Questions tagged [automobiles]
Questions related to the history of automobiles, or wheeled motor vehicles used for transportation.
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How did early adopters of the automobile fill up their cars?
Presumably when Henry Ford started cranking out the first Model Ts there weren't any gas stations yet. I mean there wasn't yet a large market to distribute gasoline to cars, so it seems like there ...
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Early Mis-Prediction of the Demand for Automobiles
I remember reading about a prediction by an executive of one of the first automobile companies. I believe it was either Daimler or Benz before they were merged. The prediction was that the demand for ...
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What kind of car did Lij Samson Beyene crash?
Lij Samson, a grandson of Haile Selassie, died at 28 or 29. According to biographer Haggai Erlich:
In July 1963 one of his grandsons, Lij Samson, was killed. The prince drove recklessly after a ...
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When did the number of motor driven vehicles surpass the number of horse driven vehicles in Paris, London, Berlin?
What exact year (or the closest approximation) did the number of motor driven vehicles surpass the number of horse driven vehicles (including the single horseman) on the streets of Paris?
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Did any carriage manufacturers make the transition to automobile building?
I remember hearing a story many years ago that went something like this:
When Henry Ford invented the mass-production of automobiles, it threw the transportation world into chaos. There was a well-...
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How many trucks did Russia and Germany have at the start of Barbarossa?
I've seen many times the lend-lease help cited for Russia, about 450,000 trucks (actually they were "jeeps and trucks" so it's hard to know trucks exactly). However, what I've never seen is citing how ...
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What happened to horses when cars became popular?
Horse populations were greatly reduced as cars became prevalent: http://www.cowboyway.com/What/HorsePopulation.htm
What happened to the surplus horses during that period, say, in the USA? Or was the ...
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What did Sweden do with all the wrong-sided steering wheels after Högertrafikomläggningen?
Högertrafikomläggningen happened on September 3rd 1967. On that day Sweden changed from driving on the left side of the road to the right (normalizing with all of its neighbors).
I would guess that ...
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Which car was the first to come with a cigarette lighter receptacle?
While many cars today are phasing out the cigarette lighter (if they do have them they no longer include the lighter, just the socket), I was curious which car or car manufacturer was the first to ...
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What demographic of people were the Ford Motor's Company biggest customers during the car boom of the early twentieth Century?
Who were the primary customers buying up the automobiles steadily decreasing in cost during the 20th century? Was it rural people replacing horses with vehicles? Would it have been inner city people ...
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Did Soviet cars have seatbelts or laws enforcing them?
I know in America, the seatbelt has a history involving legislation and Ralph Nader, and didn't really exist before the 1960's.
What about in the Soviet Union? Did they go through a similar process? ...
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What was the average price of Škoda Favorit in Poland around 1991?
I am looking for the average price of a Škoda Favorit in Poland around 1991 (1992 would be appreciated as well)
I cannot find this information online anywhere.
I have found price of this car and ...
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Furniture van in 1848 France
In Alistair Horne's Seven Ages of Paris, he gives a description of France's revolution in June of 1848. He says,
Killed, too, were no fewer than five of Cavaignac's generals, as well as hundreds ...
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Which single-car accident in history caused the most deaths?
I was looking for the answer to this question. It brought me here, but the closest question was [closed]. The most that I am aware of was when driver Pierre Levegh's race car killed 83 spectators at ...
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When did the Taxi become associated with the checkered pattern?
Taxi cabs tend to be linked to various colors or symbols, one I have noticed repeated over and over is the checkered pattern of alternating white and black. Is there an origin of this and how it ...
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What's the origin of valet parking?
Seems that every single place I go nowadays, they have valet parking: restaurants, bars, airports, etc. The other day I got to think about this dreadful service (I have enough skills to park my own ...
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