Here are your Auto Factoids (#AutoFactoids) for the first week in Feb. 2015!!!
I think we can call this Kaiser Week as 3 of our factoid are related to the Kaiser auto manufacturing. In fact the month starts right off with Kaiser factoid.
Feb 1, 1947 – Graham-Paige sold out to Kaiser.
Beautiful Supercharged car. 1937 Graham Custom Series 120
Feb. 2, 1899 – Renault Freres incorporates.
 1899 Renault Type B Coupe |
 1900 Renault Type C |
Feb 4, 1913 – Mr. Perlman patents a demountable auto tire-carrying wheel rim.
Feb 5th was a busy day in automotive history with:
Leaded gas available in 1923 (Ethyl)
Ethyl gas. Huge collectible these days.
AMC purchases Kaiser-Jeep Corp 1970.
This wouldn’t be the last move for Jeep, soon it would become part of Chrysler and then, as it is now, part of Fiat.
Mr. John Dunlop was born in Dreghorn, England in 1846. Of course he went on to start Dunlop tires. Here’s the beginning time line from History of Dunlop Tires :
– 1888 John Boyd Dunlop’s son is struggling to ride his tricycle. He is riding it because he has a heavy cold, for which a doctor has prescribed a very unusual cure: cycling. To make the child’s ride more comfortable, Boyd fits his tricycle with tires made of canvas bonded with liquid rubber. Boyd patents what turns out to be a very big idea.
– 1889 Cyclist Willie Hume is the first to adopt Boyd’s invention for racing, winning a slew of events. It’s the start of Dunlop’s legendary run of racing success.
– 1902 Dunlop wins the grueling Paris-Vienna race.
– 1922 First Dunlop tire using steel rods and canvas casing provides triple the service life of other tires used until then.
Feb 6 – One more time for Kaiser this week as they debuts their Sliver Dragon in 1951.
The Dragon was a series in 1951 and 1953 for Kaiser (There were no Dragon’s in 1951. This one has the Continental tire package.
The color was a Mariner Gray but dubbed “Silver Dragon”. The it was called the Dragon because of the padded vinyl top looked like dragon skin (at one point it was internally called the “Dinosaur”).
Feb 7 – There were a couple of happenings on Feb 7:
– Dutch introduced the first automatic transmission – the DAF 600 in 1958. DAF was a compact family car and the Variomatic was a continuously variable transmission.
– In 1942 the U.S. Government orders passenger car production stopped and converted to wartime purpose, which wasn’t immediately accepted by all car manufacturers.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
#AutoFactoids
