[vasudeva]

This site seems to have history events for each date with a section on automotives.
For example, 9/11:

September 11, 1970: Pinto competes with imports
The Ford Pinto was introduced on this day at a cost of less than $2,000, designed to compete with an influx of compact imports. But it was not the Pinto's low cost that grabbed headlines. Ford's new best-selling compact contained a fatal design flaw: because of the placement of the gas tank, the tank was likely to rupture and explode when the car was involved in a rear end collision of over 20mph. In addition, it was eventually revealed that Ford knew about the design flaw before the Pinto was released. An internal cost-benefit analysis prepared by Ford calculated that it would take $11 per car to correct the flaw at a total cost of $137 million for the company. When compared to the lowly estimate of $49.5 million in potential lawsuits from the mistake, the report deemed it "inefficient" to go ahead with the correction. The infamous report assigned a value of $200,000 for each death predicted to result from the flaw. Ford's irresponsibility caused a public uproar, and it 1978, a California jury awarded a record-breaking $128 million to a claimant in the Ford Pinto case.


September 10, 1897: First DWI arrest is made
Even without Breathalyzers and line tests, George Smith's swerving was enough to alarm British police and make him the first person arrested for drunken driving. Unfortunately, Smith's arrest did nothing to discourage the many other drunk drivers who have taken to the road since. Although drunk driving is illegal in most countries, punished by heavy fines and mandatory jail sentences, it continues to be one of the leading causes of automobile accidents throughout the world. Alcohol-related automobile accidents are responsible for approximately one-third of the traffic fatalities in the United States--16,000 deaths each year, and also account for over half a million injuries and $1 billion of property damage annually.


September 9, 1966: No longer unsafe at any speed?
In response to the national uproar over automobile safety prompted by Ralph Nader's book Unsafe at Any Speed, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act was signed into law on this day. Nader's book targeted the American automobile industry's neglect of safety issues, using General Motors' dangerous Corvair model as a focus for his criticism. Congress responded to the nation's concern by passing a new bill, which established federal safety standards with strict penalties for violations. At the signing of the bill, President Johnson assured Nader and a crowd of several hundred that safety was "no luxury item, no optional extra."

Quite US-centric but still interesting.