if you had to wait until the fowling day. GM although not as fast were still very good.
BL, Rover, Austin, Morris, etc. Potentially reliable, except for the diabolical quality control. Replacement parts often could be found from third party suppliers easier than from BL.
Japanese cars. Mechanical very reliable, however, many were retired early because of body corrosion. Nissans part system was strange to say the least. I ordered a starter motor for a Sunny, which had to be shipped from Japan. Whats so strange about that? Well, it was manufactured here in the UK at their Washington factory which is only 20 miles away! Work that one out!
And Finnaly. The first fully loaded car I ever was a 1970 Lincoln, that would have been around 1972, besides a couple of other American cars I never seen options like air conditioning, electric seats and window etc appearing on mainstream cars over here until the early eighties. And even these were $25,000 cars.
...was offered on Chrysler 300-D's and DeSoto Adventurers in 1958. I think it added about $800 to the price of the car. Not surprisingly, only 12 or 13 300-D's were ordered with it. I think it only added a few hp, as well.
A DeSoto Adventurer hardtop back then ran around $4,000 or so, so the fuel injection would've added about 20% to the price of an already fairly expensive car. I'd guess a fuelie Adventurer was even rarer than a 300-D. Supposedly they were all recalled and retrofitted with dual-quad setups, becuase of the problems. I wonder if the customers got an $800 rebate then?
As for the actual hp #'s, I think a fuelie Adventurer 361 had 355 hp, while the dual-quad had either 345 or 350. I forget about the 392 Hemi though. For some reason, the numbers 375 and 390 are popping into my mind.
What kind of fuel injection system did the '57 Bonneville use? Was it as unreliable? And what about the '57 Chevy's fuel injection?
Chevy and Pontiac both used Rochester mechanical fuel injection. According to "The Hot One: Chevrolet 1955-57" there were several problems with the setup. Initally the fuel nozzles were too short and absorbed heat, causing the engine to idle rough.
According to Vince Piggins, Chevy's director of racing then, "it was a very complex unit, prone to dirt, clogging, dirty fuel and what not." Fuelie Corvettes were very quick but I don't know how much of that power came the FI and how much from the Duntov cam.
The '57 FI Bonneville did the quarter in 18 seconds but that's a different engine and much heavier car than even a Chevy sedan, let alone a Corvette.
Ironically, those early fuel-injected cars are worth a lot more money than their carburetor brethren, due to the rarity and the performance increase.
Yes, I think northstart makes some very good points. The "innovator" is not necessarily the "implementor".
There's an old saying among auto historians that Germany was the birthplace of the car, France the incubator that made it a healthy baby, and the US is where the car grew up to maturity.
Perhaps innovation works something like this as well.
...when were those invented, anyway? I had a '79 Newport with them, and my '79 NY'er has them. I heard that Ford and Chrysler were the first to use them, but someone else had patented the design. Ford and Chrysler didn't get permission, and got sued big-time. At least from what my stepdad told me! When I first dragged that Newport home from the junkyard (well, actually, it moved under its own power...the tranny didn't fail until about 4 months later ;-), I was surprised to find intermittent wipers on a car that old.
Yes, that story is true. The inventor did sue the automakers and won some kind of retro-royalty. But he had to drag them kicking and screaming into court, of course.
...is my '69 Dart GT's 3-speed wipers with power (rather than foot-operated) washer fluid spray. Probably not a big deal, but the '69 Bonneville I had only had 2-speed wipers. Heck, even my '86 Monte only had 2-speed wipers! My '68 Dart is just a 2-speed job with a foot pump.
Comments
yes, first known use of 4WD on a car. Probably FWD was early on, too, but I haven't figured that one out yet. I'd presume that without power assist on those primitive cars, FWD must not have been pleasant. Eerliest that comes to mind would be the Cord L-29 in 1929, which was the first American production line FWD car. I'm sure someone else tried it before.
The L-29 was a lovely car, preceeding the more famous Cords we are used to seeing. It was in the 20s style, upright and stately, not flowing and bulbous like the 30s cars. Frank Lloyd Wright owned an L-29 and was very fond of it.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
It has been claimed that the disc brakes have been "foreign adaption" for example. The fact is that the Crossley's used the Hawley disc brake set up long before disc brakes had been heard of. It is true that they were subject rust/free up concerns, but unlike the Chyrsler "disc brake" ( which was an enclosed drum brake with several shoes, pressing against the out wall of a 2 piece drum) of the early fifties, they used a conventional rotor and mechanical caliper design. It might also be pointed out that Studebaker in 1963 became one of the first( popular or mainstream manufacturer) to offer caliper front disc brakes either as a factory option or standard across every model sold.
Seat belts were offered as an option during the 1950's by Nash among others and we continued the development of safety as an issue; note the development of the collaspable steering column in the 60's. Also, was the issuance by Rambler, Studebaker (most vehicles), and Cadillac in 1962 with unified tandem master cylinder, allowing the braking system to be split into frnt/rear independent systems. Other companies had tandem brake systems before this, required dual master cylinders to do, thus, creating an engineering nightmare.
Although, we did not create the 5 speed transmission, "freewheeling overdrive," was a developement that took place back in the 30's, thus allowing 4/5 forward speeds depending on the setup available, from a otherwise normal 3 speed manual transmission.
It is true that most of the OHC engines as of late have come from the Asian and European countries; however, it might be interesting to note that an American company called Tincher advertised their ohc engine as early as 1906!
While the Asian and european countries had some of the simplest HVAC systems around thru the 1970's; we led the way in refining the heater/ac/vent system complete with automatic temp controls.
We were among the first to make the conversion to electronics in our vehicles. Although it is true that Europeans had practical (for the time) electronic fuel injection vehicles during the late 60's, they proved to be rather unreliable and soon changed to a much simpler systems..
But, the fact remains that before the turn of century Edward Pennignton had developed a fuel injection system (however crude it may have been)and built a few vehicles that did work with his system of fuel injection. And, fuel injection was available on a few performance GM vehicles in the late fifties and on the Vette' for a number of years....But, we developed DIS ignition systems (Buick in 1980's); solid state igntion before that, remember 1975's GM HEI system?...and computers to control emmissions as early as the late 70's. There is more, but I think that one gets the point.....
All I suggesting is that our memories are highly selective; we need to step back for a moment and actually think about what we're saying....The Americans are not as "lazy" as some have suggested....It's just that others led development in certain areas. No one group can lead in every area, but the fact is that no matter who does the development, we all benefit and in the end, that's what really counts.
VW electronic fuel injection in 1968 was pretty darn good, Good enough for everyone to follow. 1955 Benz mechanical injection was quite good. You do not see many 1957 Chevys and Pontiacs with the Bendix injection because it didn't work very well and nobody ordered it for that reason.
Well, seat belts, yeah sure, if you want to think of a strip of canvas bolted to the floor as an amazing technological breakthrough. I was thinking of more impressive types of achievement.
I still maintain it was laziness through and through. We were selling every car we could make in the late 40s, all the 50s and the 60s, and there was simply no incentive to produce a more technically advanced car. Kaiser cars were supposed to be front-drive, but they turned out to be totally conventional, and of course we know the Tucker Corporation imploded due to poor management and a very undeveloped product (and making lots of powerful people very mad at him didn't help either)
On the other hand, the Europeans, having to start again from scratch, were more stimulated to experiment and to abandon the old ways.
I think it was a classic case of prosperity making us fat and lazy. We even needed Germans to get us to the moon (but aha, we had the cash and the WILL and VISION to do it, which is also very important, as important as genius).
So I feel America's second place in automotive innovation is a failure not of talent or genius but of the vision and will to do something better. The entire system by which we made cars in the 50s through 80s was designed to produce a technically mediocre, although stylistically vital, product.
I know that people can have nostalgic memories of cars they once owned but lets face it, I grew up in the UK in the seventies and its got to be said we had some really dreadful cars back then.
I joined the motor trade in the early eighties so have seen the dirty sides of a lot of these cars. Citroens in general were pretty unreliable, parts were expensive and difficult to find (on one occasion it took 11 weeks to have a CV joint delivered, and this not uncomman), & Peugeots, reliable although again parts could be difficult to find. Fiats and Alfa's were the same, finding parts was a joke. Fiat don't manufacture part for cars over three years old (unless that part is used on a current model! And corrosion, the merest hint of water would see then dissolving into puddles of rust.
BMW's, Mercedes and WV's. Normally driven by old business men or YUPYIES. Very reliable however, this tended to be the downfall for many as owner just drove then until they fell apart. Then parts, although available were hideously expensive.
Ford & GM (Vauxhall) Generally reliable, Ford parts network was second to non! It was a major let-down if you had to wait until the fowling day. GM although not as fast were still very good.
BL, Rover, Austin, Morris, etc. Potentially reliable, except for the diabolical quality control. Replacement parts often could be found from third party suppliers easier than from BL.
Japanese cars. Mechanical very reliable, however, many were retired early because of body corrosion. Nissans part system was strange to say the least. I ordered a starter motor for a Sunny, which had to be shipped from Japan. Whats so strange about that? Well, it was manufactured here in the UK at their Washington factory which is only 20 miles away! Work that one out!
And Finnaly. The first fully loaded car I ever was a 1970 Lincoln, that would have been around 1972, besides a couple of other American cars I never seen options like air conditioning, electric seats and window etc appearing on mainstream cars over here until the early eighties. And even these were $25,000 cars.
A DeSoto Adventurer hardtop back then ran around $4,000 or so, so the fuel injection would've added about 20% to the price of an already fairly expensive car. I'd guess a fuelie Adventurer was even rarer than a 300-D. Supposedly they were all recalled and retrofitted with dual-quad setups, becuase of the problems. I wonder if the customers got an $800 rebate then?
As for the actual hp #'s, I think a fuelie Adventurer 361 had 355 hp, while the dual-quad had either 345 or 350. I forget about the 392 Hemi though. For some reason, the numbers 375 and 390 are popping into my mind.
What kind of fuel injection system did the '57 Bonneville use? Was it as unreliable? And what about the '57 Chevy's fuel injection?
According to Vince Piggins, Chevy's director of racing then, "it was a very complex unit, prone to dirt, clogging, dirty fuel and what not." Fuelie Corvettes were very quick but I don't know how much of that power came the FI and how much from the Duntov cam.
The '57 FI Bonneville did the quarter in 18 seconds but that's a different engine and much heavier car than even a Chevy sedan, let alone a Corvette.
Yes, I think northstart makes some very good points. The "innovator" is not necessarily the "implementor".
There's an old saying among auto historians that Germany was the birthplace of the car, France the incubator that made it a healthy baby, and the US is where the car grew up to maturity.
Perhaps innovation works something like this as well.
ADJUSTABLE Intermittent wipers too!
=P
I got ya all beat Nyah Nyah nyah!
lolol..
Bill
My '61 Falcon had INFINITELY variable wipers, depending on how far you turned the knob and how much manifold vacuum you had.