#1
While the originator of this series may be gone, the series deserves to live on in his honor...
Quote, originally posted by Gateway » Welcome to my "Automobile flashback series" Every week, over the next 78 weeks, i will make a "Automobile flashback series" thread. Where, we will cover "that" year of the automobile. The good, the bad and the ugly. Interesting facts, outrageous opinions, and amazing feats will be posted.
(VH1 Jingle)I love the 20's.... I love the 20's.... I love the 20's!!!!!(VH1 Jingle)
As stated in previous episodes, don't be shy about asking questions. While we all are pasionate about our current cars, none of them would be what they are today without the constant innovation, improvement, development, and even outright blunders of the past. Ask questions, post up any info or photos you may find, and let's all learn something interesting. (And don't miss the previous episodes: 1920, 1921, and 1922!)
Without any further ado, we present you the year 1923...
Some 1923 milestones:- In Chicago, Yellow Cab President John D. Hertz bought a small rental car company founded in 1918 and created the Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System.
- In 1923, the first Checker cab was produced by the Checker Cab Manufacturing Company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. By 1925, Checker had a production of over one thousand cabs per year and was the largest exclusive cab maker in the country.
- For the first time in the U.S. auto industry, sales of closed cars surpassed sales of touring cars (open cars].
- Well over half of the cars purchased in the U.S. were bought on credit.
- U.S. auto production passed 3.7 million units.
- The Ford Model T accounted for just under 52% of cars produced in the U.S.
- There were 13 million cars on American roads. There were 108 firms manufacturing automobiles, but just 10 firms accounted for 90% of annual production.
- GM sold 800,000 vehicles and earned a profit of $80 million.
- The first Le Mans:
The Le Mans road race was conceived in 1923 by Charles Faroux, a noted French motoring journalist of the period, who had long been concerned with the inadequacies of automotive electrical equipment of the day. Hence, he suggested to two colleagues, the idea of running a night race in order to stimulate the perfection of these accessories. The idea gained ready acceptance and support from Faroux’s two colleagues, Georges Durand, Secretary General of l’automobile club de l’ouest, and Emile Coquille, Managing Director of the French branch of the Rudge-Whitworth Wheel Company. The first race took place in late May 1923.- The first production wood-body station wagon was the 1923 Star.
1923 Star was the first production woodie built by an automobile manufacturer instead of a third-party.Come on folks, post up some history!
Modified by 4x4s at 9:33 AM 2-14-2005
#2
As an automobile enthusiast, I'm not very well versed in it's history, but I very much enjoy these threads.I like to soak up something new everyday, so I find these threads to be very interesting. Bump for someone to post something informative.
Chris
#3
Quote, originally posted by 4x4s »
- The first Le Mans:
More later...
#4
Alfred P. Sloan, the man who would create GM's business model for the next 80 years, becomes chairman of the giant general. "A car for every purse and purpose" would be his business theme. Thus he would create the inital six-tiered system - Chevrolet and Oakland at the bottom, Oldsmobile in the middle, Buick closer to the top, Cadillac at the summit, and GMC for commerical-grade trucks. A few years later these were joined by "companions" such as LaSalle and Pontiac, but this overexpansion only made more clear Sloan's initial plan of a limited ladder of brands. Sloan's command over GM would solidify it's place as the world industry leader in terms of volume that it still holds today, as well as a lead in the technical development of mass-production automobiles, a role Ford had first wrested from the French makers. Sloan would also knock Ford off the top spot for the first time since early in the century.1923 was the first full year of MG production. At that time, Cecil Kimber ran MG for Wiliam Morris and all MG's were souped up versions of regular Morrises, the company had yet to drastically modify a Morris design to come up with it's own thing. "Old Number One" - the first pure MG sports car, would come in 1924.
The luxurious, 90-mph, $5500 LaFayette, made in Indiana, made it's last outing. During the year, the company would be absorbed by Nash, and LaFayette would become a model of Nash - a more budget conscious model, too, because $5500 was a TON of cash back then.
In Germany, the awe-inspiring supercharged Mercedes SSK made it's debut.
Tatra built it's first modern car plant in 1923 and commenced serious volume production (they had previously been built in small numbers) of the unusual air-cooled Czech sedans shortly thereafter.
Adam Opel, AG, not far away from the SSK's and the Tatras, started using American mass-production techniques learned from an association with General Motors in 1923, only to be acquired completely by GM in 1928. Interestingly, and not too many people realize this today, Opel's first models were essentially licensed copies of the 5CV Citroën, France's most popular car at the time and the one which firmly established Citroën as a major player in the world auto industry. Opel continued the 5CV-based cars far longer than Citroën did, and it was this design which turned Opel from a basic startup into Germany's largest automaker.
Vittorio Jano, famed designer of Alfa-Romeo and Scuderia Ferrari engines, designed his first racing engine - or rather, made some modifications to an existing Alfa Engine to enable supercharging. It was the beginning of a fabled career, though Jano had a troubled life.
Modified by Taimar2 at 3:51 PM 10-9-2005
#5
1923 was notable in Grand Prix racing as it was the debut of the first mid-engined car, the Benz Tropfenwagen. Piloted by Nando Minoia,
it took 4th place at the Italian Grand Prix
Now, you might be thinking to yourself: "Hmm, that kinda looks like an Auto Union racecar from the 30's." Well, there's a good reason for that.
Ferdinand Porsche left Austro-Daimler in 1923 to take over at Mercedes as technical director from Paul Daimler (some say he left in a huff, others claim it was amicable).
One of his first motorsports projects upon his arrival was the Tropfenwagen. (I get "drip" or "drop" as a translation for "tropfen" so I can only guess the name refers to the general shape of the car.)
If you think my posts to these threads revolve a little too heavily around Porsche history, tough. I go with what I like.
#6
Quote, originally posted by garagemonster » ...If you think my posts to these threads revolve a little too heavily around Porsche history, tough. I go with what I like. Not at all. History is history. If others want something else, they are free to post it up. Besides, Porsche history is pretty cool anyway.
#7
Well then, let's move on to some even more interesting material.The Bugatti Type 32 "Tank"
Yet another weird looking Grand Prix car that debuted in 1923, this time at the Tours Grand Prix. Its shape was meant to mimic that of an airfoil and it was perhaps the first racecar to feature hydraulically assisted brakes. Even with all that, it was kind of crap and was completely rethought for the next season.
The Type 32 wasn't even the weirdest looking car on the grid in 1923. That honour is the sole domain of the Voisin:
What an age this must have been! There was so much experimentation afoot. It would be as if every single team in F1 showed up with something stranger than the Williams twin-keel nose at the start of every season. The mind boggles
Modified by garagemonster at 10:18 AM 2-14-2005
#8
Technically speaking, the Tropfenwagen was not the v. first mid-engine racing car. There may be others, but the first one that comes to my mind is the 1906 Stanley Brothers' (of steam-power fame) land-speed record car. It was shaped just like an upturned canoe, with the boiler/engine unit located amidships in the classic mid-engine layout.What the Mercedes Tropfenwagen was, though, was the first really workable mid-engined racing automobile, in the sense that it had a functional and working suspension system, etc, and was integrated enough that it could be driven and controlled through turns as well as in a straight line. Not all that well, mind you, but like they say, from the little acorn grew the mighty oak.
IIRC, 1923 was also the first year in which the winning average speed at the Indianapolis 500 was 100mph. I think the driver's name was Ralph DePalma. Damn, I need to get my reference library out of storage, pronto. It's driving me nutz not to be able to conjure up all the great things that happened in these pioneering early years of automobiling.
Modified by vwlarry at 1:52 PM 2-14-2005
#9
Walter P. Chrysler had started his automotive career at Buick, the cornerstone on which W. C. Durant had built General Motors in 1908. Chrysler went from a Works Manager in Flint, to President and General Manager of Buick, to Vice President in charge of production for all of GM, to Executive Vice President of GM. Eventually troubled by Durants style of business, Chrysler retired from GM in 1920 with an immense reputation.Based on that reputation, a group of bankers holding debts belonging to the Willys - Overland Company persuaded Chrysler to operate the company as Executive Vice President. Chrysler decided, and John N. Willys agreed, that a new car was needed to deliver W-O from financial ruin. The bankers balked at the idea, but Chrysler would not let it go. Walter P. Chrysler formed the Chrysler Motor Company that would operate as an entity within Willys-Overland. The car would be named the Chrysler Six.
In 1921, another group of bankers looked to W. P. Chrysler to save thier investment in the Maxwell-Chalmers automakers. Negotiations with Willys-Overland management allowed Chrysler to work outside his W-O contract and work with Maxwell-Chalmers, until his W-O contract expired. (In the two years Chrysler was at W-O, debt was reduced from $48M to $18M. His leadership appeared to have been a success.)
At Maxwell-Chalmers, Chrysler hatched a plan to reorganize the company, institute it into receivership, put the company up for auction, and then buy it back. Unexpected bidding by W.C.Durant, John N. Willys, Studebaker, and others required Chrysler to bid over $11M to buy it back for the reorganizing comittee. W.P. Chrysler was named the Chairman of the "new" Maxwell Motors Company.
In 1922, the Willys-Overland company finally went into recievership. The Chrysler Motor Company had been disolved, and the Elizibeth, NJ plant where the Chrysler Six was being developed was part of the package put up for auction that June. Chrysler sent a representative to bid on the plant, but lost the auction to W.C. Durant. Durant altered the original Chrysler Six plans just enough so they could not be directly compared, and used them for his eventual Flint automobile.
Under Chrysler, the Maxwell Motors reorganization was going well. He hired the original Chrysler Six engineers - Zeder, Skelton and Breer to maintain the entire Maxwell Motors production, and to design a new Maxwell. The team was moved to the renovated Chalmers plant.
The new Maxwell Chrysler Six appeared as a prototype in late 1923. It was truly an advances car with a high compression engine and four wheel hydrolic brakes. It supposedly had a top speed of seventy to seventy-five MPH, only five MPH slowere than the famed Packard Eights.
Plans were going well, marketing strategies thought out, and everything was ready for production. That is until.....
Stay tuned to this series, as the story continues in 1924
#11
1923 is a tough year for some reason, but I just thought of an interesting tidbit. It was during the '23 model year that Henry Ford, in one of his periodic efforts to consolidate market-share and shore-up the now-aging Model T, that he lowered the price of a new Model T roadster (the lowest-priced model in the lineup) to $295. This was more than the competition could step-up to, even with the low pricing of the times, and Ford's bold pricing strategy bought the "T" a few more years of robust sales, in spite of its increasingly outdated design.
#12
There was a big innovation from Dodge this year - the first all-steel enclosed bodies on any car, anywhere. There was some wood in the car, but not in the body. This method of construction was good but Dodge would, in time, revert back to wood framing for a time as the all-steel body caused drumming and loud noise when the cars were crusing.Still, a valuable first.
#13
I'm guessing now, but your post reminded me of Lancia's landmark introduction of "monocoque", or unitized, construction, in its production automobiles. IIRC, the year this took place was also '23 or so. Lancia was perhaps the most innovative European manufacturer prior to WWII. This was notable during a period of non-stop innovation and creativity, which was largely concentrated on OUR side of the Atlantic, contrary to the way it has been for so many postwar years.
#14
Yes - the Lamda was the first unibody car, so to speak. Or the first monocoque, depending on how you look at it. But when introduced in 1922, it came only as a tourer with a heavy, complicated optional hardtop that had to be stowed at home. A year later it gained a closed variant.The Voisin C6 racer, shown above, was also a stressed-member monocoque. But it's weight was a serious handicap - as the lamda's would be as it grew larger and more luxurious until it's 1931 demise.
There were many innovations in Europe in the interwar period, but because of the devostation of WW1, most of them would not be seen until the mid to late 1920's, and most were on high-end exotics - mainly from France, as France was, prior to WW2, where the best and most exotic cars came from (Bugatti, Amilcar, Delage, Delahaye, Voisin, etc.) and it had a huge domestic industry at the time (Panhard et levassor, Citroën, Peugeot, Berliet, Renault, Rosengart, Rolland-Pilian, Unic, Simca, etc.). Sadly nearly all of this was destroyed either by general decline in creativity (Mors, Clement-Bayard, Corre La Licorne), economic realities of mass production and the depression (Mathis, Suere, Berliet, Chenard-Walcker, Amilcar), or the final curtain call - the Nazi invasion.
One other thing that Voisin had noticed and acted upon was that his cars stopped far better when there were brakes on the front wheels.
In 1919 Gabriel Voisin had launched his first car - an updated, modified version of a Knight-engined Panhard that both Panhard and Andre Citroën had rejected. The factory workers worked hard to get the car into production and the first example was built on February 5th, 1919. Alas, something in the gearbox had been installed backwards and when put into gear, the car quickly took off backwards. The workers were upset, but Voisin's hapless reverse led him to discover that the brakes did a more effective job at the front. By 1921, his cars all had four-wheel-brakes.
At this time most cars only had rear brakes, often with an optional transmission brake, which was a holdover from the horseless carriage days and could be extremely destructive if used as anything but a parking brake.
1923 saw a major innovation then, when Rickenbacker became the first medium-priced, mass market car to offer four-wheel mechanical brakes. Duesenberg's had them previously, but like the Voisin they were not accessible to ordinary folks. Packard had introduced their four-wheel brakes some two weeks before Rickenbacker, but Rickenbacker had actually held them back for nearly a year, believing that the public was not ready for the innovation.
They were probably right - as Ford and Chevy did not add four-wheel brakes four four years after this, and they actively campaigned in the press against the "questionable safety" of having brakes on the front wheels as well as the rears.
Four-wheel brakes were a big deal, and like five-speed transmissions in the 1970's, many cars bore plates or trim noting tha they had them. This was as much advertising as safety, as the driver of a car without them would probably not be able to stop in time without rear-ending a car with four-wheel brakes, so the advertising on the rear of the cars advised caution to those behind. After the Rickenbacker announcement, four-wheel brakes proliferated in the auto industry both in America and abroad.
By the end of the 1920's a car was virtually unsaleable without four-wheel brakes, and the transmission brake was long gone except on a few true anachronisms.
Modified by Taimar2 at 3:45 PM 10-9-2005
#15
Another fun 1923 fact links Porsche and Ferrari in a most interesting (although totally speculative) way.Enzo had the race of a lifetime at the Savio track, winning the event on June 17th. His heroic performance inspired the Countess Paolina, mother of Italian WW1 flying ace, Count Francesco Baracca, to ask Ferrari to use her son's emblem on his cars to bring him good luck.
As you might guess, Baracca's emblem was the now-famous prancing horse:
Baracca is theorized to have copied the design from the coat of arms of the city of Stuttgart which, of course, inspired the logo of another famous auto manufacturer....
Separated at birth? You be the judge!
Modified by garagemonster at 10:05 AM 2-15-2005
#16
Cavallino Rampante It's not only cool, but it's damned fun just to pronounce...try it!
#17
So, this series has focused on American and European developments in the auto industry. It made me wonder, what was happening in Japan? They must have been driving something, right?Well, kind of. There was a budding Japanese auto industry in the teens, but in September of 1923 the Great Kanto Earthquake decimated the manufacturing infrastructer of Tokyo.
Prior to 1923: the Russo-Japenese war convinced the Japanese military of the need for modern battlefield transportation. They imported military trucks from Germany and France for an extensive field test. The first Japanese military truck was produced in 1911 by the Osaka Military Factory. In 1918 the Military Vehicle Subsidy law was passed granting subsidies to auto manufacturers for production of cars for civilian use that could be converted to military use in times of war.
In 1918, Isuzu joined the auto making business using capital amassed from its shipbuilding business. Isuzu joined a partnership with the British Wolseley Motor Ltd. In 1922, Tokyo Ishikawajima Shipbuilding & Engineering succeeded in localizing production of the Wolseley A9 - the first passenger car ever made in Japan.
Wolseley cars at the Fukagawa FactoryAfter the 1923 Kanto earthquake, there was an urgent need for vehicles to help rebuild the devistated capitol. 800 Ford Model T truck chassis were imported and converted to busses that would continue to serve the city for many years. Ford percieved Japan as a potentially lucarative market. Ford Motors Japan was established in Yokohama in 1925. GM followed suit in 1927 with GM Japan based in Osaka building and selling Chevrolets.
#18
Dag burn it! I wanted to talk about Ford going into Japan in the 1925 post! You beat me to the punch!It would have made a perfect segue to the renewed projects Ford started in Japan last year.
#19
Quote, originally posted by galacticjoe » Dag burn it! I wanted to talk about Ford going into Japan in the 1925 post! You beat me to the punch! It would have made a perfect segue to the renewed projects Ford started in Japan last year.
I'm sure there's a lot of other Japanese auto history for this era, and probably much more to the Ford Japan story. This was just all that I could dig up in an hour or so last night.
Dig into it, and post up some more.
#20
4x4's...thank you for continuing the flashback series threads. I also want to say thanks to vwlarry for urging me to keep on. People like yourselves are the reason why i came back.
I am have to go to work in a little bit and have a busy day ahead, but once things get settled i will be looking forward to contribute to this thread.
P.S. These threads are a perfect example of....
Quote, originally posted by vwlarry » Quality > Quantity
#21
Welcome back Gateway.
We look forward to your posts here.
#22
I'm uncomfortable with bumping, but this topic deserves to live, even if I can't think of anything '23-ish at the moment.
#23
My Buick contribution:dont know if this is a factory car or not:
1923 Buick Suburban, owned by Louis Ironside, of Almont. "Woodies" -- sedans and station wagons with bodies behind the windshield made of wood -- first appeared in the early '20s, so this Buick was one of the first. Skilled woodworkers crafted the doors, side panels and rear gates and sometimes roofs out of hardwood.
#24
In 1923, the Detroit police department was in the midst of an experiment to use radio dispatched police cars.From: http://info.detnews.com/histor...nment
How Detroit police reinvented the wheel
Quote »
In 1917, the Detroit Police Department began deploying motorized patrol units across the city using a "booth car" system. The booth was a small building equipped with a pot-belly stove, a coal bin and a telephone. Two officers were assigned to a car and were stationed at a booth. One officer remained at the booth with the car while the other patrolled the beat by foot .A dispatcher at police headquarters would contact the booth via telephone lines, often waiting until there were five or six assignments, and dispatch the officers to where they were needed. This procedure often caused the officers, and the car, to be out of contact with the police department for three or four hours at a time.
The first patrol cars had two-man teams and were assigned to booths with telephones throughout the city. One officer would remain at the booth near the car waiting for telephone orders while the other would patrol the area on foot.
In 1921, Detroit Police Commissioner William P. Rutledge began experimenting with patrol vehicles equipped with radios. Rutledge was "convinced that the automobile had given the criminal an advantage in speed that could not be overcome by police cars controlled by telephone. Gangsters could make their getaway while the booth patrol was still awaiting a telephone call.Rutledge had a radio transmitter installed at police headquarters and in 1922 the Federal Radio Commission, the forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission, issued Detroit the first provisional commercial radio license, KOP.
Police radio operator B.D. Fitzgerald at the controls of the radio dispatch equipment at Detroit Police headquarters in 1925.
But there were obstacles to be overcome before the radios could be made mobile. The vacuum tubes, which comprised the internal workings of the radio receiver, were fragile and required extensive cushioning. The electrical systems of the automobiles were not powerful enough to operate the radios, so six-volt batteries had to be mounted on the running boards. The battery was only good for four hours before it had to be replaced.Other obstacles were less technical but just as formidable. Several times the Federal Radio Commission refused to renew the department's radio license because it failed to live up to requirements. One of these insisted that KOP broadcast "entertainment during regular hours, with police calls interspersed as required."
After one such refusal to renew , Commissioner Rutledge wryly asked: "Do we have to play a violin solo before we dispatch the police to catch a criminal?"
Another obstacle was funding. The city council was reluctant to expend public funds on an unproven endeavor. But an incident in March of 1922 removed opposition to the radio as a police tool. Police asked The Detroit News' fledgling radio station WWJ to broadcast the description of a missing boy. As a result of the broadcast the boy was quickly found safe in Ohio, buttressing the police department's argument before the city budget staff that money should be made available to continue radio experiments.
The experiment continued and was successful enough that in March of 1924 The Detroit News called in an editorial for more radio dispatched cars, noting : "The motor car has been a big asset to criminals, because it permitted a quick getaway. But the radio is swifter than any motor vehicle ever invented. By its use a well equipped police department can bar every city exit as soon as a description of the suspects can be obtained.... The police department now has three radio equipped flyers. It should have more. The motorized bandits would soon learn that Detroit had become a trap for them and they would move on to some town with less modern ideas."
Patrolman and radio operator Walter Stick stands by one of the city's first radio-dispatched Police cars, a Ford Model T. Note the antennae on the roof.Afttermarket radios in private passenger cars would not appear for several more years. Factory installed radios were not available until many years after that.
#25
Excellent postings.
#26
It's getting hard to keep it within one year though. So many of these developments were in the works over several years...
#27
Wait until we get to the thirties. You won't be able to shut me up!
#28
Lovin' this.Once we hit the 30's I have a few cars that are in my family that I can't wait to share!
#29
Quote, originally posted by vwlarry » Excellent postings. I couldn't agree more.
Great job keeping this going guys. I am heading out now, but when i come back, i hope to add something to this thread.
BTW vwlarry, love the sig.
#30
I'm thinking it might be more fun if we didn't go in order....(ok ok I'm just looking for an excuse to jump to the 50's, but whatever
#31
What was happening in Japan in 1923 you ask? Not much, just the formative years of another motorsports legend, Soichiro Honda.
As a young apprentice in the Art Shokai workshop, the young Soichiro (only 16 at the time) was encouraged by his early mentor and boss Yuzo Sakakibara to take the leap into motorsports.
In 1923, Honda started working on racing cars with the help of Yuzo's younger brother Shin'ichi.
The first was the Art Daimler, a German/Japanese hybrid fitted with a second hand Daimler engine (yet another curious link to Porsche, who'd've thunk it?).
The next was the Curtiss, a strange amalgam of an American Curtiss "Jenny" biplane engine and a Mitchell chassis (yes, Honda still owns it and yes, like most Hondas, it still runs great).
Welcome back Gateway!
#32
okay, what kind of fuel do these 1920's cars run on, and would old engines work with new fuel, and new engines with old?nice thread, btw!
#33
The gasoline of the early twenties was swill compared to today's highly refined, ultra-clean, and octane-enhanced fuels. The Ethyl Corporation's tetraethyl lead octane-booster didn't appear until I believe 1926 or so, so the fuel of this time was suitable only for v. low-compression engines. The upper limit of c.r. was around 4.0:1 at this time, with the inherent combustion chamber limitations of the L-head design of most automotive engines also limiting the engineer's ability to boost ratios.Old engines, as from this era, work beautifully with today's fuels. Today's engines, on the other hand, would shudder and take a sh*t if fed a diet of the gasoline of the 1920's.
#34
Here's another quick one before I take off for the day.In 1923, the DAT Motor Vehicle Company introduced the Type 51.
Sales weren't exactly brisk due in part, at least, to the huge earthquake that rocked Japan that year but the company persevered due to it's strong position in the truck market
The company derived its name from the initials of three of its earliest investors: Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi.
I will fax a chocolate chip cookie to the first person that can guess the name of the current CEO of this company (my personal hero).
Modified by garagemonster at 5:08 AM 2-17-2005
#35
Carlos Ghosn.I prefer peanut butter-oatmeal chocolate chip. Make sure the chips are semi-sweet, too.
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