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1920
1920 Britain introduced a tax on motor vehicles and the first tax discs appeared a year later. In 2013 the discs were replaced by an electronic system for paying road tax. -
Period: to
The Roaring Twenties'
all about automobiles -
1921
1921 Walter P. Chrysler, president of the General Motor’s Buick Motor Co., became chairman of Maxmell Motor Corp. 1921 Ford’s car production comprised nearly 56% of the total output. -
1923
1923 Apr 5, Firestone Co. put their inflatable tires into production. 1923 Alfred P. Sloan Jr. (1875-1966), a ball-bearing magnate, became president of a troubled GM and brought in corporate management and tight financial controls. He introduced the ideas of model changes and offering a car "for every purse and purpose." 1923 Benz & Cie introduced a diesel truck with a 50-horsepower engine. -
1924
1924 Aug 5, The comic strip "Little Orphan Annie" by Harold Gray (d.1968) made its debut in the NY Daily News. Daddy Warbucks was her millionaire guardian. Leonard Starr took over the strip in 1979. Her image was updated in 2000 by cartoonist Andrew Pepoy. -
1925
1925 Mar 2, State and federal highway officials developed a nationwide route numbering system and adopted the familiar U.S. shield-shaped, numbered marker. For instance, in the east, there is U.S. 1 that runs from New England to Florida and in the west, the corresponding highway, U.S. 101, from Tacoma, WA to San Diego, CA.
1925 Dec 12, Arthur Heinman opened the first motel, the "Motel Inn," in San Luis Obispo, Calif. -
1926
1926 Frederic J. Fisher (1878-1941) and his brother Charles (1880-1963), founders of the Fisher Body Co., sold their operations to GM. (WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)1926 Charles Stewart Mott (1875-1973) established a family foundation that focused on social enterprises around Flint, Mich. He had earlier sold the family’s wheel and axle business to General Motors and become its largest shareholder. (SFC, 6/16/08, p.B3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stewart_Mott)1926 -
1927
1927 Henry Ford obtained a Connecticut-sized land in the Brazilian jungle and began creating his Fordlandia factory town for the creation of a rubber plantation and processing facility to supply his factories with tires and gaskets. A strike in 1930 wrecked Fordlandia. It was rebuilt and struggled on for a decade until succumbing to leaf blight and insects. In 2009 Greg Grandin authored “Fordlandia: The rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle city.” -
1928
1928 May 29, Fritz von Opel reached 200 kph in an experimental rocket car. [see Sep 30, 1929] (SC, 5/29/02)1928 Nearly 2,000 people died on California highways. -
1929
1929 May 17, Edsel Ford cut the first sod of Ford's new British manufacturing plant in the Dagenham marshes. The first cars at Dagenham were produced in October, 1931. This was Ford’s first expansion outside the US.
1929 Dec 18, Helene Delangle (1900-1984), French racing pioneer, became the fastest woman driver in the world, averaging 120.5 mph at Montlhery, France. In 2004 Miranda Seymour authored “The Bugatti Queen: In search of a Motor-Racing Legend.”