July 19th 1934
Harold T. Ames filed a patent application for his retractable headlamps. The design would later become one of the defining details on Ames' most triumphant project, the Cord 810. Ames, then the chief executive at Duesenberg, asked Cord designer Gordon Buehrig to make a "baby version" of the Duesenberg car. Buehrig's response, the Cord 810, is widely held to be one of the most influential cars in American automotive history. It was the last great offering of the Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg triumvirate, as the company became insolvent at the end of the Depression. In 1952, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) chose the 1937 Cord as one of eight automotive works of art for a year-long exhibition.
July 19th 1935
The first automatic parking meter in the U.S., the Park-O-Meter invented by Carlton Magee, was installed in Oklahoma City by the Dual Parking Meter Company. Twenty-foot spaces were painted on the pavement, and a parking meter that accepted nickels was planted in the concrete at the head of each space. The city paid for the meters with funds collected from them. Today parking meters are big business. Companies offer digital parking meters, smart parking meters, and, even more remarkably, user-friendly parking meters. The user-friendly parking meters are an attempt to stem the tide of "violent confrontations" between users and their meters.
1936 Cord 810
Parking Meter
Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia