Motor car manufacturer

The automotive industry began in Europe in the 1890s with hundreds of manufacturers that pioneered the horseless carriage.

August Horch, who was employed by Karl Benz, founded in 1899 the August Horch Motorenwagenfirma and in 1910 the Audi Automobilwerke. Horch was responsible for the implementation of the first universal joints in the manufacture of cars

The Winton Motor Carriage Company was a pioneer United States automobile manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio. Winton was one of the first American companies to sell a motor car.

1898 Winton Motor Carriage Company First Auto Ad

Alexander Winton sold his first automobile, built in Cleveland, to mining engineer Robert Allison for $1,000 on March 24, 1898.

The first National Automobile Show opened in Madison Square Garden in New York City on November 3, 1900. It displayed 31 car makers and a wide variety of automobiles, including electric, steam, and gasoline-powered vehicles.  It was a huge success, attracting over 48,000 visitors, who paid the admission fee of 50¢.

Ford Motor Company was founded at Detroit on June 16, 1903, with Henry Ford appointing himself chief engineer. The company sold its first car to a Chicago dentist named Pfennig a month later.

Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines; by 1914 these methods were known around the world as Fordism.

Ford assembly line (1913).

For many decades, the United States led the world in total automobile production. In 1929 before the Great Depression, the world had 32,028,500 automobiles in use, and the U.S. automobile industry produced over 90% of them. At that time the U.S. had one car per 4.87 persons.

In 1902 William Morris started a small cycle-repairing business in Oxford, England, Ten years later, he designed a car that could be produced cheaply, and built up Morris Motors Ltd at Cowley, Oxford.
Morris pioneered the introduction to the United Kingdom of Henry Ford's techniques of mass production.

English-born Herbert Austen emigrated to Australia in 1884, and worked in engineering shops there. He returned to England ten years, and in 1895, with the Wolseley Company, produced his first three-wheeled car. In 1905 he opened his own works near Birmingham, its enormous output including the popular 'Baby' Austin seven, which he began manufacturing in 1921.

Lionel Martin founds the Aston Martin Lagonda company in 1921. It gets it's name from the fact that Martin used to race cars near Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire.

Montana-born Lobban Cord (1894-1974) was a racing car mechanic and driver, before becoming the president of Auburn Automobile Company in Auburn, Indiana. In 1929 the Auburn plant introduced the Cord L-29, the first successful front-wheel drive car.

The Tokyo-based Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha took on a new name June 1, 1934: The Nissan Motor Company.

In 1941, more than three million cars were manufactured in the United States. Only 139 civilian automobiles were made during the entire Second World War due to an intense shift to wartime production. Ford turned out one B-24 bomber every 63 minutes for 24 hours a day.

The first Land Rover made by the Rover company went on display at the Amsterdam Motor Show on April 30, 1948.  It was designed by a farmer and intended for agricultural use.

Land Rover Series I hardtop during the Norwegian Land-Rover Club's 30th anniversary in Evje, Norway

Early Land Rover models were made from both steel and aluminium, due to the rationing of steel and post-war abundance of aluminium, which had been used to make aircraft.

58 million motor vehicles were produced and sold during the 1950s by American manufacturers for a nation of 180 million.

In 1959, Volvo invented the 3-point seat belt, then gave free license to all other car manufacturers to use it.

Lotus cars were initially sold as car kits which the buyer has to assemble themselves. This was done to save up on purchase tax. It wasn't until the late 1960's that they set up a factory and actually started manufacturing the whole vehicle and sold them.

Lexus is a Japanese brand but, paradoxically, Japan wasn’t the first country where these cars were sold. The premium Toyota division was launched in 1989 in the US, but it didn’t go on sale in Japan until 2005.

The Lexus brand name has no specific meaning and simply denotes a luxurious and technological image.

Toyota is the largest automobile manufacturer (by production) ahead of the Volkswagen Group and General Motors. In 2012 Toyota became the world's first automobile manufacturer to produce more than 10 million vehicles in a year.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced a regulation in 2014 that every newly manufactured vehicle sold in the US is required to be equipped with a backup camera as a standard feature. It came into effect on May 1, 2018. The regulation requires all new vehicles under 10,000 pounds to have a rearview monitoring system that allows the driver to see a 10-foot by 20-foot zone directly behind the vehicle when in reverse gear. The requirement was implemented to address the growing problem of backover accidents, which can cause serious injuries and fatalities, particularly among children and the elderly.

Most US states require car manufacturers to sell through the dealers. Even if your order directly from the factory, the order must go through the dealer. This dealer distribution system adds around 30% to the price of the vehicles in America.

Source The Independent