1902 – Cadillac Automobile Company Is Founded
The Cadillac Automobile Company was organized in Detroit on August 22, 1902, from the remains of the Henry Ford Company. After Henry Ford left following disagreements with his investors, William Murphy and Lemuel Bowen brought in precision engineer Henry M. Leland to assess the company’s assets for liquidation. Instead, Leland persuaded them to remain in the automobile business and build cars around a reliable single-cylinder engine developed by his firm, Leland & Faulconer. The new company was named Cadillac after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the French explorer associated with the founding of Detroit. Cadillac quickly earned a reputation for precision manufacturing and interchangeable parts, eventually adopting the slogan “Standard of the World.” General Motors acquired the company in 1909, establishing Cadillac as its premier luxury division.
1910 – Drivers Test the New Elgin Road Course
The first official trials of the Elgin Automobile road course took place outside Chicago on August 22, 1910, one day before the inaugural Elgin Road Races began. The roughly 8.5-mile circuit used oil-treated dirt and gravel public roads selected because they avoided railroad crossings, major hills and populated areas that could slow the competitors. During the trials, several drivers averaged better than a mile per minute, with Harry Grant completing a lap in his ALCO in 8 minutes, 21 seconds. Other prominent competitors included Ray Harroun in a Marmon and Ralph Mulford in a Lozier. Thousands of spectators would soon flock to Elgin for races featuring many of America’s leading drivers and manufacturers, helping make the Illinois road course one of the country’s important early motorsports venues.
1937 – Mercedes-Benz Sweeps the Swiss Grand Prix
Mercedes-Benz scored a dominant 1-2-3 finish at the Swiss Grand Prix at Bremgarten on August 22, 1937. Rudolf Caracciola drove his formidable Mercedes-Benz W125 to victory over teammate Hermann Lang, with Manfred von Brauchitsch completing the podium sweep. The race was held over 50 laps of the fast and dangerous 7.28-kilometer Bremgarten road circuit near Bern, initially in wet conditions that gradually improved. Caracciola had also started from pole, while rival Bernd Rosemeyer recorded the fastest lap in an Auto Union. Mercedes’ W125 was one of the most powerful Grand Prix machines of the prewar era, and the Swiss victory formed part of an extraordinary 1937 campaign in which the Silver Arrows won four of the five European Championship Grands Prix. Caracciola ultimately secured his second European Drivers’ Championship that season.
1950 – Ralph Teetor Receives an Early Cruise Control Patent
Inventor Ralph R. Teetor was granted U.S. Patent No. 2,519,859 on August 22, 1950, for a vehicle speed-control device that became an important step toward modern cruise control. Teetor, who had been blind since childhood, devised a system that could alert a driver through resistance in the accelerator pedal when a predetermined speed had been reached. The driver could still push through the resistance when additional acceleration was necessary. Teetor continued refining the concept during the 1950s, eventually developing a system capable of automatically maintaining a selected road speed. Chrysler became the first major automaker to offer his technology commercially, marketing it as Auto-Pilot for 1958, while Cadillac later helped popularize the term Cruise Control. Variations of Teetor’s basic idea eventually became commonplace in automobiles around the world.
1967 – AMC Announces the Javelin
American Motors announced the new 1968 AMC Javelin on August 22, 1967, revealing the car that would take the relatively conservative automaker directly into the booming pony-car market. Styled under design chief Dick Teague, the four-seat fastback was conceived as AMC’s answer to the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro and represented an aggressive attempt to attract younger buyers. When sales began the following month, the Javelin carried a base price of about $2,743 and could be ordered with engines ranging from an economical inline-six to increasingly potent V8s. The strategy worked: the Javelin helped transform AMC’s image, attracted substantially younger customers and later became a serious force in SCCA Trans-Am racing. The model remained in production through 1974 and today ranks among the most distinctive performance cars produced by American Motors.
