Automobile Facts There are things about cars and car history which I find very interesting. Let me give you an example. While inventors were busy trying to develop their gasoline powered cars in the end of the 19th century and the 20th centuries a lawyer saw a chance to make some money, there is certainly nothing unusual about that. His name was George B. Selden. He was a patent lawyer and inventor. He had also done some work on internal combustion engines and was able to file a patent which gave him access to a treasure. Eventually he was able to get royalties from just about every car manufacturer of 0.75%. He then began his own car company called Selden Motor Vehicle Company. For eight years Ford fought the patent and eventually Selden lost out. Rolls-Royce has always been a symbol of excellent workmanship. Yes, it has also been a symbol of extravagance too being one of the most expensive cars and associated with the rich and powerful. In 1907 the first Rolls was produced, it was the Silver Ghost. It was entered in the Scottish reliability trials that year and traveled an incredible 24,000 kilometers. In 1971 the company was nationalized by the government of the United Kingdom and a couple of years later the car division separated from the rest of the company which manufactured airplane engines and became Rolls-Royce Ltd but became privatized in 1987 as Rolls Royce but still maintained its high standards. In 1998 BMW acquired the company even though it was not the highest bidder. Rolls Royce boasts a selection of 44,000 colors to choose from. One Rolls Royce Phantom takes two months to build by hand. BMW was originally three other companies, Rapp Motorenwerke and Bayerische Flugzeugwerke located in Bavaria and Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach in Thuringia. BMW stands for Bayerische Motoren Werke. Rapp Motorenwerke was the builder of aircraft engines and also industrial engines. Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was a motorcycle builder. It wasn’t until 1929 BMW became an automobile manufacturer. World War II almost destroyed the company but it managed to survive making things like pots and pans until 1948 when it began to manufacture cars again. More than 50 percent of the shares of BMW are owned by the Quant family. BMW’s headquarters was designed to resemble their four-cylinder engine. BMW made an electric car in 1972. There are a lot of interesting car companies out there but which one could have more panache than Ferrari? Ferrari began to produce sport cars in 1947. Enzo Ferrari had been involved in auto racing since 1929. Ferrari has been called one of the most successful sport car companies in the world. The logo of a prancing horse on the Ferrari was adopted by Ferrari from the prancing horse logo of Francesco Baracca a World War I flying ace who died in 1918. Only two copies of the first Ferrari were made. The reason most Ferrari cars are red today dates back to the early years of auto racing when the International Automobile Federation assigned the color red to all Italian Grand Prix race cars in the early years of racing. If one buys a Ferrari they can customize every component. Ferrari also sells merchandise worldwide and a few years ago it was revealed their sales were over 1.5 billion dollars annually. One of the most iconic American cars which was years ahead of its time was the Duesenberg. The company manufactured luxury automobiles and also race cars. Two brothers from Saint Paul, Minnesota founded the company in 1913. The company then moved to New Jersey to fulfill its government contracts in 1916 and then to Indianapolis, Indiana in 1919. Eventually Duesenberg was bought by the Auburn Automobile Company but ceased to exist in 1937 since the car was a high-priced luxury car and the depression destroyed the marked for these types of cars. It wasn’t long before the car set a land speed record of 156 miles per hour at the Daytona Speedway in 1920. The next year at the French Grand Prix an American won for the first time, he was driving a Duesenberg. The Duesenberg was the first production passenger car to offer dual overhead cams, four-valve cylinder heads and hydraulic brakes. One car we don’t seem to hear much about is the Devel 16. It is out of reach for most of us since it has a starting price of $1,000,000. I don’t know what the average horsepower for cars on the road is but I would guess about 200 if we average all the cars out. The Devel 16 has 5,000 horse power. The manufacturer states it can reach 0 to 60 mph in 1.8 seconds and can hit a top speed of over 340 mph. The car is manufactured in Dubai and has a V16 engine with a quad turbocharger. Here is the kicker, they say the top speed of 340 mph is attainable by their 3,000-horsepower version. What could possibly be the top speed of the 5,000-horsepower version? Automotive history is rich with great cars and unusual vehicles. Anybody who drives a VW Beatle is driving a car which was originally requested by Adolph Hitler for the German people as transportation for the common person. Mr. Rogers’ car was stolen and when the thief found out whose car it was he returned it. The Soviet Union thought it would show the US in a bad light if it allowed theaters to show the movie “The Grapes of Wrath.” The plan backfired because the audiences were amazed that even poor Americans had cars, so the movie was withdrawn.
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