1906

In The United States

Vehicle production: 33,200 passenger and 800 trucks.
By this time, an estimated 41,696 cars have been built in accordance with the Selden patent.
Vehicles at the Sixth National Automobile Show feature stronger materials. such as chrome-nickel and high-carbon steel.
Lighter-weight autos gain popularity, including Marmon with its cast aluminim body.
Six-cylinder engines gain favor, with models from Ford, Franklin, Pierce-Arrow, National andStevens-Duryea.
Woodrow Wilson (then President of Princeton University) says: "Possession of a motor car is such an ostentatious display of wealth that it will stimulate socialism."
Autos show utility as rescue vehicles after the San Francisco earthquake.
New York makes a few streets one way. Boston follows suit. Urban planner Daniel Burnham recommends banning traffic from some streets in San Francisco.
DeDion-Bouton i.c. vehicles replace horse-drawn buses on Fifth Avenue, New York City.
Chicago developer puts up an apartment building with garage space in it.
New York Herald warns that cars stir up "primitive emotions."
Barney Oldfield says that the hope of seeing someone killed is what really attracts spectators to races on tracks.
Early ad directed women: "A contented woman is she who operates a Babcock Electric. She Knows there is nothing to fear."
Clarence Young (pseudonym of Howard Garis) ushers the automobile into the world of juvenile literature with The Motor Boys, first of a 22-volume series.
Front bumpers, built-in trunks, and storage batteries become common on American production cars.
Firestone breaks the rubber industry cartel by signing a contract to make tires for Ford.
Influential city planners meet at the Seventh International Conference of Architects, to discuss ways to cope with auto...mobility.
Standard Oil warns that depletion of the US oil reserves is imminent.
Henry Ford buys out Alexander Malcomson's share, takes over as company president after the death of John S. Gray.

US Auto Makers

Ford introduced the low-priced 45-mph Model N ($500-600), forerunner of the Model T and produces over 100 per day.
Oldsmobile abandons the gas buggy style, curved dash Olds for a Mercedes style car.
Buick introduced the storage battery as standard equipment.
Stanley Steamer, designed with the help of a wind tunnel, breaks 200 kph but blows up while racing, reinforcing public fears of steamers.
Ford's huge, plush, six-cylinder Model K ($2500) is guaranteed to d 60 mph; it will be built through 1908.
Production of the Kissel Kar touring begins in Hartford Wisconsin, aimed at the 1907 season.

From Around the World

Italian mob assaults William Vanderbilt, Jr. after he runs over a peasnat child in Pistoia.
British inventor John C. Wood patents triplex shatter-resistant glass.
Rolls introduces the 50-hp, six-cylinder Silver Ghost.
Germany requires vehicles to yield to the vehicle on the right in intersections. After an international convention two years later, it becomes the norm wherever cars keep to the right.
Henard. a Parisian architect, proposes cloverleaf intersections.
Michelin begins to sell detailed road maps to French tourists.
French Banque Automobile begins to finance car purchases.
French trade union leader P. Coupat, complaining that piecework payments, as opposed to hourly wages. hurt quality, warns: "There. automobile snobs, is the secret behind breakdowns on your trips."
First Grand Prix, near Le Mans France, won by Ferenc Szisz, driving 90-hp Renault, averaging 104 kph for 1,232 kilometers. Michelin introduces demountable rims at this race.
France makes Louis Renault a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
Farina brothers open their design firm at Turin, Italy.
Grand Prix driver and bike maker Vincenzo Lancia starts making cars.
Ferdinand Porsche goes to work for Daimler.
Directors force Karl Benz, old and resistant to change, out of Benz.
Armored, but unarmed, military version of the Ivel tractor appears in England.
Napier lists some of its owners in a London ad, including 11 peers, 2 generals, 2 Rothschilds, and a member of the cabinet.