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February 8, 1985 – William Lyons’ death and 5 of the most important postwar Jaguars ever built
8Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
This Day

February 8, 1985 – William Lyons’ death and 5 of the most important postwar Jaguars ever built

William Lyons with Jaguar E-Type William Lyons was a visionary and a true pioneer in the automotive industry. Born in Coventry, England in 1901, Lyons had a passion for cars from a young age. He started his career as a motorcycle sidecar manufacturer in the 1920s, but it was his creation of the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922 with William Walmsley that would lay the foundation for his future success. Lyons’s company produced sidecars for various motorcycle manufacturers. However, his innovative designs and attention to detail set his products apart from the competition. Knowing he had something special on his hands, he ushered the Swallow Sidecar Company into the automobile industry. As Swallow was commonly known as SS, he changed the name of the automaker to Jaguar Cars Ltd so it w...
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Top 5 Craigslist Car Finds – Hot Rod Edition – Feb. 8, 2023
8Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
Cheap Classic Cars

Top 5 Craigslist Car Finds – Hot Rod Edition – Feb. 8, 2023

We found some crazy cool classic Ford hot rods for sale on Craigslist that we're dying to share. If only I had a space to store them, let alone the money to buy them myself. Alas, I don't, so perhaps you should! Check out these affordable hot rods in the video and let us know which one you want to bring home the most. Links for each listing are below. https://youtu.be/-hlFwKGp0Tg 1954 Ford Customline - $11,500 This classic cruiser is for sale outside of Kansas City for a price as splendid as the car. With a 239 Y block V8 connected to a three speed manual transmission, this old hot rod is a hard hitter. Find it here on Craigslist. 1957 Ford Ranchero - $12,000 This running but rusty Ford Ranchero hot rod is a patina cruiser, if you're into the P word. With a V8, C6 aut...
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February 7, 1804 – John Deere’s birthday
7Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
This Day

February 7, 1804 – John Deere’s birthday

On this day in 1804 John Deere was born in Vermont. After apprenticing as a blacksmith, he found work in Burlington before opening his own shops in Vergennes, and later in Leicester. Facing financial troubles, Deere headed west, eventually settling in Grand Detour, Illinois in 1836. He easily found work in his trade, for a lack of blacksmiths lived in the area. This move, however, exposed him to one such trouble, a sticky, clay soil that traditional cast iron plows had difficulty turning. Above: John Deere. Top John Deere Model D. (John Deere Archives) Inspired by polished steel pitchforks and the ease at which they pierced the soil, he set out to build a plow for the Midwest. The resulting cast steel plow framed by wrought iron debuted in 1837. The new style of plow found great...
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February 6, 1968 – Bunkie Knudsen becomes President of Ford
6Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
This Day

February 6, 1968 – Bunkie Knudsen becomes President of Ford

Bunkie Knudsen with new Chevrolet Auto industry titan Semon Knudsen was born in 1912 to William Knudsen, who himself would later become president of General Motors (1937-1940). His father gave him the nickname Bunkie, referring to the WWI term for bunk mate. The pair had a special bond, and the elder Knudsen knew how to play into his son's interests. When 14-year-old Bunkie asked for a new car, his father gave him a brand new 1927 Chevrolet. The only thing, it was fully disassembled. Bunkie went to work putting the car together piece by piece by hand, a process that cemented an interest in automobiles. His automotive career began after earning an engineering degree from MIT and then taking a low level position at Pontiac in 1939. Like father, like son, he would go on to become a succes...
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February 5, 1970 – AMC acquires Kaiser Jeep
5Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
This Day

February 5, 1970 – AMC acquires Kaiser Jeep

1974 Jeep J10 pickup truck. By Christopher Ziemnowicz - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0 During World War II, Willys-Overland, first formed by John Willys when he purchased Overland Automotive in 1908, became one of the largest producers of military vehicles for the U.S. government. This is largely due to the company's most famous product, the Jeep. The small, versatile vehicle built specifically for military purposes is proved dutiful on the field of battle and beyond. While Ford also produced Jeeps for the war, Willy's maintained the trademark. After the war, Willys-Overland continued to produce Jeeps for civilian use, and the vehicle became popular for its ruggedness and versatility. In 1953 industrialist Henry J. Kaiser acquired Willys-Overland, who saw Jeep's potential as a profitable co...
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February 4, 1913 – Civil rights activist Rosa Parks is born
4Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
Automotive, This Day

February 4, 1913 – Civil rights activist Rosa Parks is born

Rosa Parks, nee McCauley, the "First lady of civil rights," according to Congress, was born in Tuskegee, Alabama on this day in 1913. While growing up in the Jim Crow south, Parks remembered watching the school bus pick up the white children and take them to class. Yet, Black children always had to walk. At the time, laws in Alabama essentially made providing school transportation to Black kids illegal. Parks later recalled, "But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world." Above: Parks with MLK. Top: Parks with reporter Nicholas Chriss, after the boycott ended. (UPI) It would not always be a way of life, thanks to her. On December 1, 1955, Parks sat i...
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February 3, 2016 – Toyota announces the end of Scion
3Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
This Day

February 3, 2016 – Toyota announces the end of Scion

Scion xB After a failed attempt to attract younger buyers directly to the Toyota, the Japanese automaker launched Scion with a debut at the New York Auto Show in March of 2002. Just pre-production two models sat on the show floor, the bbX, later known as the xB, and the ccX, which became the tC. The production versions showed up the following January at the LA Auto Show. This was followed by the launch of the 2004 models in June 2003. Throughout that year, Scion dealers slowly began to pop up in southern and eastern US states. It would be a full year before the cars were available coast to coast. 2005 Scion tC. After hitting peak sales of 170,000 in 2006, the struggles began. The 2008 financial crisis played a heavy role in the decrease to 45,678 for the 2010 model year. Toyota ...
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February 2, 2004 – Dodge Ram SRT-10 sets speed record for production trucks
2Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
This Day

February 2, 2004 – Dodge Ram SRT-10 sets speed record for production trucks

NASCAR driver Brendan Gaughn displays his two-way average speed which earned the Dodge Ram SRT-10 a Guinness Record for World's Fastest Truck at DaimlerChrysler's Chelsea (Mich.) Proving Grounds. (Stellantis) On this day in 2004, the all new Dodge Ram SRT-10 made history as it claimed its place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "World's Fastest Production Pickup Truck." Fresh off the assembly line, the Dodge Ram SRT-10 unleashed its Viper V-10 power, proving its dominance with a two-lap, both-directions average speed of 154.587 mph over a "flying kilometer" on the 4.71-mile oval at the DaimlerChrysler Proving Grounds in Michigan. The record-breaking run was certified by both Guinness World Records and the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), setting the bar higher than eve...
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Ends tomorrow – 1 of 282 – Midnight Purple II 1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec
1Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
Classifieds

Ends tomorrow – 1 of 282 – Midnight Purple II 1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec

Photos courtesy The Import Guys If you haven't heard, Japanese Domestic Market (JDM) cars are pretty hot. Like, burning. Like, dang, those are every millennials childhood on wheels. Speaking of dreams, this Midnight Purple II 1999 Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec is one of 282 trimmed in that spec and color. Despite not yet being 25 years old it has been legally imported to the United States by the fine folks at The Import Guys in Ferndale, Washington. It's currently on Bring a Trailer with an auction ending tomorrow (February 2, 2023). At the time of writing it's been bid up to $155,000. While that is a lot of money, it's a heck of a deal for this car. Full transparency, I've seen this car in person. It is beautiful. R34 for Sale Under the hood sits the original 276 horsepower twi...
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February 1, 1907 – Steam pioneer Léon Serpollet dies
1Feb By Automotive HistoryNo Comments
This Day

February 1, 1907 – Steam pioneer Léon Serpollet dies

Léon Serpollet in the Easter Egg with a riding mechanic French inventor and industrialist Léon Serpollet is said to have done more for the steam automobile than anyone else. While experimenting with steam vehicles in the late 1880s, he and his brother Henri built a promising steam powered tricycle that helped them convince investors to fund further developments. His funds went to the development of the flash boiler, which he patented In 1896. The device made steam a more viable fuel option for vehicles, as drivers would now have a much shorter wait time before their vehicle was ready to go.  1901 Serpollet Vis-a-Vis Typ D. To demonstrate the power of steam, Serpollet set out to break the land speed record, which he did on April 13, 1902 while driving a car he built and dubbe...
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This Day in Automotive History is a transportation history, car history and general automotive history website dedicated to providing informative and entertaining content. Our goal is to enlighten our readers by producing and publishing automotive content on a wide range of topics, including famous cars, important automotive inventors and engineers and other historic automobile related events, places and people. We encourage you to share our page and connect with us on Facebook or sign up for our automotive history newsletter at the top of this page. If you have any questions about the content we publish, including our car videos and car history pictures and text and the use of them, please don’t hesitate to contact us using the below email address. On occasion we post classic cars for sale from Craigslist, Facebook and other online marketplaces. We utilize imagery from those ads in a fair use fashion. This includes barn finds for sale, muscle cars for sale, vans for sale, station wagons for sale, trucks for sale and other affordable old cars for sale. If you’d like your car featured, reach out to us!

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