Cadillac is one of America’s oldest makes, and it has been mass-producing cars of quality ever since the company was founded in Detroit by Henry Leland in 1902. For more than 90 years, Cadillac has been at the core of General Motors (GM), and it...
The idea of proving the speed and durability of new cars by pitting them against each other—in long-distance trials, hill climbs, or circuit races—came early in the history of the motorcar. By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, motor sport was...
Henry Ford’s iconic Model T-the car that would turn millions of Americans into drivers following its launch in 1908-was remarkable for more than the efficient production-line methods used to build it. The “Tin Lizzie,” as it became known, also boasted many novel engineering features, particularly...
The Model T led an industrial and social revolution, introducing mass-production techniques to car manufacturing and motorizing the United States. Thanks to Henry Ford’s 1913 introduction of a moving assembly line, production hit 1,000 per day in 1914, and U.S. output peaked in 1923, when...
By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, it was clear that the motor car was here to stay, and carmakers started looking for ways to increase production. De Dion-Bouton in France and Oldsmobile in the United States both claimed sales of...
The history of Mercedes is also the history of the car itself. The companies founded by the two German pioneers of the internal combustion engine and the automobile-Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz-came together to form a marque that now makes some of the world's most...
It was one amazing feat to build the first practical motor cars—it was another to start making more and selling them. Just convincing people of their benefits was often difficult. Entrepreneurs, engineers, and aristocrats all played parts in the earliest faltering steps toward car manufacture....
The 19th century saw tremendous advances in engineering, as mechanization transformed production in factories. Inventors turned their attention to replacing the horse with something that could go faster and farther. Steam, electricity, and gas were all tried, and in this early period it was hard...
Despite the legacy of energy crises and the recessions there were still plenty of buyers for the most glamorous cars, just as there had always been. Group B rally racing added extra impetus to the creation of truly spectacular performance cars, the new competition category...
Reviving a famous name last used in the 1950s, the 1984 Ferrari Testarossa was a Pininfarina-designed, 12-cylinder two-seater. The early “red heads” had been racing machines, but this was a pure road car—sleek, very fast, and enormously expensive. Like many Ferrari Formula 1 engines of...