Siegfried Marcus: The Forgotten Inventor of The Automobile
Kaushik Patowary
May 2, 2024
A name that often gets sidelined when we talk about the history of automobiles is Siegfried Marcus, a pioneering Austrian inventor who built...
Showing posts with the label Automobiles
The 1957 Plymouth Belvedere That Was Buried For 50 Years
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 10, 2023
The opening of a time capsule is supposed to be an exciting and nostalgic event that gives future generations a chance to peek into the past...
Coal Gas Vehicles
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 20, 2022
Contrary to popular belief, vehicles run with natural gas was very common in the early 1900s in America and parts of Europe. However, this g...
Henry Ford’s Soybean Car
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 16, 2022
You might blame Henry Ford and his hugely popular T-model for sparking our insatiable passion for cars and the environmental degradation it ...
Wood Gas Vehicles: Cars That Run on Firewood
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 14, 2022
In the early 19th century, in addition to coal and natural gas, a new kind of fuel became available to people. It was called synthetic gas (...
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot And The World’s First Automobile
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 14, 2021
The world’s first self-propelled mechanical vehicle, in other words, the world’s first automobile, was built by the largely unknown French i...
Bertha Benz’s Historic Car Ride
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 17, 2021
In the early morning hours of August 5, 1888, the 39-year-old Bertha Benz, wife of automobile pioneer Karl Benz, sneaked out of the house, a...
Goodyear’s Illuminated Tires
Kaushik Patowary
May 20, 2021
In the late 1930s, a German chemist named Otto Bayer synthesized a new organic polymer called polyurethane. Over the decades polyurethane fo...
Le Jamais Contente: The First Car To Go 100kmph
Kaushik Patowary
May 5, 2021
Imagine a metal cylinder less than 4 meters long, on four wheels, with the driver mounted on top like one rides a horse. No seat belts, no r...
The Remote Swedish Town That Drives The Automobile Industry
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 1, 2021
Every car goes through a battery of tests before they are rolled out into the market. Some of these tests include driving in extreme conditi...
A Treasure Trove of Antique Car Accidents
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 12, 2020
For four decades from 1917 through the late 1950s, Boston Herald-Traveler photographer Leslie Jones covered every major and minor events in...
Abandoned Cars in Hawaii
Kaushik Patowary
Dec 5, 2019
In Hawaii, it is easier to dump your old car by the side of the road than have it legally disposed—an attitude that’s causing big headaches ...
The Cavern of Lost Souls
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 22, 2019
Just how difficult can it be to tow an old car to the junkyard to be dismantled, crushed and recycled? Too much, if you ask the council of C...
The 40-Foot Studebaker President
Kaushik Patowary
Aug 5, 2019
Few companies escaped the Stock Market Crash of 1929 that plunged the United States and much of the western world into an abyss of economic...
Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 11, 2019
Few traffic jams are as organized and coordinated as the ones that took place nationwide in the morning of September 3, 1967, on the streets...
Gyrobus: The Flywheel-Powered Public Transportation
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 5, 2019
Back in the 1940s, Swiss engineers developed a new kind of zero-emission electric bus that used a large spinning flywheel to store energy ra...
Landscaping In The Back Of Japanese Mini Pickup Trucks
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 9, 2018
The Japan Federation of Landscape Contractors organizes an annual landscaping contest, where landscaping contractors from around Japan arriv...
The Meteorite That Crashed Into A Car
Kaushik Patowary
Jun 4, 2018
The Peekskill meteorite car sitting at a collector’s garage in Peekskill. Photo credit: Ryan Thompson/Flickr On October 9, 1992, a brill...
The Jingle Trucks of Pakistan
Kaushik Patowary
Apr 4, 2018
A typical Pakistani truck driver spends more time with his truck than he does with his wife. Which explains why he wants his 10-ton six-whee...
Rolligon: The Vehicle That Makes Running Over Yourself Fun
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 7, 2018
The following image appeared on the December 1957 issue of “Mechanix Illustrated”. It shows a woman smiling while being run over by a mammot...
