July 30, 1898 – The first printed automobile advertisement
A new edition of Scientific American released on this day in 1898 contained the very first magazine advertisement for an automobile within its pages. Cleveland, Ohio, based Winton Motor Carriage Company ran the ad, which asked readers to “Dispense with a horse and save the expense, care and anxiety
July 29, 1909 – General Motors buys Cadillac
When General Motors (GM) purchased Cadillac on this day in 1909 for $4.5 million in GM stock, Cadillac was already the top seller of luxury automobiles in the United States. The history of Cadillac begins with the failure of Henry Ford’s second attempt at starting a car company. When
July 28 – Locomobile, Watkins Glen Summer Jam & the Bonnie & Clyde Car
In today’s automotive history video lesson for July 28 we discuss GM founder William Durant’s 1922 purchase of Locomobile, the 1924 birth of F1 driver Luigi Musso, the 1973 Watkins Glen Summer Jam concert featuring the Grateful Dead and the 1973 auction of Bonnie & Clyde’s death car.
July 27, 1948 – Bentley Boy Woolf Barnato dies
On this day in 1948 British auto racer “Bentley Boy” Woolf Barnato passed away at the age of 52. Barnato began his racing career in 1921, just two years after Bentley was founded, when he imported a Locomobile from the US to race at the Brooklands Easter meeting. Not
July 26, 1998 – Disaster strikes at Michigan International Speedway
On lap 175 of 250 of the CART series U.S. 500 on this day in 1998 Adrian Fernandez hit the wall at Michigan International Speedway, causing a tire and suspension parts to break loose and fly into the crowd. The wreck resulted in the deaths of three fans. An
July 25, 1959 – A hovercraft crosses the English Channel
The air was calm, the sun was out, and the seabirds were cawing, but nobody could hear them. The birds’ cries were drowned out by the motors of the first practical hovercraft, which was idling on the banks of the English Channel in Calais, France. It was on this
July 24, 2000 – Fourth generation Dodge Caravan begins production
Since Lee Iacocca introduced the Chrsyler minivans for the 1984 model year, the vehicle has earned a reputation for being the best kid shuttler around. Quickly copied by Ford and GM, it’s hard to beat the timeless designs of Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth vans. It was on this day
July 23, 2006 – The Cougar Ace car carrier lists, 4,703 Mazdas later crushed
On this day in 2006 the MV Cougar Ace, a Singapore-flagged car carrier vessel, was just south of the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific Ocean while traveling from Japan to Vancouver, British Columbia with a cargo of 4,812 vehicles. During an exchange of ballast water, the ship developed
