Automobiles once had hood ornaments.Until they didn’t. A video by Zack Pradel.
_______________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-Dpn
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
“Sloppy Jalopy,” a 1952 UPA theatrical cartoon featuring Mr. Magoo, directed by Pete Burness, written by Phil Eastman and Bill Scott, with music by David Raksin. Voice actors: Jim Backus and Jerry Hausner. Note: In the 20th century, mocking people with disabilities was considered hilarious.
_____________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-D0P
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Americans used to smoke cigarettes, and they smoked them while driving, so cars had ashtrays and cigarette lighters. The lighter’s electric elements would broil cigarette ends, filling the car with a toasty aroma. Your car probably has a vestigial lighter today. A video by Zack Pradel explains.
________________________
Short Link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-D7S
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Coachmaker and blacksmith Charles Richard (“C.R.”) Patterson of Greenfield, Ohio founded C.R. Patterson & Son coachworks in 1893, producing buggies, buckboards, phaetons, surreys and other horse-drawn carriages, about 500 each year. After the death of his son Samuel, his eldest son Frederick Douglas Patterson moved home to help Patterson senior with the business. C.R. died in 1910, and Frederick Patterson added automoblie repair to the company’s services.
The first C.R. Patterson and Sons automobile was assembled in 1915, a two-door coupe, the first motorcar produced by a Black-owned company. Of the 100 or so autos produced by Patterson, none are still in exsistence. The firm couldn’t compete with the Ford assembly line, so the company switched to producing trucks and buses. There was brisk demand for the latter, especially schoolbuses, and Patterson manufactured 500 buses a month, producing as many as 7,000 between 1921 and 1931. One-third of the school buses in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania were thought to be Pattersons. Although the Depression closed the business in 1939, some Patterson buses were still on the roads as late as the 1950s.
C.R. Patterson and Frederick Patterson were inducted into Detroit’s Automotive Hall of Fame in 2021.
More:
“How America’s first — and only — Black automakers defied the odds,”Kevin Williams, Washington Post
“The Only African American Automobile Company,” National Museum of African American History & Culture
________________
Short link:
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
If a Bianchi bicycle married a Fiat 500, they’d have a cute little baby Autobianchi Bianchina. Made in Milan, it was a car for a recovering post-war Europe (and in this case, Britain). This model is probably known as the Autobianchi Bianchina Furgoncino, a pint-sized commerial van. Ian Seabrook takes it through its tiny little paces.
_________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-CiR
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Cruising is legal again in Sacramento after years of discriminatory ordinances targeting Chicanos. Lowriders are cruising again. Hopping, bouncing, and skipping, too.
More:
“Cruising is back in Sacramento, how locals are celebrating a change decades in the making,” Luke Cleary, KXTV ABC10
“Lawmakers Urge More Cities to Repeal Cruising Bans,” California City News
______________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-CDD
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
How to build a Ferrari. A look inside Ferrari’s car factory in Maranello, Italy.
_________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-riP
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
In 2006, 47 percent of car models sold in the US offered standard or optional manual transmissions. One decade later, only 27 percent of new cars offered manuals. By 2020, the number was just 13 percent.
More:
“8 Manual Transmission Statistics,” Pete Ortiz, House Grail
________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-AVX
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
King Charles III motors into the throne with a garage full of autos, but his personal vehicle is a Jaguar-Land Rover I-PACE EV, and His Majesty’s Aston Martin DB6 runs on old wine and cheese.
_______________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-BdQ
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealed that, since July 2021, 392 car crashes in the United States ocurred while vehicles were using advanced driver-assistance systems. Of these, 273, about 70 percent, were Tesla vehicles running its Autopilot software. During the same period, Honda reported 90 crashes and Subaru reported 10 crashes.
More:
“Teslas running Autopilot involved in 273 crashes reported since last year,” Faiz Siddiqui, Rachel Lerman, and Jeremy B. Merrill, Washington Post
“NHTSA: ‘Self-driving’ cars were linked to 392 crashes in 10 months,” J. Fingas, Engadget
____________________
Short link: https://wp.me/p6sb6-z9J
Top image (“Tesla Robot Taxi”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
NotionsCapital 