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Automoblog’s Katie Kapro examines how imaginative thinking and creative risks have influenced the modern automobile in this three-part miniseries.
The 21st Century is an age of automotive loyalists. You can hardly go into a garage without hearing some level of discussion about American cars versus Japanese cars versus German cars. Everyone has a favorite, and if you ask them about it, you?ll get a bullet list of reasons why their choice is superior.
However, that was not the case in the early days of the automobile.
Humble Origins
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Europeans were the undoubted champions of quality automobiles. The first Mercedes-Benz, built in 1901 by German designer Wilhelm Maybach, is credited with being the first modern motorcar. It had all the right elements: relative lightness, power, and speed. Its 35 horsepower engine weighed only 14 pounds per horsepower and reached up to 53 miles per hour. Its only downfall was being extremely expensive to build and in turn, prohibitively expensive to purchase. By contrast, in 1901 through 1906, the first American-built Oldsmobile had only three horsepower and sold for $650. As a result of this tension between quality and affordability, all automotive technological developments of the 20th Century focused on making vehicles more attainable for the everyday Joe. Now, just over 100 years later, cars have replaced horse-drawn carriages, trains, and all...