You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

[Lee Stewart]

Cape Hatteras Light Station - Cape Hatteras, North Carolina

[Lee Stewart]

American engineer Clyde Coleman patented the electric starter in 1903. He then sold his patent to Delco, which licensed it to General Motors; this gave GM’s Cadillac division the distinction of being the first car maker to sell a car with an electric starter, with its 1912 Touring Edition.

[Lee Stewart]

There's much debate about when metallic paint was introduced. By the end of the 1930s many US brands offered it. Cadillac listed it from 1933 and Hupmobile from 1934, but it seems they were both pipped to the post by Chevrolet, which allowed its cars to be finished in metallic paint from as early as 1932.

[Lee Stewart]

When Cord unveiled its 810 at the 1935 New York Auto Show, complete with pop-up headlights, it caused a sensation.

Nobody had ever created anything like it but it would be another 30 years before the technology would become more widely adopted. By the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s pop-up headlights had become mainstream, but by 2004 they'd been banned worldwide, for safety reasons.

[Lee Stewart]

Plymouth was the only division of Chrysler to offer open-topped cars in 1939, and while rivals were also selling convertibles, none had one on its books with a power-operated roof.

[Lee Stewart]

Chrysler's 1951 Imperial was the first American car to offer electric power windows and power steering.

[Lee Stewart]

Packard offered air conditioning on its cars in 1940-42, but the system was very costly and grossly inefficient; it also took up the entire trunk space.

Nash overcame such hurdles, helped by being sister company to the refrigerator manufacturer Kelvinator.

Using that firm's know-how Nash was first to offer an affordable and practical fully integrated heating, ventilation and air conditioning system from the 1954 model year, in its Ambassador.

[Lee Stewart]

Volvo’s introduction of the three-point seat belt in 1959 has arguably saved more lives than any other safety feature. To the company’s great credit, it allowed the technology to be used by other carmakers at no patent cost.

[Lee Stewart]

Chrysler went to surprising lengths to design the first auto-dimming rear-view mirror. Called Mirror-Matic, it relied on a photocell that measured the intensity of the light it received through the car’s rear window.

The mirror automatically pivoted a few degrees when the intensity of the light reached a certain level. The system sourced power from the car’s electric system and the driver could use a switch to select one of three modes called city, highway and off, respectively.

The Mirror-Matic option cost $186 in today’s money on the 1959 300E

[Lee Stewart]

GM employee Robert Ballard patented the heated seat in 1951, but it was 15 years before the feature made its way to a production model. In 1965, the 1966 Cadillac Fleetwood became the first car to offer heated seats; the option cost $649 in 2019 money.