This Day In Automotive History

[SirAlec]

April 29, 1951
Dale Earnhardt, popularly known as "The Intimidator" was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina. He is considered as one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. He died on February 18, 2001, when he was fatally injured in a last-lap at the Daytona 500. Earnhardt, age 49, died instantly of head injuries.

Source:
The History Channel
daleearnhardt.net
Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Wikipedia

[SirAlec]

29th April 2002
Bob Akin, American industrialist and race car driver died. On April 25, 2002, he was gravely injured in a violent crash while testing a powerful 1988 Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo for the Walter Mitty Challenge. His injuries included a broken neck, left leg, left shoulder and right arm, along with third-degree burns over 15 percent of his body. He was airlifted to Grady Memorial Hospital after the accident. After briefly rallying, the 66 year old succumbed due to complications from his injuries on April 29, 2002.

29th April 2004
Oldsmobile shut shops after producing cars for 107 years, Bravada SUV being its last model. In its 107-year history, it produced 35.2 million cars, When it was shut, Oldsmobile was the oldest surviving American automobile marque, and third oldest in the world, after Diamler and Peugeot.
The final 500 cars that came out of assembly line were Aleros, Auroras, Bravadas and Intrigues, which received special Oldsmobile heritage emblems and markings which signified 'Final 500'. All featured a unique Dark Cherry Metallic paint scheme. Auroras and Intrigues would be accompanied by special Final 500 literature.
The last car built was an Alero GLS 4-door sedan, which was signed by all of the Olds assembly line workers. It is on display at the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum, Lansing, Michigan.

Source:
Darkhorse Racing
NY Times
Wikipedia

[SirAlec]

30th April 1925
The Dodge widows sold Dodge Brothers Inc to the New York City banking firm of Dillon, Read & Company for $146 million plus $50 million for charity. It was the largest cash deal in history of the time. The sale of Dodge was not the result of a downturn in the company's fortune as Dodge was still selling well. The sale of the company was rather the result of the unwillingness of the Dodge Brothers' offspring to manage the company's affairs. Both Horace and John Dodge died in 1920. During their lifetimes, they had run the company personally, explicitly excluding their family members from participation in the company's management. After the brothers' deaths a brief depression in the stock market in 1921 scared the family members into "cashing out" of the company's affairs.
After running it unsucessfully for three years Dillion Read & Company approached Chrysler for takeover.

April 30th 1948
Land Rover was unveiled for the first time in Amsterdam Motor Show. Land Rover was developed as a result of necesscity when Maurice Wilks, a Rover engineer was unable to procure parts for his constanly breaking WW2 american Jeep while working on his farm in Wales.
He thought there could be a huge demand of such vehcile, as there were a very limited option in that segment namely, Jeep and Kubelwagen only.
He had very limited resource, as Steel was rationed and available to company that exported and at that time Rover didn't. So he thought of using Alumunium, as they were plenty as WWII surplus used to built aircraft. Ironically this had added advantage, one it was cheap, other it was rust proof, just right for Britain's weather.
Its said that 75% of Landy that left the Solihull is still alive.

April 30th 1963
Micheal Waltrip, two time Daytona 500 champion was born in Kentucky. He is retired and currently lives in North Carolina. He owns a racing team, Michael Waltrip Racing and do ocassional commentary for race events.

April 30th 1975
Elliot Sadler, a Nascar race driver was born in Virginia. He currently drives No19 Dodge Charger for Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

April 30th 1991
The last Trabant rolled out of assembly line after 34 years of production and and nearly three million example produced. The model hardly had any significant change during its 34 years of lifecycle. It is commonly used as a handy symbol by the advocate of free market for everything wrong with government planned economies and communism.

April 30th 1993
Roland Ratzenberger, an Austrian racecar driver crashed fatally during the qualifying run for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, In the same event the very next day three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna died.

April 30th 2003
Possum Bourne, A kiwi rally driver succumbed due to head injuries sustained on 18th April in non-competitive circumstances while driving on a public road, that was to be the track for an upcoming race. He was driving his Subaru Outback and collided with a Jeep Cherokee driven by another rally driver Mike Baltrop. At the time of his death, Possum had just re-entered the world stage, driving a production-class Subaru Impreza.

Source:
The History Channel
Club Hemmings
NY Times
Wikipedia

[SirAlec]

May 1st 1902
First gasoline powered Locomobile was produced.

May 1st 1925
Ettore Bugatti registered both the 'Pur Sangre Des Automobiles', and the thoroughbred racing horse profile, as French trademarks.

May 1st 1994
Three time F1 World Champion, Aryton Senna died at Imola. Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger was killed in a practice accident the previous day. Senna and the other drivers still opted to start the Grand Prix, but the race was interrupted by a huge accident at the start line. A safety car was deployed and the drivers followed it for several laps. On the restart Senna immediately set a quick pace with the third quickest lap of the race, followed by Schumacher. As Senna entered the high-speed Tamburello corner on the next lap, the car left the track at high speed, hitting the concrete retaining wall at around 135 mph. Senna was removed from the car by Sid Watkins and his medical team and treated by the side of the car before being airlifted to Bologna hospital where Senna was later declared dead.

Source:
The History Channel
Club Hemmings
BBC on this Day
Wikipedia

[SirAlec]

May 2nd 1918
The General Motors acquired the Chevrolet Motor Company for $32 million in GM stock. This is quite an interesting story. The deal was actually a merger engineered by William Durant rather than a buyout. The original founder of GM, Durant had been forced out of the company by stockholders who had disapproved of Durant's increasingly reckless policies to run the company. Durant after being kicked out of GM started Chevrolet with Swiss racer Louis Chevrolet and managed to make the company a successful competitor in a relatively short period of time. Still the owner of a considerable portion of GM stock, Durant began to purchase more stock in GM as his profits from Chevrolet allowed. In a final move to regain control of the company he founded, Durant offered GM stockholders five shares of Chevrolet stock for every one share of GM stock. Though GM stock prices were exorbitantly high, the market interest in Chevrolet made the five-for-one trade irresistible to GM shareholders. With the sale, Durant regained control of GM.

May 2nd 1972
Buddy Baker became the first stock car driver to finish a 500-mile race in less than three hours en route to winning the Winston Select 500 at the Alabama International Motor Speedway in Talladega, Alabama. He also broke the 200mph barrier two years ago on the same track.

[SirAlec]

May 3rd 1987
The late Davey Allison recorded his first NASCAR Winston Cup victory at Talladega, Alabama, driving his Ford Thunderbird. The very day and in the same race his father, legendary Bobby Allison suffered a near fatal crash.
After the crash, NASCAR made the use of restrictor plates mandatory in all cars.

Source:
The History Channel
Daveyallison.net
nascar.com
Wikipedia

[SirAlec]

May 4th 1904
Charles Stewart Rolls met Frederick Henry Royce in Midland Hotels, Manchester for the very first time and rest is history.

May 4th 1920
Harry Miller was issued a U.S. patent for a race car design that introduced many features later incorporated into race cars in the following decades.

May 4th 1946
British F1 racer John Watson was born in Northern Ireland

May 4th 1948
Three time le Mans winner Hurley Haywood was born in Chicago. He was drafted into Army and sent to Vietnam in 1970 before driving his Porsches' to victory.

May 4th 1949
14 time NHRA funny car drag race winner John Force was born in Bell Gardens, California.

May 4th 1987
Jorge Lorenzo, a two time 250cc class World champion was born in Mallorca, Spain. He is currently Rossi's partner in Fiat Yamaha Moto GP team. He previously rode Aprilla to both his victories.

[SirAlec]

5th May 1914
Erwin "Cannonball" Baker began his record setting cross-continental motorcycle trip. After this trip he received his nickname 'Canonball' by A New York newspaper reporter who compared him with Canonball Train.
Baker set 143 driving records from the 1910s through the 1930s. His first was set in 1914, riding coast to coast on an Indian motorcycle in 11 days. In 1915, Baker drove from Los Angeles to New York City in 11 days, 7 hours and fifteen minutes in a Stutz Bearcat, and the following year drove a Cadillac 8 roadster from Los Angeles to Times Square in seven days, eleven hours and fifty-two minutes while accompanied by an Indianapolis newspaper reporter. In 1926 he drove a loaded two-ton truck from New York to San Francisco in a record five days, seventeen hours and thirty minutes, and in 1928, he beat the 20th Century Limited train from New York to Chicago. Also in 1928, he competed in the Mount Washington Hillclimb Auto Race, and set a record time of 14:49.6 seconds, driving a Franklin.
His best-remembered drive was a 1933 New York City to Los Angeles trek in a Graham-Paige model 57 Blue Streak 8, setting a 53.5 hour record that stood for nearly 40 years. This drive inspired the later Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, better known as the "Cannonball Run", which itself inspired at least five movies and a television series. In 1941, he drove a new Crosley Covered Wagon across the nation in a 6,517-mile run to prove the economy and reliability characteristics of Crosley automobiles. Other record and near-record transcontinental trips were made in Model T Fords, Chrysler Imperials, Marmons, Falcon-Knights and Columbia Tigers, among others.

5th May
Sohail Ayari, a French race car driver was born.

Source:
The History Channel
findagrave.com
motorcyclehalloffame
hdart.com
Wikipedia

[theMAG]

May 6, 1928 - Chrysler introduced the DeSoto as corporation's new brand (answer to market demand for car that fit between its large cars and its popular four-cylinder models); offered improved insulation, reinforced frame, chrome alloy steel transmission gears; sold 80,000 cars its first year, forced Chrysler to increase its production facilities

[SirAlec]

May 6th 1991
Harry Gant, aged 51, broke his own record to become the oldest man to win a NASCAR race when he won the Winston 500 in Talladega.

May 6th 1994
French President Mitterrand and Queen Elizabeth II jointly open the Channel Tunnel linking Britain and France underneath the English Channel. Eurotunnel Shuttle service, a roll-on roll-off shuttle service is used to transport road vehicles including freight lorries from France to UK and vice-versa.

Source:
The History Channel
harrygant.com
Wikipedia

[SirAlec]

May 7th 1952
James J. Nance resigned form his position at Hotpoint, an appliance maker to become the president and general manager of the Packard Motor Company. There he was responsible for development of Packard's first V8 engine and automatic transmission popularly known as Ultramatic.

May 7th 1967
Don Prudhomme, then 26, popularly known as 'The Snake' drove a modified Ford to became the first dragster to run the quarter mile in less than seven seconds when he reached 226 mph at the NHRA World Series.

May 7th 1998
Dana Holding Corporation announces its participation in the largest-ever merger of automotive suppliers by its acquisition of Echlin Inc.

May 7th 1998
Daimler-Benz AG agreed to buy Chrysler Corp. for $38 billion, new company named Daimler Chrysler.

Source:
The History Channel
www.dana.com
Wikipedia

[SirAlec]

May 8th 1899
Olds Motor Works was incorporated by the merger of Olds Motor Vehicle and Olds Gasoline Engine Works.

May 8th 1933
The very first police radio system was installed in Eastchester Township, New York, by Radio Engineering Laboratories of Long Island.

May 8th 1956
Henry Ford II resigned as the chairperson of Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation is a philanthropic institution incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that was chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford. He resigned as a trustee in 1976 rendering it independent of Ford Motor Company and Ford family.

May 8th 1964
Bobby Labonte, an american Nascar driver for born in Texas. As of 2008, Labonte is the only driver to have won both the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship and the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship.

May 8th 1982
Gilles Villeneuve, Canadian race car driver died when he crashed his Ferari during the Belgian Grand Prix.

Source:
The History Channel
Welcome to the Ford Foundation
Wikipedia

[SirAlec]

May 9th 1911
Thomas H. Flaherty, of Pittsburgh, PA, received a patent for a "Signal for Crossing", first U. S. patent application for a traffic signal design.

May 9th 1992
Roberto Guerrero, a Colombian race car driver set an Indianapolis 500 qualifying record, driving his Lola-Buick to an average speed of 232.483mph and setting the single lap record at 232.618mph.

Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia

[ramie2400]

this is for sure one hot thread and its going to be "ON" 365days giving us the knowledge on each day about the automotive history of the world,i really wait for the updates on this thread,wow...!! keep it up guys

[SirAlec]

thanks! i want members to help me on this thread, PM me on current events if you hear it as a scoop a day before or may be week., for eg: ducati launch in india, JLR acquisation, etc. So that it can be included here. But do cross check the details from multiple sources, that what i usually do before posting it here.

Thanks for the support!