Dodge
Dodge is an American brand of automobile manufactured by FCA US LLC, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles include performance cars, though for much of its existence Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above Plymouth. Founded as the Dodge Brothers Company machine shop by brothers Horace Elgin Dodge and John Francis Dodge in the early 1900s, Dodge was a supplier of parts and assemblies for Detroit-based automakers and began building complete automobiles under the "Dodge Brothers" brand in 1914, predating the founding of Chrysler Corporation; the factory was located in Hamtramck and was called the Dodge Main factory from 1910 until its closing in January 1980. The Dodge brothers both died in 1920, the company was sold by their families to Dillon, Read & Co. in 1925 before being sold to Chrysler in 1928. Dodge vehicles consisted of trucks and full-sized passenger cars through the 1970s, though it made memorable compact cars and midsize cars; the 1973 oil crisis and its subsequent impact on the American automobile industry led Chrysler to develop the K platform of compact to midsize cars for the 1981 model year.
The K platform and its derivatives are credited with reviving Chrysler's business in the 1980s. The Dodge brand has withstood the multiple ownership changes at Chrysler from 1998 to 2009, including its short-lived merger with Daimler-Benz AG from 1998 to 2007, its subsequent sale to Cerberus Capital Management, its 2009 bailout by the United States government, its subsequent Chapter 11 bankruptcy and acquisition by Fiat. In 2011, Dodge and Dodge's Viper were separated. Dodge said that the Dodge Viper would be an SRT product and Ram will be a manufacturer. In 2014, SRT was merged back into Dodge; that year, Chrysler Group was renamed FCA US LLC, corresponding with the merger of Fiat S.p. A. and Chrysler Group into the single corporate structure of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Horace and John Dodge founded the Dodge Brothers Company in Detroit in 1900, found work manufacturing precision engine and chassis components for the city's growing number of automobile firms. Chief among these customers were the established Olds Motor Vehicle Company and the new Ford Motor Company.
Henry Ford selected the Dodge brothers to supply a wide range of components for his original Model A that included the complete chassis. The first machine shop where the brothers worked as parts suppliers for Olds and Ford was located at the Boydell Building on Beaubien Street at Lafayette; this location was replaced by a larger facility at Hastings Street and Monroe Avenue, now a parking garage for the Greektown Casino Hotel. By 1910 the Dodge Main factory was built in Hamtramck, where it remained until 1979; the Dodge Brothers Motor Company was established in 1913 and by 1914, John and Horace designed and debuted the first car of their own – the four-cylinder Dodge Model 30/35 touring car. Marketed as a more upscale competitor to the ubiquitous Ford Model T, it pioneered or made standard many features taken for granted like all-steel body construction as the vast majority of cars worldwide still used wood-framing under steel panels). Once the Dodge brothers produced their own car, John Dodge was once quoted as saying, "Someday, people who own a Ford are going to want an automobile".
As a result of this, the brothers' well-earned reputation for the highest quality truck and motor parts they made for other successful vehicles, Dodge Brothers cars were ranked at second place for U. S. sales as early as 1916. That same year, Henry Ford decided to stop paying stock dividends to finance the construction of his new River Rouge complex, the Dodges filed a suit to protect their annual stock earnings of one million dollars, leading Ford to buy out his shareholders. In 1916, the Dodge Brothers vehicles won acclaim for their durability in military service. First with the U. S. Army's Pancho Villa Expedition, during the 1910s U. S. Mexico Border War — the U. S. military's first operation to use truck convoys. General "Blackjack" Pershing procured a fleet of 150 to 250 Dodge Brothers vehicles for the Mexico campaign. Touring cars were used as reconnaissance vehicles. One notable instance was in May when the 6th Infantry received a reported sighting of Julio Cárdenas, one of Villa's most trusted subordinates.
Lt. George S. Patton led ten soldiers and two civilian guides in three Dodge Model 30 touring cars to conduct America's first motorised military raid at a ranch house in San Miguelito, Sonora. During the ensuing firefight the party killed three men. Patton's men tied the bodies to the hoods of the Dodges, returning to headquarters in Dublán and an excited reception from US newspapermen. Subsequently, some 12,800 Dodge cars and light trucks were used in World War I — over 8,000 touring cars, as well as 2,600 commercial vehicles, such as screen-side trucks and panel vans — serving as ambulances and repair trucks. Dodge remained the United States military's primary supplier of light wheeled vehicles, until the
Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker that has its main headquarter in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903; the company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand and most luxury cars under the Lincoln brand. Ford owns Brazilian SUV manufacturer Troller, an 8% stake in Aston Martin of the United Kingdom and a 32% stake in Jiangling Motors, it has joint-ventures in China, Thailand and Russia. The company is controlled by the Ford family. Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines. Ford's former UK subsidiaries Jaguar and Land Rover, acquired in 1989 and 2000 were sold to Tata Motors in March 2008. Ford owned the Swedish automaker Volvo from 1999 to 2010. In 2011, Ford discontinued the Mercury brand, under which it had marketed entry-level luxury cars in the United States, Canada and the Middle East since 1938.
Ford is the second-largest U. S.-based automaker and the fifth-largest in the world based on 2015 vehicle production. At the end of 2010, Ford was the fifth largest automaker in Europe; the company went public in 1956 but the Ford family, through special Class B shares, still retain 40 percent voting rights. During the financial crisis at the beginning of the 21st century, it was close to bankruptcy, but it has since returned to profitability. Ford was the eleventh-ranked overall American-based company in the 2018 Fortune 500 list, based on global revenues in 2017 of $156.7 billion. In 2008, Ford produced 5.532 million automobiles and employed about 213,000 employees at around 90 plants and facilities worldwide. Henry Ford's first attempt at a car company under his own name was the Henry Ford Company on November 3, 1901, which became the Cadillac Motor Company on August 22, 1902, after Ford left with the rights to his name; the Ford Motor Company was launched in a converted factory in 1903 with $28,000 in cash from twelve investors, most notably John and Horace Dodge.
The first president was not Ford, but local banker John S. Gray, chosen to assuage investors' fears that Ford would leave the new company the way he had left its predecessor. During its early years, the company produced just a few cars a day at its factory on Mack Avenue and its factory on Piquette Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Groups of two or three men worked on each car, assembling it from parts made by supplier companies contracting for Ford. Within a decade, the company would lead the world in the expansion and refinement of the assembly line concept, Ford soon brought much of the part production in-house in a vertical integration that seemed a better path for the era. Henry Ford was 39 years old when he founded the Ford Motor Company, which would go on to become one of the world's largest and most profitable companies, it has been in continuous family control for over 100 years and is one of the largest family-controlled companies in the world. The first gasoline powered automobile had been created in 1885 by the German inventor Carl Benz.
More efficient production methods were needed to make automobiles affordable for the middle class, to which Ford contributed by, for instance, introducing the first moving assembly line in 1913 at the Ford factory in Highland Park. Between 1903 and 1908, Ford produced the Models A, B, C, F, K, N, R, S. Hundreds or a few thousand of most of these were sold per year. In 1908, Ford introduced the mass-produced Model T, which totalled millions sold over nearly 20 years. In 1927, Ford replaced the T with the first car with safety glass in the windshield. Ford launched the first low-priced car with a V8 engine in 1932. In an attempt to compete with General Motors' mid-priced Pontiac and Buick, Ford created the Mercury in 1939 as a higher-priced companion car to Ford. Henry Ford purchased the Lincoln Motor Company in 1922, in order to compete with such brands as Cadillac and Packard for the luxury segment of the automobile market. In 1929, Ford was contracted by the government of the Soviet Union to set up the Gorky Automobile Plant in Russia producing Ford Model A and AAs thereby playing an important role in the industrialisation of that country.
The creation of a scientific laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan in 1951, doing unfettered basic research, led to Ford's unlikely involvement in superconductivity research. In 1964, Ford Research Labs made a key breakthrough with the invention of a superconducting quantum interference device or SQUID. Ford offered the Lifeguard safety package from 1956, which included such innovations as a standard deep-dish steering wheel, optional front, for the first time in a car, rear seatbelts, an optional padded dash. Ford introduced child-proof door locks into its products in 1957, and, in the same year, offered the first retractable hardtop on a mass-produced six-seater car. In late 1955, Ford established the Continental division as a separate luxury car division; this division was responsible for the manufacture and sale of the famous Continental Mark II. At the same time, the Edsel division was created to design and market that car starting with the 1958 model year. Due to limited sales of the Continental and the Edsel disaster, Ford merged Lincoln and Edsel into "M
Australia
Australia the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area; the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea and East Timor to the north. The population of 25 million is urbanised and concentrated on the eastern seaboard. Australia's capital is Canberra, its largest city is Sydney; the country's other major metropolitan areas are Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians for about 60,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, it is documented. After the European exploration of the continent by Dutch explorers in 1606, who named it New Holland, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788, a date which became Australia's national day; the population grew in subsequent decades, by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored and an additional five self-governing crown colonies established.
On 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy, comprising six states and ten territories. Being the oldest and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils, Australia has a landmass of 7,617,930 square kilometres. A megadiverse country, its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east and mountain ranges in the south-east. A gold rush began in Australia in the early 1850s, its population density, 2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, remains among the lowest in the world. Australia generates its income from various sources including mining-related exports, telecommunications and manufacturing. Indigenous Australian rock art is the oldest and richest in the world, dating as far back as 60,000 years and spread across hundreds of thousands of sites. Australia is a developed country, with the world's 14th-largest economy.
It has a high-income economy, with the world's tenth-highest per capita income. It is a regional power, has the world's 13th-highest military expenditure. Australia has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 26% of the population. Having the third-highest human development index and the eighth-highest ranked democracy globally, the country ranks in quality of life, education, economic freedom, civil liberties and political rights, with all its major cities faring well in global comparative livability surveys. Australia is a member of the United Nations, G20, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organization, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Pacific Islands Forum and the ASEAN Plus Six mechanism; the name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis, a name used for a hypothetical continent in the Southern Hemisphere since ancient times. When Europeans first began visiting and mapping Australia in the 17th century, the name Terra Australis was applied to the new territories.
Until the early 19th century, Australia was best known as "New Holland", a name first applied by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1644 and subsequently anglicised. Terra Australis still saw occasional usage, such as in scientific texts; the name Australia was popularised by the explorer Matthew Flinders, who said it was "more agreeable to the ear, an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth". The first time that Australia appears to have been used was in April 1817, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie acknowledged the receipt of Flinders' charts of Australia from Lord Bathurst. In December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office. In 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known by that name; the first official published use of the new name came with the publication in 1830 of The Australia Directory by the Hydrographic Office. Colloquial names for Australia include "Oz" and "the Land Down Under". Other epithets include "the Great Southern Land", "the Lucky Country", "the Sunburnt Country", "the Wide Brown Land".
The latter two both derive from Dorothea Mackellar's 1908 poem "My Country". Human habitation of the Australian continent is estimated to have begun around 65,000 to 70,000 years ago, with the migration of people by land bridges and short sea-crossings from what is now Southeast Asia; these first inhabitants were the ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal Australian culture is one of the oldest continual civilisations on earth. At the time of first European contact, most Indigenous Australians were hunter-gatherers with complex economies and societies. Recent archaeological finds suggest. Indigenous Australians have an oral culture with spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime; the Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, obtained their livelihood from seasonal horticulture and the resources of their reefs and seas. The northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited s
Alfa Romeo 8C
The Alfa Romeo 8C was a range of Alfa Romeo road and sports cars of the 1930s. In 2004 Alfa Romeo revived the 8C name for a V8-engined concept car which made it into production for 2007, the 8C Competizione; the 8C designates 8 cylinders, a straight 8-cylinder engine. The Vittorio Jano designed 8C was Alfa Romeo's primary racing engine from its introduction in 1931 to its retirement in 1939. In addition to the two-seater sports cars it was used in the world's first genuine single-seat Grand Prix racing car, the Monoposto'Tipo B' - P3 from 1932 onwards. In its development it powered such vehicles as the twin-engined 1935 6.3-litre Bimotore, the 1935 3.8-litre Monoposto 8C 35 Type C, the Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Mille Miglia Roadster. It powered top-of-the-range coach-built production models, including a Touring Spider and Touring Berlinetta. In 1924, Vittorio Jano created his first straight-eight-cylinder engine for Alfa Romeo, the 1987 cc P2, with common crankcase and four plated-steel two-cylinder blocks, which won the first World Championship in 1925.
Although it was a straight-8, the 8C designation was not used. The 8C engine, first entered at the 1931 Mille Miglia road race through Italy, had a common crankcase, now with two alloy four-cylinder blocks, which incorporated the heads; the bore and stroke, were the same as the 6C 1750. There was no separate head, no head gasket to fail, but this made valve maintenance more difficult. A central gear tower drove the overhead camshafts and ancillaries; as far as production cars are concerned, the 8C engine powered two models, the 8C 2300 and the more rare and expensive 8C 2900, bore increased to 68 mm and stroke to 100 mm. At the same time, since racing cars were no longer required to carry a mechanic, Alfa Romeo built the first single seater race car; as a first attempt, the 1931 Monoposto Tipo A used a pair of 6-cylinder engines fitted side by side in the chassis. As the resulting car was too heavy and complex, Jano designed a more suitable and successful racer called Monoposto Tipo B for the 1932 Grand Prix season.
The Tipo B proved itself the winning car of its era, winning straight from its first outing at the 1932 Italian Grand Prix, was powered with an enlarged version of the 8C engine now at 2,665 cc, fed through a pair of superchargers instead of a single one. Alfa Romeo announced that the 8C was not to be sold to private owners, but by autumn 1931 Alfa sold it as a rolling chassis in Lungo or Corto form with prices starting at over £1000; the chassis were fitted with bodies from a selection of Italian coach-builders such as Zagato, Carrozzeria Touring, Carrozzeria Castagna, Carrozzeria Pinin Farina and Brianza though Alfa Romeo did make bodies. Some chassis were clothed by coach-builders such as Graber and Tuscher of Switzerland and Figoni of France. Alfa Romeo had a practice of rebodying cars for clients, some racing vehicles were sold rebodied as road vehicles; some of the famous first owners include Baroness Maud Thyssen of the Thyssen family, the owner of the aircraft and now scooter company Piaggio Andrea Piaggio, Raymond Sommer, Tazio Nuvolari.
The first model was the 1931'8C 2300', a reference to the car's 2.3 L engine designed as a racing car, but produced in 188 units for road use. While the racing version of the 8C 2300 Spider, driven by Tazio Nuvolari won the 1931 and 1932 Targa Florio race in Sicily, the 1931 Italian Grand Prix victory at Monza gave the "Monza" name to the twin seater GP car, a shortened version of the Spider; the Alfa Romeo factory added the name of events won to the name of a car.'8C 2300 tipo Le Mans' was the sport version of the'8C 2300' and it had a successful debut in the 1931 Eireann Cup driven by Henry Birkin. It won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1931; the 8C 2300 Le Mans model on display at the Museo Alfa Romeo was bought by Sir Henry Birkin in 1931 for competition use, but it is not the car in which Birkin and Howe won the 1931 Le Mans 24 hours. A 1933 8C 2300 Le Mans, chassis #2311201, is part of the permanent collection at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia, PA, US; the car was owned by Lord Howe who campaigned it in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1934 as well as in 1935 when it set the fastest lap before retiring.
In 1933 the supercharged dual overhead cam straight-8 engine, enlarged to 2.6 litres for the Tipo B, was fitted to the Scuderia Ferrari 8C Monzas. Scuderia Ferrari had become the "semi-official" racing department of Alfa Romeo, who were no longer entering races as a factory effort due to the poor economic situation of the company. With the initial 215 hp of the 2.6 engine, the Monoposto Tipo B racer could accelerate to 60 mph in less than 7 seconds and could reach 135 mph. For 1934 the race engines became 2.9 litres. Tazio Nuvolari won the 1935 German GP at the Nürburgring at the wheel of a 3.2 L Tipo B against the more powerful Silver Arrows from Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. Eight 3.8-litre versions, sharing no castings with the earlier blocks, were individually built for racing in five months, most being used in the Alfa Romeo Monoposto 8C 35 Type C, as raced by Scuderia Ferrari. The 3.8 produced 330 bhp at 5500 rpm, had 320 lb⋅ft from 900 rpm to 5500 rpm. It had 15.5-inch drum brakes all round, using Pirelli 5.25 or 5.50 x 19 tyres at the front and 7.00 or 7.50 x 19 tyres at the rear.
Thou
Nuriootpa, South Australia
Nuriootpa is the major commercial centre in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, about an hour's drive north of the capital, 77 kilometres by rail. The name of the town is reputed to be the local Aboriginal word for "meeting place". Nuriootpa is situated at the north end of the Barossa Valley, near the Sturt Highway and has a population of over 5704 people, making it the largest town in the area. There are grape-vines growing on some of the buildings in the main streets, vineyards surrounding the town, it is home to wineries including Penfolds, Atze's Corner, Elderton Wines, Kaesler Wines, First Drop Wines & Wolf Blass The first recorded Europeans to visit the locality, on 3 March 1838, were the exploration party of John Hill, John Oakden, William Wood, Charles Willis, en route to the Murray River from Adelaide. Since the 1930s, Nuriootpa has been cited as an example of inspired community development; the town's community owned and operated retail businesses have funded public facilities, including the Senior Citizens' Club, the swimming pool, the kindergarten and recreation areas.
The short-lived progressive Adelaide movement Common Cause arranged a visit by future Prime Minister Ben Chifley to Nuriootpa in 1944 which led him, inspired by its approach, to promote the town as a model for community co-operation. The Adelaide architect Louis Laybourne-Smith prepared a plan for the town's recreation and education area, known as its'War Memorial Community Centre' at that time. Much of this plan has been realised, including Laybourne-Smith's unusual'fan-shaped' Olympic-sized pool; the 1950 Australian Grand Prix, Australia’s premier motor race of that year, was held on 2 January 1950 using the Nuriootpa Road Circuit, a temporary course utilising roads in and around the town of Nuriootpa. The race was won by Doug Whiteford driving a Ford V8 Special; the first race meeting to use the circuit had been held in April 1949. The first stage of the 2014 Tour Down Under was held on 21 January 2014, starting from the town and finishing in Angaston; the 135 km stage was won by Simon Gerrans of Orica-GreenEDGE.
Nuriootpa is in the Barossa Council, although the northern outskirts are in the Light Regional Council. It is in the federal Division of Barker. Nuriootpa was home to the short-lived Nuriootpa and District Community Diary, a monthly magazine subtitled ": monthly news bulletin of the Nuriootpa War Memorial Community Centre Inc". Barossa Valley H. C. Coombs, Trial Balance: issues of my working life Sun Books, South Melbourne 1981 p. 61 A Township Starts to Live Common Cause, Adelaide 1945
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile was a brand of American automobiles produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Olds Motor Vehicle Co. was founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it produced over 35 million vehicles, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory. During its time as a division of General Motors, it slotted in the middle of GM's five divisions, was noted for its testing of groundbreaking technology and designs, most notably the "Rocket V8" engine. In 1985, over 1 million Oldsmobiles were sold, but by the 1990s the division was tasked with competing with import brands; when it was shut down in 2004, Oldsmobile was the oldest surviving American automobile marque, one of the oldest in the world, after Peugeot, MAN, Tatra. Oldsmobiles were first manufactured by the Olds Motor Vehicle Co. in Lansing, Michigan, a company founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In 1902, the company produced 635 cars, making it the first high-volume gasoline-powered automobile manufacturer. Oldsmobile became the top selling car company in the United States for a few years around 1903-4.
Ransom Olds formed the REO Motor Car Company. The 1902 to 1904 Oldsmobile Curved Dash was the first mass-produced car, made from the first automotive assembly line, an invention, miscredited to Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company. After Olds merged Olds Motor Vehicle Co. with the Olds Gas Engine Works in 1899, it was renamed Olds Motor Works and moved to a new plant in Detroit, located at the corner of East Jefferson Avenue and MacArthur Bridge. By March 1901, the company had a whole line of models ready for mass production. However, a mistake by a worker caused the factory to catch fire, it burned to the ground, with all of the prototypes destroyed; the only car that survived the fire was a Curved Dash prototype, wheeled out of the factory by two workers while escaping the fire. A new factory was built in Lansing, production of the Curved Dash commenced; the cars were called "Olds automobiles," but were colloquially referred to as "Oldsmobiles." It was this moniker, as applied to the Curved Dash Olds, popularized in the lyrics and title of the 1905 hit song "In My Merry Oldsmobile".
The last Oldsmobile Curved Dash was made in 1907. General Motors purchased the company in 1908; the 1910 Limited Touring was a high point for the company. Riding atop 42-inch wheels, equipped with factory "white" tires, the Limited was the prestige model in Oldsmobile's two model lineup; the Limited retailed for US$4,600, an amount greater than the purchase of a new, no-frills three bedroom house. Buyers received goatskin upholstery, a 60 hp 707 CID straight-six engine, Bosch Magneto starter, running boards and room for five. Options included a speedometer, a full glass windshield. A limousine version was priced at $5,800. While Oldsmobile only sold 725 Limiteds in its three years of production, the car is best remembered for winning a race against the famed 20th Century Limited train, an event immortalized in the painting Setting the Pace by William Hardner Foster. In 1926, the Oldsmobile Six came in five body styles, ushered in a new GM bodystyle platform called the "GM B platform", shared with Buick products.
In 1929, as part of General Motors' companion make program, Oldsmobile introduced the higher standard Viking brand, marketed through the Oldsmobile dealer network. Viking was discontinued at the end of the 1930 model year although an additional 353 cars were marketed as 1931 models. In 1937, Oldsmobile was a pioneer in introducing a four-speed semi-automatic transmission called the "Automatic Safety Transmission", although this accessory was built by Buick, which would offer it in its own cars in 1938; this transmission features a conventional clutch pedal, which the driver presses before selecting either "low" or "high" range. In "low," the car shifts between second gears. In "high," the car shifts among first and fourth gears. For the 1940 model, Oldsmobile was the first auto manufacturer to offer a automatic transmission, called the "Hydramatic", which features four forward speeds, it has a gas pedal and a brake—no clutch pedal. The gear selector is on the steering column. Starting in 1941 and continuing through 1999, Oldsmobile used a two digit model designation.
As implemented, the first digit signifies the body size while the second represents the number of cylinders. Body sizes were 6, 7, 8, 9, six- and eight-cylinder engines were offered. Thus, Oldsmobiles were named "66" through "98"; the last pre-war Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line on February 5, 1942. During World War II, Oldsmobile produced numerous kinds of material for the war effort, including large-caliber guns and shells. Production resumed on October 15, 1945 with a warmed-over 1942 model serving as the offering for 1946. Oldsmobile once again was a pioneer when, for the 1949 model, the Rocket engine was introduced, which used an overhead valve V8 design rather than the flathead "straight-eight" design which prevailed at the time; this engine produced far more power than the other engines that were popular during that era, found favor with hot-rodders and stock car racers. The basic design, with a few minor changes, endured until Oldsmobile redesigned its V8 engines in the mid-1960s.
Oldsmobile entered the 1950s following a divisional image campaign centered on its'Rocket' engines and its cars' appearance followed suit. Oldsmobile's Rocket V8 engine was the leader in performanc
MG Cars
MG, the initials of Morris Garages, is a British automotive marque registered by the now defunct MG Car Company Limited, a British sports car manufacturer begun in the 1920s as a sales promotion sideline within W. R. Morris's Oxford city retail sales and service business by the business's manager, Cecil Kimber. Best known for its two-seat open sports cars, MG produced saloons and coupés. Kimber was an employee of William Morris; the MG business was Morris's personal property until 1 July 1935 when he sold MG to his holding company, Morris Motors Limited, restructuring his holdings before issuing shares in Morris Motors to the public in 1936. MG underwent many changes in ownership starting with Morris merging with Austin in The British Motor Corporation Limited in 1952. MG became the MG Division of BMC in 1967 and so a component of the 1968 merger that created British Leyland Motor Corporation. By the start of 2000 MG was part of the MG Rover Group, which entered receivership in 2005; the assets and MG brand were purchased by Nanjing Automobile Group for GB£53 million.
Production restarted in 2007 in China. The first all-new model from MG in the UK for 16 years, the MG 6 launched on 26 June 2011; the original MG marque was in continuous use, except for the duration of the Second World War, for 56 years following its inception in 1924. The production of predominantly two-seater sports cars was concentrated at a factory in Abingdon, some 10 miles south of Oxford; the British Motor Corporation competition department was based at the Abingdon plant, producing many winning rally and race cars, until the Abingdon factory closed and MGB production ceased in the Autumn of 1980. Between 1982 and 1991, the MG marque used to badge-engineer sportier versions of Austin Rover's Metro and Montego ranges; the MG marque was not revived in its own right until 1992, with the MG RV8 – an updated MGB Roadster with a Rover V8 engine, previewed at the 1992 Birmingham Motor Show, with low-volume production commencing in 1993. A second revival came in the summer of 1995, when the high-volume MG F two-seater roadster was launched.
The MG marque, along with the Rover marque, went to the MG Rover group in May 2000, when BMW "broke up" the Rover Group. This arrangement had the return of MG badges on sportier Rover-based cars such as the MG ZT in 2001, along with a revised MG F model, known as the MG TF, launched in 2002; the assets of MG Rover were bought by Chinese carmaker Nanjing Automobile in July 2005, subsequently bought by SAIC in December 2007, which now operate a UK subsidiary, MG Motor. The company's name originated from the initials of Morris Garages, W R Morris's original retail sales and service business in Longwall Street, when the business's manager, Cecil Kimber, began promoting sales by producing his own versions. Kimber had joined the company as its sales manager in 1921, he was promoted to general manager in 1922, a position he held until 1941, when he fell out with Lord Nuffield over procuring wartime work. Kimber died in 1945 in a railway accident; the site of the garages was redeveloped in 1980, retaining the original frontage, is now used as student accommodation by New College.
Debate remains as to when the MG Car Company started, although the first cars bore both Morris and MG badges, in addition to reference to MG with the octagon badge appears in an Oxford newspaper from November 1923, the MG Octagon was registered as a trademark by Morris Garages on 1 May 1924, with its 90th anniversary being celebrated in 2014. Others dispute this and believe that MG only properly began trading in 1925; the first cars, known as "Kimber Specials", were rebodied Morris models that used coachwork from Carbodies of Coventry. Morris Garages built them in premises in Oxford. Demand soon caused a move to larger premises in Bainton Road in September 1925, sharing space with the Morris radiator works. Continuing expansion meant another move in 1927 to a separate factory in Edmund Road, Oxford, near the main Morris factory and for the first time it was possible to include a production line. In 1928, the company had become large enough to warrant an identity separate from the original Morris Garages and the M.
G. Car Company Limited was established in March of that year, in October for the first time a stand was taken at the London Motor Show. Space soon ran out again, a search for a permanent home led to the lease of part an old leather factory in Abingdon, Oxfordshire in 1929 taking over more space until production ended there in 1980; the MG Car Club was founded in 1930 for enthusiasts of MG cars. William Morris owned MG and in a re-arrangement of his various personal holdings he sold MG in 1935 to Morris Motors, a change, to have serious consequences for MG its motor-sport activities. MG was absorbed with Morris into The British Motor Corporation Limited, created in 1952 to merge Morris Motors Limited and The Austin Motor Company Limited. Long-time service manager John Thornley took over as general manager, guiding the company through its best years until his retirement in 1969. Under BMC, several MG models were no more than badge-engineered versions of other marques, with the main exception being the small MG sports cars.
BMC took over Jaguar Cars in September 1966 and that December BMC changed its name to British Motor Holdings. BMH joined with Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968 to form British Leyland Motor Corporation. Following partial nationalisation in 1975, BLMC became Britis
Rupert Steele
