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February, 2001 Cruise News

STORY LINE-CALENDAR OF AUTOMOTIVE HISTORY HAPPENINGS

HERE it is already February of 2001, the new car auto show is history and the 49TH Annual Detroit Autorama is part of this months most prominent of old car, classic car, custom car, muscle car and hobbiest interest. It’s a good time to step back and review some facts of how and what automobiles came about-a little bit of January/February auto trivia of years gone by.

On New years Day of 1942, the Olds Motor Works officially becomes Oldsmobile Division of General Motors. The 2nd of January 1953, the Hudson Jet is introduced and on the 3rd of January 1957 the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser convertible replica of the Indianapolis 500 is introduced. Remember the first Plymouth Fury of 1956, it was first shown on January 7th of 1955 and, the precursor to the Chrysler Corporation-Maxwell Motor Corporation-was formed in Detroit on January 11, 1913.

General Motors first used the Motor Rama name for its Mid century Motor Rama car show featuring design concept and styling cars ... in New York City for its first Motor Rama show on January 19, 1950. January 26 marked the founding of the Lincoln Motor Car Company by Henry M. LeLand in 1920.

Interesting to note is that Mr. LeLand was also the man who reincarnated the bankruptcy of one of Henry Fords initial car failures, turned it into the Cadillac Motor Car Company, left Cadillac when Durant took over-who founded General Motors-the two could not get along, founded the Lincoln Motor Car Company, named it after the first president of the US that he voted for-Abraham Lincoln-and then Henry Ford bought the company out from LeLand in 1922. Yes, Henry LeLand gave us both of the premier American luxury automobiles that are still with us and outliving Packard, Duesenburg, Peerless and all the others luxury marques. Henry LeLand also gave us the ‘go and no go’ Swiss tooling that led to precision manufacturing techniques.

On February 1, 1913 the Pierce Arrow Automobile Company applied for a patent on fender mounted headlights, it was the marked most recognizable feature for the Pierce Arrow car. In later years when the Pierce was no longer, the Willys automobile picked up on that patent signature design. We all mourn the passing of high grade Ethyl gasoline the likes of Sunoco 260 for our high compression V8s of days gone by-it was originally introduced in Dayton, Ohio February 1, 1923. February 7 of 1958 represents the 2-millionth Cadillac car build date with February 9th of 1909 as the incorporation date of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway-A Marmon automobile driven by Ray Harroun won the first Indianapolis 500 race in 1911.

Fords latest reincarnated Thunderbird two-seat model is soon to be back in production. The first 4-seat model T-Bird was introduced on February 13 of 1958 and outsold the two-seater model by a huge margin. February 16 marks the founding of a partnership of a blacksmith and wagon building company whose name was H&C Studebaker, in South Bend, Indiana-1852. And white wall tires, they are not commonly found on todays new cars, February 17, 1951 white wall tire production was banned by the US Government due to the Korean Conflict.