On This Day

Elwood Haynes, who built America’s first gasoline-powered car, and Elmer Apperson, founded the Haynes-Apperson Company in Kokomo, Indiana. Best known as a metallurgist, Haynes was the first to produce all-aluminium engines and to build car bodies of nickel-plated steel. Haynes and Apperson astonished the world when they fulfilled the terms of a buyer’s agreement by delivering their car from Kokomo to New York City. Continue Reading →

Elwood Haynes

Pierre de Caters broke the World Land Speed Record, driving a DMG Mercedes Simplex at 97.25 mph. over a 1 km. course on a beach in Ostend, Belgium.

Pierre de Caters

In a 24 hour "Endurance Derby" on the 1 mile dirt Point Breeze oval, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brown and Robert Maynes drove an Autocar to victory. The winners completed 791 miles.

Ettore Bugatti was issued with a French patent for his 'pursang' trademark.

Ford Motor Company announced the end of Model T and named its replacement, the Model A.

At the sixth Rome Grand Prix there were five Alfa Romeos, four Maseratis, four Bugattis, one Talbot and one Mercedes-Benz. From the 15 cars at the start, 10 were still racing at the end. It began with a battle between Arcangeli in the new 2500 Maserati and Chiron's Bugatti. Continue Reading →

Théodore Namont driving a Rally crashed fatally at the Fontainebleau hill climb, near Paris, France. .

Car-component manufacturing began at Ford’s Dagenham plant in east London, having been speedily re-equipped for peacetime operations. The first complete car – an Anglia 8 hp – left the plant a few days later. Before long, full resumption of car, commercial vehicle and tractor assembly was achieved.

Ford Anglia - 1945

Chung Ju Yung founded Hyundai Construction, the first of the Hyundai companies. Hyundai Motor Company was later established in 1967. The company's first model, the Cortina, was released in cooperation with the Ford Motor Company in 1968. Continue Reading →

Chung Ju Yung

Franco Cortese gave Ferrari their first race win when he drove 125 Sport chassis 01C to victory on the Caracella Baths circuit in Rome, Italy.

Round 3 of Grand Prix de France F2 Championship, the 3 hour Paris Grand Prix, held at Montlhéry, was won by Piero Taruffi driving a Ferrari 500.

The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, known as the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel, a toll road in New York City which crosses under the East River at its mouth, connecting the Borough of Brooklyn on Long Island with the Borough of Manhattan, officially opened. The tunnel nearly passes underneath Governors Island, but does not provide vehicular access to the island. Continue Reading →

Drivers race in newly opened Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in 1950

Tragedy struck the streets of Chicago when 33 people died in what was the greatest public transportation disaster in US history to date. The Chicago Transportation Authority’s fleet of electric streetcars were known as Green Hornets. It was aboard one of these trolleys in which the fates of those who passed away, along with 30 who were gravely injured, were riding when driver Paul Manning ignored or did not see a flagman who was diverting trolleys away from a flooded underpass which made the tracks impassable due to heavy rains the night before. Continue Reading →

A scene from the May 25, 1950, Green Hornet streetcar crash that killed 34

Italian racing driver and twice Formula One World Champion Alberto Ascari (36), died. He was a multitalented racer who completed in motorcycle racing before switching to cars. Back to back World titles in 1952 and 1953 sandwiched an appearance at in the Indianapolis 500 in 1952. Continue Reading →

Alberto Ascari

Beatle John Lennon took delivery of his famous psychedelic Rolls-Royce.

John Lennon's Rolls-Royce

In the Grand Prix at Zolder, Belgium, Niki Lauda in his Ferrari showed the way, sitting on pole and winning in a time of 1:43:53, 19.2 seconds over Jody Scheckter and his Tyrrell. Scheckter started ninth and drove very well but could not catch the Ferrari by the end. Continue Reading →

Wally Dallenbach Sr. was 20 seconds in the lead in the Indianapolis 500 when he retired on lap 162 with a burned piston. Johnny Rutherford lost the inherited lead to Bobby Unser when he pitted. Continue Reading →

Amédée Gordini (79), Italian-born race car driver and sports car manufacturer in France, died. Gordini set up his business preparing Simca engines in Suresnes near Paris. His first successes came that year with victory in Bol díOr at Saint-Germain and this was followed by many other class victories including the Index of Performance at Le Mans in 1938 and 1939. Continue Reading →

Amédée Gordini

USAC striped Al Unser Sr. of the previous day's Indianapolis 500 win because of a yellow flag violation and awarded the win to Mario Andretti. Over three months later, the USAC Appeals Board reinstated Unser's win.

Al Unser Sr

The 112,000 seater Charlotte Motor Speedway (North Carolina, US), aka the Mecca of Motorsports, held its first race. Linked to Charlotte and I-85 by a high-volume connector road. A state-of-the-art lighting system allowed racing during the cool hours of the evening. Continue Reading →

Looking toward the finish line at Charlotte Motor Speedway from the Victory lane.

The 44th Belgian Grand Prix and the 32nd to be held at Spa-Francorchamps, run over 43 laps of the 7.0-kilometre circuit for a total race distance of 301 kilometres, was won by British driver Nigel Mansell driving a Williams FW11. It was Mansell's third Grand Prix victory after his two breakthrough wins at the end of the previous season and his first in 1986. Mansell won by 19 seconds over Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna driving a Lotus 98T.

Nigel Mansell (Williams FW11 Honda) - 1986 Belgian Grand

The ashes of 71-year-old George Swanson are buried (according to Swanson´s request) in the driver´s seat of his 1984 white Corvette in Hempfield County, Pennsylvania. Swanson, a beer distributor and former U.S. Continue Reading →

At the Spanish Grand Prix held in Catalunya, Jacques Villeneuve sat on pole and won in his Williams with a race time of 1:300:35. Olivier Panis gave the Prost entry a wonderfully valued second place finish after starting twelfth on the grid. Jean Alesi was third after starting fourth. Continue Reading →

Start of the 1997 Spanish Grand Prix, Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, 1997

The US government proposed a rating system telling consumers how prone vehicles are to rolling over.

Gil de Ferran won the 87th Indianapolis 500-Mile Race by 0.2990 of a second over his Marlboro Team Penske teammate, Helio Castroneves. With Tony Kanaan finishing third only 1. Continue Reading →

Gil De Ferran of Brazil crosses the finish line and the yard of bricks to win the 2003 Indy 500

The Rover 75 Limousine, with a quad-cam, 2.5 litre light-aluminium V6 petrol engine or the common-rail turbo-diesel with either manual or automatic transmission, was unveiled. Prices started at £28,495.

Rover 75 Limousine

TVR Tuscan 2 and Sagaris were unveiled on press day of the Birmingham Motor Show,

TVR Sagaris

Robert Jankel (66), arguably the world's most famous designer of limousines, armored cars and other specialty vehicles, died.

A1 Grand Prix unveiled the provisional race calendar for its inaugural season, taking in a mix of established world-famous venues, exciting new state-of-the-art facilities and tight twisty street circuits.

The 1.2 mile long A6144(M) in Greater Manchester, England ceased being a special road, losing its motorway status. It is now subject to a 50 mph (80 km/h) speed limit and is classified as the A6144. Continue Reading →