Nobody knows who first invented the term “hot rod,” but the classic definition is simple: It’s a car that’s been stripped down, souped up and made to go much faster.And throughout their history, hot rods have always had a way of attracting free thinkers and risk takers who tend ...read more
Even after Junior Johnson tore up dirt tracks across the South and notched five victories on the NASCAR circuit in 1955, stock car racing’s newest star continued to return home to the mountains of North Carolina to work in the family business—moonshining.Johnson’s ancestors had ...read more
1. The race takes place in the town of Speedway, Indiana.Construction on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway began in 1909 after a group of businessmen bought several hundred acres of Indianapolis farmland for a racetrack and automotive testing facility. The inaugural Indy 500 ...read more
In the 1890s, cars were still a relatively untested technology. Various steam-powered contraptions had been chugging along the roadways since the late-18th century, but more lightweight, driver-friendly vehicles had only arrived on the scene as recently as 1886, when German ...read more
On this day in 2011, 33-year-old Dan Wheldon, a popular, two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, dies following a fiery, 15-car crash during the IndyCar World Championship at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Nevada. Wheldon’s death marked the first on-track IndyCar fatality since 2006, ...read more
Raymond Loewy, the hugely influential industrial designer who put his mark on the American automobile industry with groundbreaking vehicles such as the Studebaker Champion, Starliner and Avanti, dies on this day in 1986 at his home in Monte Carlo at the age of 92.Born in France, ...read more
The hit John Hughes-directed teen comedy “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” released on this day in 1986, stars a young Matthew Broderick as a popular high school student in suburban Illinois who fakes an illness in order to score a day off from school, then leads his best friend and ...read more
A new land-speed record is set by Britain’s famed speed demon, Sir Malcolm Campbell. On the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, Campbell and his 2,500-hp motor car Bluebird made two runs over a one-mile course at speeds averaging 301.129 mph. In breaking the 300-mph barrier, he ...read more
On this day in 1944, under the threat of Allied bombing during World War II, the German car manufacturer Volkswagen halts production of the “Beetle,” as its small, insect-shaped automobile was dubbed in the international press. Ten years earlier, the renowned automotive engineer ...read more
After more than seven decades as the world’s largest automaker, General Motors (GM) officially loses the title on January 21, 2009, when it announces worldwide sales of 8.36 million cars and trucks in 2008, compared with Toyota’s 8.97 million vehicle sales that same year. ...read more
On February 7, 1938, automotive industry pioneer Harvey Samuel Firestone, founder of the major American tire company that bore his name, dies at the age of 69 in Miami Beach, Florida.By 1910, Firestone’s profits passed $1 million for the first time. The following year, the winner ...read more
On September 22, 1953, the first four-level (or “stack”) interchange in the world opens in Los Angeles, California, at the intersection of the Harbor, Hollywood, Pasadena, and Santa Ana freeways. It was, as The Saturday Evening Post wrote, “a mad motorist’s dream”: 32 lanes of ...read more
On this day in 1993, race car driver and owner Alan Kulwicki, who won the 1992 National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) Winston Cup championship by one of the tightest margins in series history, is killed in a plane crash near Bristol, Tennessee, where he was ...read more
On this day in 1936, Jim Clark, who will dominate Formula One (F1) racing in the mid-1960s and win two F1 world championships, is born in Scotland.Clark grew up on a farm and as a teenager began competing in local car races. Initially, Clark’s family was less-than-enthusiastic ...read more
On this day in 1986, driving legend Richard Petty makes the 1,000th start of his National Association for Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) career, in the Miller American 400 in Brooklyn, Michigan. He became the first driver in NASCAR history to log 1,000 career starts. Petty grew up on ...read more
The 32-year-old race car driver Bruce McLaren dies in a crash while testing an experimental car of his own design at a track in Goodwood, England on this day in 1970. Born in Auckland, New Zealand, McLaren contracted a childhood hip disease that would keep him in hospitals for ...read more
On this day in 2004, TV talk-show host Oprah Winfrey gives a brand-new Pontiac G-6 sedan, worth $28,500, to everyone in her studio audience: a total of 276 cars in all.) Oprah had told her producers to fill the crowd with people who “desperately needed” the cars, and when she ...read more
On December 11, 1962, the New York City Board of Estimate unanimously votes against a plan for a $100 million elevated expressway across the bottom of Manhattan. The road, known as the Lower Manhattan Expressway, had been in the works since 1941. It was supposed to link the ...read more
On this day in 1987, in the fastest race in Indy car racing at the time, 24-year-old Michael Andretti wins the Marlboro 500 at the Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan, with an average speed of 171.490 miles per hour. Michael Andretti had made his debut on the ...read more
On November 29, 1996, top Volkswagen official Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua resigns from his job amidst accusations of racketeering and industrial espionage.Lopez had risen through the ranks as a purchasing executive at GM, where he had pioneered what The New York Times called ...read more
Juan Manuel Fangio–the Argentine race car driver dubbed “the Maestro”–makes his European racing debut at the Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France in Reims, France on this day in 1948.Born in San Jose de Balcarce, Argentina, in 1911, Fangio left school at the age of 11 and ...read more
“Dapper Dan” Hogan, a St. Paul, Minnesota saloonkeeper and mob boss, is killed on this day in 1928 when someone plants a car bomb under the floorboards of his new Paige coupe. Doctors worked all day to save him–according to the Morning Tribune, “racketeers, police characters, and ...read more
On this day in 1904, Henry Ford sets a land-speed record of 91.37 mph on the frozen surface of Michigan’s Lake St. Clair. He was driving a four-wheel vehicle, dubbed the “999,” with a wooden chassis but no body or hood. Ford’s record was broken within a month at Ormond Beach, ...read more
On this day in 1929, the 50th birthday of the incandescent light bulb, Henry Ford throws a big party to celebrate the dedication of his new Thomas Edison Institute in Dearborn, Michigan. Everybody who was anybody was there: John D. Rockefeller Jr., Charles Schwab, Otto H. Kahn, ...read more