Oh the joys of the open road!
Image by brizzle born and bred
Timeline of motoring history 1940 - 2008
1940
Car production in Britain is put on hold as most factories go over to munitions production.
The German Luftwaffe destroys the centre of Coventry.
Oldsmobile and Cadillac offer the first fully automatic transmission.
Enzo Ferrari leaves Alfa Romeo to establish Auto-Avio Costruzioni Ferrari.
In Japan, Toyo Kogyo produces its first passenger car.
1941
Lord Austin dies aged 74
Louis Chevrolet dies aged 63. He is buried at Indianapolis, scene of his greatest racing victories.
Packard are the first car manufacturer to offer air conditioning.
Chrysler introduces the Fluid Drive transmission, a manual transmission with a fluid coupling instead of a clutch.
1943
American passenger car production falls to just 139 vehicles as war production requirements take over.
1944
Volvo focus on occupant safety with the introduction of a safety cage.
Louis Renault is arrested and imprisoned for collaborating with the Germans. He dies at Fresnes prison in ‘suspicious circumstances’.
Enzo Ferrari’s Maranello workshops are bombed and destroyed.
1945
2nd World War in Europe ends with Germany’s unconditional surrender to the allies on May 7th.
In receivership since 1939, Triumph is acquired by Standard.
Petrol rationing in Britain continues.
Henry Ford resigns as president of The Ford Motor Company, handing over to his grandson, Henry Ford 11.
French President Charles de Gaulle nationalizes Renault and the company's name is changed to Regié Nationale des Usines Renault.
The newly elected Socialist government ‘encourages’ manufacturers to export half their output. To counteract the consequential development of an illicit black-market car buyers are required to sign a covenant preventing the sale of new cars for one year.
1946
Newly designed post-war models are launched by British car makers Triumph, Armstrong-Siddeley, Jowett and Bentley as the British Motor Industry celebrates its fiftieth birthday.
Petrol ration for British motorists is increased by 50 per cent.
Ford of Britain produce their millionth car, an 8hp Anglia.
Michelin patent the Radial-ply tyre.
In light of negative wartime connotations William Lyons changes the name of SS Cars Ltd. to Jaguar Cars Ltd and begins to focus on export markets.
Enzo Ferrari rebuilds his bombed workshops and begins work on the development and production of the Ferrari 125 Sport. The first Ferrari hits the road!
1947
Packard offers power seats and windows across their range.
Ettore Bugatti dies in Paris aged 66.
The American car industry celebrates its Golden Jubilee.
Henry Ford dies at the age of 84.
BMW engine and car designs are ‘acquired’ by Bristol and Frazer-Nash as ‘war reparations’.
David Brown, already successful in the British engineering industry, sees an advertisement in The Times offering ‘A high-class motor business, established 25 years’ and pays £20.000 to buy Aston Martin. He has already purchased Lagonda, having owned a Lagonda Rapide himself in the past.
A new name, Standard-Vanguard, is introduced to the British public
Instead of taxing cars based on the 1906 RAC horsepower formula a flat- rate system is introduced.
Enzo Ferrari’s 125 Sport wins its first race. The first of many Ferrari victories.
1948
The first motor show since the end of the war takes place at Earls Court.
Morris introduce the Minor family car, designed by Alec Issigonis.
Jaguar Cars Ltd. announces the XK120 sports car featuring low, streamlined body, an outstanding twin overhead cam 6 cylinder engine and a top speed of 120mph. Alongside it the elegant MK 5 saloon (sedan) replaces the pre-war model known by enthusiasts, though not the company, as the MK 4.
Citoen introduce the 2CV, reputedly designed to accommodate gentlemen still wearing their hats and to drive across a ploughed field without breaking a cargo of eggs!
The American motor industry builds its 100,000,000th car.
Ferdinand Porsche launches the Porsche marque by introducing the 356/2 as a no-frills sports car re-working of his war-time Volkswagen project.
Developed along the well proven lines of the Willys Jeep, Rover introduce the 4 wheel drive Land Rover.
Buick offer the Dynaflow fully automatic gearbox. This is essentially the automatic gearbox as we know it today,
1949
Michelin ‘X’ radial-ply tyres go on sale for the first time.
1950
British government ends petrol rationing but doubles fuel tax.
The new car covenant, introduced to prevent a black market in new cars is extended from one to two years ownership.
The UK’s former double purchase tax on luxury cars is halved.
Ford wins back its second place in the US sales league from Chrysler.
Automatic transmission becomes available on lower priced Chevrolet models.
Goodyear offers self-repairing tyres (tires).
60% of American families now own a car.
6,657,000 cars are sold in the USA.
Rover demonstrates the JET 1 the world's first gas turbine powered car.
Ford engineer Earle S MacPherson designs the MacPherson Strut, a combination of spring, shock absorber and stub-axle which simplifies design and production and reduces costs.
Ford UK introduces Consul and Zephyr models.
In the USA, automatic gearboxes become more readily available - Chevrolet offer the Powerglide, Ford the Fordomatic and Merc-O-Matic.
Nash feature seatbelts in the Rambler. The promoted benefits are that they ‘overcome the problems caused when sleeping passengers fall out of their seats’!
1951
Porsche enters a 356 SL in the Le Mans 24-Hours and wins the 1100cc class·
Ferdinand Porsche dies aged 75.
Lotus Engineering Co founded by aeronautical engineer and competitive sports car driver Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman.
100mph performance becomes available at realistic prices as Triumph announces the TR and the Healey introduces their 100/4 sports cars.
Chrysler offer power steering and the M-6 Torque-Converter Automatic. They also spark a horsepower race with the 180 horsepower, 331 cubic-inch Firepower Hemi V-8 engine.
Kaiser introduces new safety features, a pop-out windshield and a padded dashboard top.
Jaguar introduces the prototype C-Type race-car, aimed at winning Le Mans.
1952
In the USA, sales of cars with automatic transmissions exceed 2 million.
Crosley ceases production.
Rival manufacturers Nuffield organisation (Morris) and Austin comes to an end with their amalgamation into the British Motor Corporation (BMC) with Lord Nuffield in the driving seat.
Mercedes shows the spectacular 300SL 'gull wing' sports coupe.
Packard offer power brakes.
The newly developed disk braking system, now available from Dunlop, is fitted to Jaguar’s C Types, enabling them to achieve 1st, 2nd and 4th places at Le Mans.
1953
As wartime austerity begins to fade in the United Kingdom, the availability of higher octane fuels allows higher compression ratios and improvements in engine performance.
Singer announces the SMX Roadster, Britain’s first plastic-bodied production car. Only 12 are made before the project is abandoned.
Britain’s New Car Covenant Purchase Scheme, originally introduced to prevent new cars being sold-on at a premium, is abolished.
General Motors Launch the Corvette, a radical glass-fibre-bodied roadster concept car featuring a wrap-around windshield and powered by a venerable straight six engine. Production is limited.
Porsche introduces the 550 ‘Spyder’ race-car with a triangulated tubular steel chassis, aluminium bodywork and a VW-based 4 cylinder ‘boxer’ engins. 550 Spyders dominate the 1500cc class at Le Mans and then the same class in the Pan Americana, Mexican road race.
1954
The 50 millionth General Motors car rolls off the production line.
All Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac models feature wrap-around Panoramic windshields.
Ford introduces overhead valves on its V8 engines in Ford and Mercury models.
Nash merges with Hudson to form the American Motors Corporation.
Studebaker merges with Packard.
GM reveals the 370 horsepower turbine-powered Firebird I concept car.
The two seat Ford Thunderbird roadster is announced.
Lanchester offer the Sprite with automatic transmission, still a rarity in Europe.
Having re-established production of the ‘Beetle’ with much help from British Army personnel, Volkswagen start to focus on generating export sales.
Tubeless tyres (tires) are now offered on all new American cars.
Jaguar Cars replace the XK120 with the XK 140, featuring a 190 horsepower engine, mechanical refinements and chrome trim. The new Jaguar D Type race-car is introduced at Le Mans without success.
1955
The revolutionary Citroen DS19 is introduced with a futuristic aerodynamic body, self-levelling hydropneumatic suspension, power steering and braking and automatic jacks.
McDonald’s opens its first drive-thru hamburger bar.
Chrysler launches ‘Imperial’ as a separates brand.
Kaiser goes out of business.
American car sales hit a record 7,915,000. Jaguar launch the MK 1 Family sports saloon (sedan) to broaden their market appeal. They also win at Le Mans with a much improved D-type.
1956
Fuel supplies are seriously limited by the Suez crisis, resulting in rationing in Britain and other European countries and an upsurge of interest in economical micro-cars for personal transportation.
U.S. car stylists begin to adopt tail fins and rocket-shaped tail lamps as science fiction and space rockets enter the American consciousness.
The Ford Foundation offers over ten million Ford Motor Company shares for sale to the public.
BMC commissions Pininfarina to styles its new models.
Lanchester comes to the end of the road as Daimler discontinues production.
Ford of America offers seat belts to a disinterested public.
The "McKenna Duties" on luxury imports are finally abolished.
Jaguar D Type wins the Le Mans 24 Hours for a second successive year.
The Porsche 550A Spyder, a modified version of its predecessor, wins the Targa Florio road race on its debut, beating much more powerful competitors. It goes on to ‘wipe the floor’ at virtually every appearance.
1957
The Lotus Elite (Type 14) is announced, featuring a revolutionary glassfibre monocoque construction.
Ford Motor Company introduces the Continental Mark II, priced at almost ,000.
The three millionth Mercury comes off Ford’s production line.
Packard and Chrysler offer pushbutton automatic transmissions.
Packard offers power door locks.
Chrysler offers an in-car record player.
80% of all new cars sold in America have a V-8 engine.
The American Congress approves construction of the 41,000 mile Interstate highway system.
The Nash and Hudson marques are discontinued by parent company AMC.
A new Fiat 500 is introduced featuring a rear-mounted vertical twin-cylinder air cooled engine.
Chrysler produce their ten millionth Plymouth.
The new Ford Skyliner features a retractable hardtop, a ‘first’ for a production car.
Ford introduces the Ranchero pickup.
Chevrolet, Pontiac and Rambler adopt fuel injection.
66% of all cars purchased in the USA are bought on extended finance.
Jaguar introduce the XK 150 and a D Type wins the Le Mans 24 Hours for a third successive year.
1958
Work starts on the Ml ‘London to Birmingham’ Motorway, the UK’s first.
Roads around London are governed by a new 40mph speed limit.
To celebrate the fiftieth birthday of the Model T, Ford re-assembles a 1909 example.
Ford produce their fifty millionth car.
The revolutionary glassfibre Lotus Elite (Type 14) enters production. With all-round independent suspension and a 1,216 cc overhead cam Coventry Climax engine it has spectacular handling and is capable of 118mph! In spite of its success as a racecar Lotus will loose money on every one built.
With controversial styling and sophisticated features, the Ford Edsel is launched to a luke-warm reception.
Chrysler builds its twenty five millionth vehicle.
Packard production comes to an end.
The Austin-Healy 'Frogeye' Sprite is introduced.
The new chairman of BMC is Sir Leonard Lord.
A record one million cars are produced in Britain.
Toyotas and Datsuns are imported to the United States for the first time.
The Ford Thunderbird becomes a four-seater 'personal luxury’ car.
American car sales drop by 31% due to an economic recession.
C F Kettering, inventor of the electric starter and Ethyl-Leaded Gasoline dies aged 82.
Porsche introduce the "RSK" Spyder, or Type 718 which continues to win class and outright honours in the hands of such drivers as Dan Gurney, Wolfgang von Trips and Jo Bonnier.
A fascination with the impending space-age inspires Cadillac to begin giving its new models fins and rocket-shaped taillights.
1959
UK Government reduces Purchase Tax on new cars from 60 to 50 per cent.
Triumph introduce the Michelotti styled Herald, featuring all round independent suspension.
Lea Francis go out of business.
NSU announce that they will build Wankel rotary engined cars.
Dutch manufacturer DAF begins car production, using the Variomatic belt-drive automatic transmission.
The M1, Britain’s first motorway is opened by The Right Honourable Ernest Marples, minister of Transport.
British Motor Corporation introduces the Morris Mini-Minor and Austin Se7en variants, built on separate production lines at Cowley, Oxford and Longbridge, Birmingam to a revolutionary compact design by Alec Issigonis. Whichever brand of ‘Mini’, it features a rubber-cone suspension system and a gearbox built into the engine, beneath the crankshaft. Perhaps the Mini’s most significant contribution to the packaging efficiency of modern front-wheel-drive cars is its transversely mounted engine.
Jaguar launches the MK II family sports saloon (sedan) to great acclaim.
The Ford Anglia arrives. It is a small family car with conventional mechanical layout. Its unusual feature is a reverse-slope rear window, which ensures good headroom for rear-seat passengers.
Studebaker introduces the Lark, a compact car intended to compete with European imports.
An Aston-Martin DBR 1, driven by Caroll Shelby and Roy Salvadori wins the Le Mans 24 hours.
1960
Eighty percent of United Stated families own at least one car.
The UK Daimler Company becomes part of Jaguar Cars.
The Japanese car industry manufactures 200,000 cars.
The Ford Anglia l05E is introduced with a four speed gearbox and a raked back rear window.
OPEC (The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is formed to give the oil producing countries more power over crude oil prices.
The millionth Morris Minor leaves the production line, one of a series of 350 painted in a celebratory shade of lilac with white leather upholstery.
Jaguar Cars Limited buys Daimler and begins to offer ‘badge engineered’ Jaguars.
1961
The Cortina Mk I is introduced by Ford of Britain.
BMC introduce the Morris I IOO featuring a revolutionary ‘Hydrolastic’ suspension system.
The ‘MOT’ test is introduced by Ernest Marples, requiring that all cars over 10 years old are subjected to an annual test.
BMC chief, Sir Leonard Lord becomes Lord Lambury.
Commercial vehicle producers Leyland Motors acquire Standard Triumph and AEC.
Porsche introduce the W-RS Spyder race-car with its well-proven flat four power unit.
1962
Chevrolet introduce the Nova, a compact car with plain styling and 4 or 6 cylinder engines, designed to offer economical family motoring.
Ford UK introduces the Consul Cortina, an attractive medium-sized family saloon, powered by an 1198cc OHV engine. (The ‘Consul’ is dropped very quickly). Though launched as a two-door, a four-door body becomes available within a few months.
The W-RS Spyder, now powered by a 2.0-litre flat-eight engine, continues to build Porsche’s racing prowess by winning everything in sight.
1963
The Leyland Motor Corporation formed under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Spurrier.
Ford’s Cortina DeLuxe is now available with a 1498cc engine and also as high-performance Lotus model featuring a twin-cam engine and major suspension modifications.
Lord Nuffield dies aged 86.
The Hillman Imp is unveiled to compete with the BMC Mini. It features a light-alloy 4 cylinder, 875cc slant-4 engine, originally developed by Coventry Climax to power fire pumps. Manufactured at Linwood, a new Scottish production plant, this is the first car since the 1931 Arrol Johnston, to be made in Scotland.
NSU announce the Spyder their first car to use a Wankel engine.
Rover introduces the 2000 P6 saloon which wins them the European Car of the Year Award.
In Italy Feruccio Lamborghini Automobili founded in Sant'Agata near Bologna. The debut of the prototype 350 GTV takes place at the Turin Motor Show.
Porsche’s W-RS Spyder continues its winning ways at Le Mans and the Nurburgring.
1964
Triumph launches the 2000 family saloon.
The Ford Mustang is ‘released’ to great acclaim and achieves sales of more than 500,000 in its firs 18 months.
Following many years of crippling strikes at its British Light Steel Pressings Ltd factory, the Rootes Group sells a controlling interest to Chrysler.
Despite continuing disinterest, front seat belts supplied as standard in all American cars.
Having resigned his position after just 4 months in charge of The Leyland Motor Corporation Sir Henry Spurrier dies.
Porsche’s W-RS Spyder wins further season championships in the hands of Edgar Barth, before final retirement.
1965
BMC’s intended merger with the Pressed Steel Company is subjected to a report by the Monopolies Commission.
The British government introduces a 70 mph maximum speed "as a four month experiment" which is still with us today.
An automatic transmission, specially designed by AP is available to Mini buyers.
Rolls Royce's launch Silver Shadow its first unit constructed car.
Ralph Nader publishes his book 'Unsafe at Any Speed' exposing safety standards severely compromised by USA manufacturers’ cost constraints. The rear-engined Chevrolet Corvair receives Nader’s particular attention.
1966
Jensen FF sports coupe is launched, featuring Fergusson’s four wheel drive system, Italian styling, a powerful V8 engine and anti-lock brakes.
British Motor Holdings is created by merging The Jaguar Group (Jaguar, Daimler, Guy, Coventry Climax, Henry Meadows) with BMC.
Ford UK update the Cortina with smoother, but boxier styling.
Largely as a result of Ralph Nader’s expose of the American Motor industry the U.S. Congress passes a rigorous auto safety act. Rear seat belts now supplied as standard equipment in all cars sold in the USA.
Peugeot and Renault agree to establish a partnership organisation, La Francaise de Mecanique, to manufacture common mechanical parts.
Sir William Lyons retires as the Managing Director, becoming Chairman and Chief Executive as Jaguar Cars Limited and the British Motor Corporation Limited announce the merger of the two companies.
1967
Panhard, France’s oldest car maker is disolved by its owners Citroen.
NSU produce the first series production passenger car to be powered by a Wankel engine, the Ro80.
Rover and Alvis are absorbed into the Leyland Motor Corporation.
Ford UK introduce the crossflow engine to their product range in 1300cc and 1600cc capacities.
Ford UK and Ford of Europe start to co ordinate development and production programmes to increase commonality of design and component use.
1968
Ford introduces the Escort range, including a high performance ‘twin-cam’ engined version.
The largest car company in British history is formed as British Motor Holdings merges with Leyland Motors to create British Leyland Motor Corporation.
Rover offers the Buick-based V8 in the P6 body-shell to create the 3005, later re-named the 3500.
As bitter strikes cripple industry Renault lose production of I000,000 vehicles.
Volkswagen introduces the 411 or ‘Variant’. Based on an extended ‘Beetle’ floor-pan it features a contemporary body-style and 2 or 4 doors. An estate (station wagon) version is also available.
Citroen buys Maserati, primarily, to take advantage of its engine know-how. Their forthcoming SM coupé will be powered by a Maserati V6 engine.
David Brown is knighted.
1969
Volkswagcn take over Audi.
Jaguar launches the XJ6.
The new British Leyland organisation introduces the Austin Maxi. Sir Alex Issigonis’s last project, in spite of its outstanding practicality, its boxy styling, sparse interior, lack of power and ‘notchy’ five-speed gearbox attracts criticism.
Renault and Peugeot start production of common components as a result of their 1966 agreement, at Douvrin, near Lens in Northern France.
Enzo Ferrari sells 50% of Ferrari's share capital to Fiat.
1970
Land Rover launches an entirely new concept. The Range Rover is a luxury off-road car and, as an immediate sales success it points the way for rivals, laying the foundation for a whole new market sector.
Citroen launches two new aerodynamic models, the GS family car and the Masserati-powered SM sports saloon.
Italian styling house Ghia of Turin is acquired from Alessandro de Tomaso by Ford.
Mercedes build the C III experimental car to act as a test-bed for future road-car developments. Featuring dramatic aerodynamic styling and powered by a triple rotor Wankel engine developing 280bhp, it achieved a top speed of 160mph.
Japan’s monthly production output of 200,000 cars, makes it the world's second biggest motor manufacturer.
Volkswagen reveals the K70, their first water cooled model.
Kjell Qvale, Norwegan born head of the ‘British Motor Car Distributors’ in San Francisco, takes over Jensen Motors.
The Chrysler 160/l80 range is launched at the Paris Salon.
The General Motors’ ‘family’ come together from all parts of the globe, under the leadership of Opel, Germany, to begin a project which will result in a ‘World Car’ to rival the success of the VW beetle. For Opel it will result in the Kadette C, small family car. Internationally it becomes known as GM’s ‘T Car’.
1971
Jensen ceases production of the four-wheel-drive ‘FF’ sports-car, but continues with the two-wheel drive ‘Interceptor’ version.
Morris Minor production finally comes to an end.
Peugeot and Renault join forces with Volvo to form a new joint-venture organisation. PRV will design and produce V-engines at their Douvrin production plant.
Mercedes preview the C111-2 at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Once again a test-bed vehicle it features a four-rotor Wankel engine rated at 350 bhp which took the car to 180mph.
Aston Martin’s financial performance causes difficulties, prompting the David Brown Group to sell to financiers. The DBS stays in production.
Jaguar reveals their VI2 production engine, making it available in an enlarged E-type as well as XJ6 and Daimler sedans. This makes them one of only a handful of manufacturers who have ever offered this configuration on a production basis.
Maserati introduce the Bora.
1972
A record l,900,000 cars produced by British motor industry in this year.
The success of Japanese cars becomes evident when Datsun becomes the second biggest importer of cars into Britain.
Maserati introduces the Merak.
Lotus Esprit mid-engined concept car shown on Giorgio Giugiario’s Ital Design stand at the Turin Motor Show.
Sir William Lyons retires as chairman of Jaguar, exactly 50 years after forming the company. Labour relations and production quality problems beset the whole British Leyland organisation, of which Daimler-Jaguar is a significant part.
1973
The Arab-Israeli War causes fuel supply problems and steep rises in pump prices for motorists throughout the world and the realisation that oil is a finite resource. The OPEC organisation becomes more powerful. In Britain motorists queue for petrol and speeds are restricted to 50mph to conserve national stocks and consumption.
Ford opens Bordeaux plant to manufacture automatic transmissions.
Volksvagen ‘Beetle’ production beats the Model T's record.
Chevrolet offers airbags in some models as a reaction to a rise in fatal car accidents in the USA.
Alfa Romeo introduce the Alfasud, a small family car featuring front wheel drive, a flat-four ‘boxer’ engine, nimble handling and a bonded-in windscreen. The car is made in a new purpose built plant near Naples in Southern Italy - ‘sud’ being Italian for South.
The Bertone-styled Maserati Khamsin is launched into a tough sales environment.
The first fruits of the GM ‘T Car’ project appear in Brasil, with the launch of the Chevrolet Chevette and in Germany with the Opel Kadett C. Although superficially different all T Cars share the same mechanical configuration and many significant components.
1974
E. L. Cord dies
Gabriel Voisin, aeronautical pioneer, industrialist and car manufacturer dies.
The last of 11,916,519 VW ‘Beetles’ to be built at Wolfsburg, leaves the production line.
The VW Golf, a completely new water-cooled, front wheel drive model becomes and instant sales success and Karmann start production of the Scirocco sports coupe version. Both cars styled by Georgetto Guigaro.
Peugeot takes over Citroen to form PSA.
Plans for the Chevrolet Vega to be powered by the repeatedly delayed outcome of General Motors’ Wankel rotary engine project are abandoned and production continues with an alloy block/iron head 4 cylinder unit.
As a result of the previous year’s the fuel crisis, American sales of large-engined cars have slumped and manufacturers start to look at ways of improving fuel econonmy.
Ford begins research into the Stirling 'hot air' engine but having made considerable progress, as fuel prices drop back the urge to take the project all the way to production diminishes.
In spite of one million 127s leaving their production lines Fiat find themselves in deep financial difficulties.
The last E Type Jaguar leaves the Coventry factory.
The Douvrin-built PRV V6 engine appears for the first time in the Volvo 264 and soon after in the Peugeot 504 Coupé and Cabriolet models.
In an attempt to cut fatalities in the United States the maximum speed limit is reduced to 55 mph.
1975
Production of the Ford Escort MK1comes to an end.
Ford introduce the Escort MK2 with a squarer body style.
In America VW launch the Golf as the Rabbit.
Rolls Royce unveil the Camargue with Italian styling by Pininfarina, hand- built on the Silver Shadow floor pan at their Mulliner Park Ward coach-building division. Priced at £29,250, it is the first car in the world to feature completely automatic split-level air conditioning and the first Rolls Royce to be designed in metric dimensions.
Porsche announce the 911 Carrera Turbo.
Chrysler UK, in financial difficulties is propped up by the British Government. The introduction of the French built Alpine brings in vital sales.
Volvo takes a majority shareholding in Holland’s DAF car and truck manufacturer.
The Douvrin-built PRV V6 is introduced in the Peugeot 604 and Renault 30 TS models.
Citroen replaces the DS21 with the CX which is voted European Car of the Year.
British Leyland, struggling against a tide of strikes and a poor reputation gets an injection of £200,000,000 from the UK Government.
Jaguar launch the XJS to replace the E type. Due to stringent American crash regulations earlier plans to include a roadster in the range have been dropped.
Lotus Cars start production of the new mid-engined Esprit and confirm their move up-market with front-engined Eclat.
All American cars now come with catalytic converters in the exhaust system in an effort to cut air polluting emissions.
Citroën pulls out of Maserati, leaving Alejandro De Tomaso and GEPI to come to the rescue a few months later.
VW introduce the Polo, the third of their ‘new generation’ cars.
The UK gets its own version of the GM T-Car, the Vauxhall Chevette. A unique aerodynamic ‘droop-snoot’ front-end, designed by Vauxhall Chief-Stylist, Wayne Cherry complements the neat hatch-back body tub.
Australia launches its version of the ‘T Car’, the Holden Gemini, in 4-door saloon (sedan) and stylish coupé versions.
1976
The Chrysler Alpine voted European Car of the Year.
The Renault Alpine A310 sports-car is launched with a rear mounted PRV ‘Douvrin’ V6 engine.
Ford's first front drive car, the Fiesta, announced.
The Golf GTi debuts at the Frankfurt International Motor Show establishing a new market sector later known as the ‘Hot Hatch’.
Rover launch the 3500 ‘SD1’ a roomy saloon with Ferrari Daytona inspired styling and the ex-Buick alloy V8 engine.
VW introduce a small diesel engine to the golf range.
Mercedes reveal the C111-3. Where its two predecessors had been powered by Wankel rotary engines, this one has a 5 cylinder turbo-charged/inter-cooled Diesel engine producing 180 bhp. At Nardo test track on June 12th, at an average speed of around 150mph, the C111-3 either establishes or brake a total of 16 world speed and endurance records, some of which pertained regardless of its engine type.the
Vauxhall’s ‘T Car’ Chevette appears in the UK as a 2 or 4 door saloon (sedan).
1977
Michael Edwardes takes over the helm of the British Leyland conglomerate, together with its labour relations, production quality and public perception .
Volkswagen cease production of the ‘Beetle’ in Germany forty years after production began.
Rover’s 3500 ‘SD1’ wins the European Car of the Year award.
Merger plans between Swedish manufacturers Saab and Volvo are abandoned.
Production of the Wankel rotary engined NSU Ro80 comes to an end.
Porsche introduce 924 and 928 models, both featuring front-mounted water-cooled engines and rear transaxles. The 924 is an aborted VW project and thus contains a high percentage of WV parts-bin components, including the engine from the Transporter van. The V8 powered 928 is eventually intended to take over from the 911 and wins the European Car of The Year Award.
1978
The Volvo DAF conglomerate slips into financial difficulties. The Dutch Government comes to the rescue with financial aid.
British Leyland shows substantial signs of recovery in the hands of Michael Edwardes but the company’s future is far from secure.
Toyo Kogyo launch the Mazda RX7, a two-seat sports coupe powered by a Wankel rotary engine.
Ford introduces the Fiesta, their first front-wheel-drive small family car. It is to be made at plants in England, Spain and Germany.
1979
Rolls Royce Motor Company is sold to Vickers for £38m as part of the Rolls-Royce engineering group.
Rover begins collaboration with Honda.
Maserati Bora production comes to an end.
Simca- Matra complete the first model of new and practical concept in personal transportation. Based on a single-box van-like shape but with a car-like interior and comfortable flexible seating for up to seven people, the P17 concept is rejected by Talbot-Simca, prompting Matra to approach Renault and to develop the concept further in prototype P18. The MPV is on its way!
1980
Rear wheel drive Escort Mk2 production comes to an end to make way for the new front-wheel-drive Escort Mk3.
Bitter strikes at British Leyland provoke chairman Sir Michael Edwardes to threaten "Return to work or lose your jobs."
Daimler-Jaguar division of British Leyland gets John Egan as its new Chairman. Egan sets about rebuilding pride in the quality of design and production, lost since British Leyland’s formation.
1981
General Motors announces the launch of the Saturn project in the USA, with the intention of creating a new brand and new products from scratch.
John Z DeLorean, former General Motors high-flyer, launches the DMC-12, his stainless steel gull-wing dream car into a world of recession and high interest rates. Designed by Georgetto Guigaro, engineered by Lotus Cars and powered by the Douvrin PRV V6 engine it appears over-priced against stiff opposition and quality issues compound the problem.
Maserati launch the Biturbo range of coupes, spyders and saloons powered by twin-turbocharged all-alloy V6 engines.
1982
Honda starts production at its first US factory.
Having built 8,563 DMC-12s, the DeLorean Motor Company’s factory in Northern Ireland goes into receivership and after a few months, the British government, DeLorean’s biggest creditor by far, issues orders to shut it down.
Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman dies suddenly aged 54, having grown Lotus into an extraordinarily successful Grand Prix team, a substantial low-volume sports car production specialist and an extremely reputable auto-engineering consultancy.
1983
Lexus is announced as the name of Toyota’s new luxury brand in the USA and Europe, intended to allow them to overcome brand prejudice and compete head to head with the prestige European and American manufacturers.
Maserati end production of the Merak
1984
Japanese manufacturer Toyo Kogyo changes its name to Mazda Motor Corporation.
Renault release the new Espace, the first MPV, designed, developed and built for them by Matra at their assembly plant in Romorontin, near Paris.
1985
Chrysler buys AMC and takes over production of the Jeep range.
Founder of Jaguar, Sir William Lyons, dies as the company sees its reputation for quality and value return.
1986
Volkswagen takes a 51% share in Spanish car makers SEAT.
1987
The Ford Motor Company acquires a 75% shareholding in Aston Martin Lagonda.
1988
The new Lincoln Continental is Ford’s first car with a six-cylinder engine and front-wheel drive.
Fiat acquires additional shares in Ferrari, taking its total shareholding to 90%.
Enzo Ferrari dies in Modena, aged 90.
British Aerospace buys Rover Group.
1989
General Motors takes a 50% stake in Saab of Sweden.
General Motors introduces the Geo brand to market Suzuki, Isuzu, and Toyota models in the USA.
Lexus introduces its first model, the LS400.
Honda announces plans to establish European car production by expanding its existing manufacturing facilities at Swindon UK
Honda starts Civic production at its East Liberty, Ohio plant.
Ford takes over Jaguar Cars, promising to build on the unique identity and brand values of the Jaguar name.
1990
Vickers Rolls Royce and BMW announce a joint venture company to build aero-engines - BMW Rolls-Royce GmbH.
Following Czech government approval, VW establishes a new partnership with Skoda.
1992
The Dodge Viper is released with a steel chassis, a glass-fibre body and a 400 horsepower light-alloy V10 engine.
1993
Maserati is bought outright by Fiat.
With development input from parent company Ford, Jaguar announces a vastly improved XJ6.
Sir David Brown, former owner of Aston-Martin Lagonda, dies aged 89.
Aston Martin introduce the DB7, with sleek, modern bodywork, strong six cylinder engines and Jaguar XJS underpinnings. Produced at a dedicated factory in Bloxham, near Banbury in Oxfordshire, it soon begins to achieve sales levels previously unheard of for any Aston Martin.
1994
BMW buys Rover Cars from British Aerospace.
McLaren Cars, previously successful as Formula 1 racing car constructors, introduce the F1 sports supercar. Designed by Gordon Murray and Peter Stevens it features a BMW V12 engine, a top speed well in excess of 200 mph and a price in excess of £500,000.00.
The Ford Motor Company acquires the outstanding 25% interest Aston Martin Lagonda to gain complete control.
1996
The Museum of Modern Art in New York places an early E-Type roadster on permanent display, only the third car to given this honour.
Jaguar introduces the V8 Powered XK8 as a replacement for the venerable XJS.
1997
Vickers put Rolls-Royce Motor Cars up for sale to the highest bidder.
1998
Ferrari takes control of Maserati, and closes the factory for a complete refit and modernisation.
VW announce the New Beetle. A modern stylised interpretation of the original, it shares its floor-pan and many mechanical components with the front-wheel drive Golf.
Rolls Royce is sold after an acrimonious bidding war between Volkswagen and BMW. The final outcome is that, while VW wins the production plant at Crewe and the Bentley brand name, BMW buys the rights to use the Rolls Royce name and announces its plan to develop a new generation of cars which will be built at its own British factory from 2003.
Chrysler and Daimler Benz merge to form Daimler-Chrysler. Initial indications are that the two businesses will remain autonomous.
1999
Volvo sells its car-making division to Ford Motor Company but continues to manufacture trucks.
Aston Martin becomes part of Ford’s Premier Automotive Group joining Jaguar, Lincoln and Volvo, enabling it to call on a pool of expertise, financial and technical resources which would otherwise have been way beyond its reach.
2000
Having invested considerably in the Rover Group and struggled unsuccessfully to make it pay, BMW withdraws and ‘sells’ Rover and MG to The Phoenix Group for a token £1.00. BMW retains the rights to brands Mini, Triumph, Riley and Land Rover, the last of which it then sells to Ford.
2001
Under the ownership of BMW Rolls-Royce move production from Derby to a new, purpose built factory next to the old Grand Prix circuit at Goodwood, West Sussex.
BMW release the ‘NEW MINI’, a modern interpretation of the original Mini built at the former Morris Abingdon plant. Powered by a South-American built, Chrysler-sourced engine, it retains the original’s cheeky appeal and dynamic handling.
In the UK, a new Licence-plate numbering system is introduced.
Jaguar Cars introduce the X Type, based on an extended version of Ford’s European Mondeo floorpan with transverse engine and 4 wheel-drive.
2002
Rolls Royce complete their new factory and commence production of the new Phantom, due for delivery to customers on the 1st January 2003.
Named after the company's founder Enzo, Ferrari introduce the Enzo supercar. Made of carbonfibre and incorporating much else in the way of Formula 1 technology, its all-alloy, 660 bhp, V12 engine endows the Enzo with a top speed of 217.5 mph.
2003
First customers for Rolls Royce’s New Phantom take delivery on 1st January as promised and world-wide deliveries commence.
Production of the ‘Beetle’ finally comes to an end at VW’s Puebla, plant in Mexico.
Matra’s production-line closes at Romorontin, following commercial failure of Renault’s Avantime and their decision to take Espace production in-house. Matra and its facilities are sold to Italian styling house and niche production specialists Pininfarina SpA, who rename the company Matra Automobile Engineering.
Peter Morgan, son of Morgan founder ‘HFS’ dies aged 84, leaving the business in the safe hands of his son Charles.
Now owned by Volkwagen, Bentley introduces their first all-new design. Based on VW’s large-car platform, the new Continental GT features a contemporary body (styled in-house), 4 wheel drive and an extensively re-engineered version of VW’s 6 litre W12 engine, twin-turbocharged to produce 552bhp.
2004
Car production in the UK reaches its highest level in five years. Britain's biennial motor show has its last event at the National Exhibition Centre before its move back to London.
More than 40 years after it was launched, the e-type Jaguar has a special exhibition devoted to it at London's Design Museum.
Production begins on the Aston Martin Volante.
24 year old Russian multimillionaire Nikolas Smolensky purchased Blackpool based TVR for £15 million.
2005
MG Rover -the last "traditional" British mid-sized car manufacturer goes into administration with the key assets finally being purchased by China based Nanjing Automobie Group. Thousands of jobs are lost although there is hope that small scale car manufacturing could return to the same Longbridge plant sometime in the future.
Elsewhere in the Midlands, production begins on the new Aston Martin Vantage.
2006
Honda and the MINI brand continue to help the UK economy as both enjoy increased investment resulting in new jobs. Honda plans to add a further 700 people to its UK workforce, while the world-wide success of the MINI will result in a further 1200 jobs in manufacturing and assorted component industries.
Nissan announce that its new Qashqai car will be built at the company's Sunderland plant, with the cars being exported across the globe, including Japan. The Qashqai is described as a crossover -effectively a passenger car with a sleek dynamic top half combined with SUV attributes of large pronounced wheel arches and slightly elevated ground clearance. In terms of its size its sits between C-segment hatchbacks and SUVs.
Lotus announces it is to produce a new mid-engined sports car which should be available in about two years time.
The 1½ millionth Honda Civic rolls of the production line at Bridgend.
TVR, the innovative Blackpool based specialist sports car company finally closes its doors after a long battle to remain in production. Owners, enthusiasts and employees meet up for a final celebration in Blackpool.
The British Motor Show returns to London after several decades in the West Midlands. The new venue is the Excel Centre on the banks of the River Thames and nearly 500,000 people attend.
The 30,000th Aston Martin is produced, while the Jaguar XK coupe wins Britain's car of the year award and luxury car of the year awards.
2007
The Bentley marque enjoys continued success under the parentage of Volkswagen and its newest model is the company's fastest ever production car -the Bentley Continental GT Speed. It has a top speed of over 200 mph and can get from 0-60 mph in just 4.3 seconds. It is offered for sale in Britain at £137,500.
Manufacturers around the world put more effort and resources into designing and building more environmentally friendly vehicles as the price of oil increases and there is greater awareness of the damage that harmful pollutants are causing from traditional petrol based engined cars.
Britain's young motor racing star Lewis Hamilton very nearly becomes the new world F1 motor racing champion in his first season -eventually being beaten in the final race. His success though reignites interest in motor sport around the world.
2008
Ford accepts an offer by the rapidly expanding Tata Motors of India for the purchase of Land Rover and Jaguar. The Indian company say their aim is to ensure the cars will remain essentially British.
As the Model T celebrates its 100th anniversary, Ford also announces plans for a year long celebration of the iconic car around the world. One initiative is for a surviving car to be displayed in the "glass tank' outside the Design Museum in London.
The new Roewe 550 is unveiled at the Shanghai Motor Show in China with the hope that the car may eventually be produced at the old MG Rover plant at Longbridge.
In the US, General Motors announces annual losses for 2007 of billion -the largest ever loss by a US car manufacturer and a further sign that many of the older established car makers are struggling to compete with the surge of production from Asia.
See - History of Motor Car / Automobile Inventions and Improvements
www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/5108328806/
Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland
Image by lisby1
Spencer [née Sidney], Dorothy, countess of Sunderland [known as Sacharissa] (1617–1684), subject of poetry, was born early in October 1617 at Syon House, the London seat of her grandfather Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland (1564–1632), and baptized in the nearby village of Isleworth on 5 October 1617. She was the eldest of thirteen children of Robert Sidney, second earl of Leicester (1595–1677), and Dorothy Percy (1598–1659). Her brothers included Philip Sidney, third earl of Leicester (1619–1698), the republican Algernon Sidney (1623–1683), and, her favourite brother, Henry Sidney, earl of Romney (1641–1704).
Dorothy Sidney spent her youth in the beautiful and peaceful surroundings of Penshurst, the family estate in Kent, eloquently praised in Jonson's ‘To Penshurst’ as representing a harmonious ideal of natural abundance and social order. During her early years, until her paternal grandfather's death in 1626, Dorothy and her mother resided at Penshurst while her father spent much of his time on military service in the Netherlands. When her father succeeded to the earldom he inherited the estate, and his wife, now countess of Leicester, continued to reside there, occasionally complaining about the ‘solitariness’ of ‘this lonely life’ in the country (Cartwright, 42).
Several letters from the countess to her husband, absent on ambassadorial duties in France between 1636 and 1639, discuss the relative merits of possible suitors for Dorothy's hand. Although in October 1636 she anxiously writes, ‘it greeves me ofne to see that our poore Doll is sought by none, and that shee will shortly be called a staile maide’, she was soon actively engaged in negotiations with the families of two young noblemen, Lord Lovelace and Lord Devonshire, after conceding that a third, Lord Russell, about whom she had had ‘some hopes’, was ‘disposed on’ elsewhere (De L'Isle and Dudley MSS, 60–61, 68, 92). Lord Lovelace, who had the advantage of an estate of £6000 a year and a mother ‘who is rich, and loves him very much’ but the disadvantages of a ‘breeding’ which ‘hath not been precisely of the best’, with a tendency to keep ‘extreame ill company’ and to ‘drink to distemper himself’, was put forward by Lady Leicester's brother Henry Percy. The proposed match foundered on Dorothy's dislike—‘she abhorred the man’—and his own ‘wildness’ and ‘idle’ nature, which made the countess ‘studie how to break off with him’ without giving offence (Cartwright, 58, 60–61). Lord Devonshire, the brother of Dorothy's close friend, Lady Anne Cavendish, the ‘Amoret’ of Waller's poems, was a more plausible candidate. But here Lord Devonshire's mother had other plans for her son: she and her emissaries, the countess complained, were ‘so full of desaite as it is inpossible to know what thaie meane by that they saie’, while her son, though ‘a verie honest man … has no will of his owne’ and ‘dairs not eat or drinke but as she apoints’ (De L'Isle and Dudley MSS, 101, 106). The earl of Holland, who professed to be acting in their interest, was secretly intriguing ‘in makeing a Mariage for an other’, a wealthy French heiress, and the countess concluded that ‘he is so weak, and so unfaithfull, as his Friendship is not worth the least Rushe’ (Collins, 2.472).
The name of Edmund Waller does not appear in the countess of Leicester's list of eligible suitors. Aubrey claims that ‘he was passionately in love with Dorothea, the eldest daughter of the Earle of Leicester, who he haz eternized in his Poems’ and also that ‘the Earle loved him, and would have been contented that he should have had one of the youngest daughters’ (Brief Lives, 308), but there is no supporting evidence that he was considered seriously by the family as a possible husband for Dorothy or her sister Lucy. Waller's poems to and about ‘Sacharissa’ are characterized by courtly praise, in poems to be circulated among a coterie audience, rather than by burning, unrequited passion. Waller's poetic courtship of Sacharissa began in 1635, before the earl of Leicester's departure for France, when he wrote:
That beam of beauty, which began
To warm us so, when thou wert here.
(Poems of Edmund Waller, 1.xxiv, 48, 57)
These praises continued until 1638, during which time Waller was a regular visitor at Penshurst. As Johnson remarks, the sugary name Dorothy was given is somewhat inappropriate for one described consistently as haughty and remote, the ‘cruel fair’ of the Petrarchan tradition, ‘inviting fruit on too sublime a tree’, unmoved by her servants' protestations of love (Johnson, 1.253; Poems of Edmund Waller, 1.43, 52) . On 20 July 1639 Dorothy Sidney was married to Henry, Lord Spencer (bap. 1620, d. 1643) at Penshurst. Waller wrote a graceful letter of congratulation to Lucy Sidney:
May she that always affected silence and retiredness, have the house filled with the noise and number of her children, and hereafter of her grandchildren, and then may she arrive at that great curse so much declined by fair ladies, old age; may she live to be very old, and yet seem young. (Poems of Edmund Waller, 1.xxix)
In autumn 1639 Lord and Lady Spencer, with the countess of Leicester, joined the earl of Leicester in Paris, where two children were born in the next two years. Their daughter, Dorothy, born in 1640, married Sir George Savile, later the marquess of Halifax, in 1656. Their son Robert Spencer, later second earl of Sunderland (1641–1702), like his brother-in-law became an important statesman during the Restoration period. After the return of Lord and Lady Spencer to England in 1641, at which time they took up residence in Althorp, Northamptonshire, two more children were born: Penelope in 1642 and Harry in 1643. In June 1643 Lord Spencer was created earl of Sunderland, possibly as a consequence of a loan of £5000 to Charles I.
At the outbreak of the civil war the Sidney family was bitterly divided. Dorothy's brothers Philip (Lord Lisle) and Algernon took up arms for the parliament, and the earl of Leicester, ‘suspected and distrusted of either side’, wrote gloomily from the king's camp, ‘we know not what we do, nor what we would have, unless it be our own destruction’ (Cartwright, 83–4). Sunderland served in the king's army as a volunteer, and, in spite of ‘having no command in the army, attended upon the King's person under the obligation of honour’ (Clarendon, 3.177). In a series of letters written to his wife in 1642 and 1643 he expresses a longing for peace and a deep suspicion of the queen's party and the king's advisers, but a loyalty to the royalist cause despite these reservations: ‘If there could be an expedient found, to save the punctilio of honour, I would not continue here an hour. The discontent that I, and many other honest men, receive daily, is beyond expression’ (Cartwright, 88–9). In September 1643 he was killed, at twenty-three, at the battle of Newbury, ‘having often charged the enemy before that fatall shott befell him’, and the news of his death caused the pregnant Lady Sunderland to fall ‘into a great passion of griefe’; ‘Doll thinkes of nothing but her great los[s]e’, her mother writes (De L'Isle and Dudley MSS, 434–5). Sunderland left legacies of £10,000 and £7000 to two of his children, and Lady Sunderland and her father were awarded joint wardship over her son Robert.
For the next seven years the widowed Lady Sunderland and her children lived with her parents at Penshurst, where in March 1649 her youngest child, Harry Spencer, died at the age of five. After the execution of Charles I, two of the royal children, the duke of Gloucester and Princess Elizabeth, were placed under the care of the earl and countess of Leicester, and after Elizabeth's death in 1650 a diamond necklace and other keepsakes were bequeathed to Lady Sunderland and her mother as a token of the care the princess had received at Penshurst. In 1650 Lady Sunderland and her children left Penshurst, to live at Althorp, where she remained for most of the next twelve years managing her son's estate until he came of age in 1662. One contemporary account says that in the 1650s she provided sanctuary as well as maintenance at Althorp for ejected Anglican clergymen (Cartwright, 126). In 1652 she surprised a number of observers by marrying for a second time; her second husband was Robert Smythe (1613–1664×7) of Boundes, near Penshurst; he was later knighted. The earl of Leicester declined to attend the wedding, though other members of the family were present. Dorothy Osborne, teasing Sir William Temple about his long-standing admiration for Lady Sunderland, whose portrait he owned, remarked caustically:
My Lady Sunderland is not to bee followed in her marrying fashion … Whoe would ere have dreamt hee should have had my Lady Sunderland, though hee bee a very fine Gentleman … I shall never forgive her one thing she sayed of him, which was that she marryed him out of Pitty … To speak truth 'twas convenient for neither of them … She has lost by it much of the repute she has gained, by keeping herself a widdow. It was then believed that Witt and discretion were to be Reconciled in her personne that have soe seldome bin perswaded to meet in any Body else: but wee are all Mortall. (Osborne, 52–4)
The second marriage appears to have been happy, producing one child, Robert Smythe (1653–1695), who eventually inherited his father's estates at Boundes and Sutton-at-Hone.
During her second marriage Lady Sunderland lived partly at Althorp and partly at Boundes, and after 1663 spent much of her time at Rufford, the seat of her son-in-law, the marquess of Halifax. She was widowed a second time in the mid-1660s. After the death of her daughter, Lady Halifax, in 1670, she assumed responsibility for the care of her daughter's four children until Halifax's second marriage two years later. She was always on close terms with Halifax, and twelve of her letters to him, all written in 1680, survive. She also remained friendly with ‘old Waller’. When she asked him in 1680 when he would write some more ‘beautiful verses’ to her, he replied, with unsentimental realism, ‘When, Madam, your Ladyship is as young and as handsome again’ (Poems of Edmund Waller, 1.lxvii). There are several reports of serious illnesses and injuries: an injured hand in 1666 and a dangerous attack of ague in 1679, about which Halifax reports she ‘hath been very ill, and is not yet out of danger’ (Savile Correspondence, 77).
Lady Sunderland's letters of 1679–81 to Halifax and her brother Henry Sidney provide a detailed commentary on the politics of the Exclusion Bill crisis. Her own views were much closer to Halifax's than to those of her son the earl of Sunderland. In November 1680 she expressed disquiet that her son was in league with Shaftesbury and the whigs against Halifax (‘that is the thorn in my side’) . She despised Shaftesbury (‘this great value he puts on himself is more than anybody else does’) , had a low opinion of the duke of Monmouth, and disapproved of her brother Algernon's republican politics, though she remained on friendly terms with him. In writing to Halifax in July 1680 she expressed her hope that ‘the moderate, honest people’ would prevail, as against those ‘who have designs that can never be compassed, but by the whole nation being in a flame’ (Cartwright, 255, 281–2, 296).
Lady Sunderland died in February 1684, three months after the execution of her brother Algernon, and was buried on 25 February 1684 in the chapel of the Spencers at Brington church, Northamptonshire. She left no will, but letters of administration were granted in March 1684 to a creditor, John Benn, rather than to her two surviving children, the earl of Sunderland and Robert Smythe. There are many portraits of Lady Sunderland, including four from 1639–40 by Van Dyck (at Petworth, Althorp, Chatsworth, and Penshurst), two later paintings by Lely and Riley, a miniature by Cooper, and engravings, after Van Dyck, by Lombart, Vertue, and others.
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles ... Sci-Fi Scribes on Ray Bradbury: 'Storyteller, Showman and Alchemist' (Jun 6th 2012, 22:59) ...item 2.. Ray Bradbury dies at 91 (June 06, 2012) ...
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With books like Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury made a lasting mark on pop culture by taking readers to strange new worlds. And talk about changing the future: His fantastic, mind-expanding tales also shaped the storytelling of a generation of scribes who came after him.
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.....item 1)... Anymes Anymes ... anymesanymes.koolcentre.in ... Underwire ... Taking the Pulse of Pop Culture
Sci-Fi Scribes on Ray Bradbury: 'Storyteller, Showman and Alchemist'
Jun 6th 2012, 22:59
anymesanymes.koolcentre.in/2012/06/underwire-sci-fi-scrib...
Ray Bradbury in a previously unpublished photo from 1966. Photo: Ralph Nelson
With books like Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury made a lasting mark on pop culture by taking readers to strange new worlds. And talk about changing the future: His fantastic, mind-expanding tales also shaped the storytelling of a generation of scribes who came after him.
All of us who were fans of Bradbury mourn his loss, but perhaps none so much as his colleagues in the field of science fiction and fantasy, many of whom saw him and his work as a guiding light, and took a life-long dose of inspiration from him.
As word of Bradbury’s death spread Wednesday, Wired contacted some of the greatest authors in sci-fi and fantasy to hear how the legend influenced their own work.
Ray Bradbury, 1920 – 2012:
• How Ray Bradbury Brought the West to Science Fiction
• Ray Bradbury on Sci-Fi, God and Robots: The Late Author’s Biggest Ideas
• Remembering Ray Bradbury: A Roundup of Tributes and Memorable Clips
-----Ursula K. Le Guin, author of A Wizard of Earthsea
My mother and I read and loved The Martian Chronicles in the early ’50s, when it was new. It was newer than new, because there’d never been anything quite like it, nor has there been since. SF is so often a control freak’s genre, and Ray Bradbury was never under control — his own or anybody else’s. He took risks in his writing that could send him over into incoherence and sentimentality or take him straight to beauty, which is always new and always rare. And then with Fahrenheit 451 he gave us the rarest thing of all: a genuine, inescapable Myth for Our Time. His was a courageous heart and a generous soul. May his memory be blessed.
-----Joe Hill, author of 20th Century Ghosts (and recipient of a Ray Bradbury fellowship)
Think about what a shock it must’ve been the first time moviegoers saw a picture with sound; the first time those giants on the screen opened their mouths and sang. That kind of describes the shock I felt when I first discovered the stories of Ray Bradbury. Everything I read before that was a silent movie. Bradbury provided a vast library of melodies, shouts and sound effects to jolt my timid 11-year-old imagination into full wakefulness and attention. His dreadful merry-go-rounds spun to the vertiginous shriek of the Wurlitzer; his trees whispered bleak secrets in the brisk October breezes; his rockets scaled the skies in a chorus of grinding roars; his children ran through libraries, refusing to be shushed.
Maybe that’s all too lyrical. Here it is, more simply: I didn’t know, until Bradbury, that a book could make you feel so much. To this day, I cannot think about certain subjects without using Bradbury as a reference point — subjects like Halloween and circuses and sea monsters and the word “wonder” in both noun and verb form.
I met him in San Diego a few years ago. He was being pushed along in a wheelchair, surrounded by people who were in glory to see him, and hear his voice. We were at Comic-Con, marooned among booths selling ray guns and comic books and maps of Martian worlds. Every third person who walked by wore a cape.
“All this,” I said, pointing around us, “is your fault.” I had to shout to be heard. His hearing wasn’t good.
He laughed — it was one hell of a laugh — and nodded and said, “You know, some of it probably is.”
He was pleased to be found guilty of inspiring a whole country to imagine more, better, louder, crazier. I got to put a kiss on his shaggy white hair. He didn’t seem to mind. Then he was pushed away, at the head of a parade of giddy, euphoric followers. Hey: He led that parade most of his life. I was goddamn glad to be part of it.
Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles is beloved by sci-fi fans.
-----Daniel H. Wilson, author of Robopocalypse
Bradbury honed his craft for a long time. By the time I was a kid, the used bookstore that I hit up with my dad every weekend was full of Bradbury’s dog-eared masterpieces. His short stories were spread like pearls throughout countless dense anthologies. I never thought of these stories as science fiction. Instead, Bradbury’s name reminded me of fireflies on a hot Oklahoma night, or the cold wind that would fall through dead leaves as we ran through the neighborhood on Halloween.
Somehow, he captured the feeling of being a child — the new raw mystery lurking in the seams of what soon becomes the pedestrian background scenery of our lives. As a child, I recognized and dismissed this remarkable authenticity. The way he wrote was simply the way I felt.
Bradbury was not about the shiny gadgets provided to me by the more technically oriented minds of Clarke and Asimov. Instead, it was the emotion and atmosphere of his writing that sank into my psyche and eventually began to resonate. The sweet, haunting futility of our robotic creations after we are gone in “There Will Come Soft Rains.” Or the sick, ash-mouthed dread that pervades “The Scythe.” As an adult, I came to appreciate Bradbury for holding onto the feel of childhood long after mine had faded. And if I’ve taken anything away from his work, it’s that writing should not be about the gadgets, especially not science fiction.
-----Jonathan Maberry, author of Rot & Ruin
I met Bradbury when I was 14; it was amazing. He took so much time to talk with me and offer advice about writing. That Christmas he gave me a signed copy of Something Wicked This Way Comes. That copy is put away safe, but I buy a new copy every year and read it on Halloween. Bradbury is one of a small group of writers whose books will be read forever.
-----Mort Castle, co-editor of Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
For me, the first Bradbury hit came when I was 13 or so and that was Something Wicked This Way Comes, showing me poetic language was not something removed from life and story, something that had to be interpreted according to rules established by a high school teacher and Cliff Note Coercion.
Not long thereafter came the short stories: “I See You Never,” with its perfect depiction of regret and inevitability that any Zennist would understand — even without being called a Zennist — and “There Will Come Soft Rains,” because, hey, this baby boomer grew up waiting for the A blast.
But perhaps most significant for me as a writer, well … here is the afterword to “Light,” my story in Shadow Show:
I was fourteen or fifteen, reading like the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil set loose at the Olde Country Book Buffet, and couldn’t help noting that too many artists and writers died young and often not well. Then Ray Bradbury came along on this glutton’s word menu and showed me with his “Forever and the Earth” that no, Thomas Wolfe did not have to stay dead — not when we needed him.
Years later when the story of Marilyn Monroe seized me — she was “the saddest woman in the world,” said her short-term husband Arthur Miller — I set out to give her something a little better than what foolish choices, DNA tics and the Wheel of Cosmic Fortune handed her. This is my third Marilyn story. There will likely be more in the future. Perhaps one day I’ll get it completely right.
But for now, I’ll borrow Mr. Stan Laurel’s derby and tip it to his very good friend and advocate Mr. Ray Douglas Bradbury: He showed me the way.
-----Gordon Van Gelder, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
Ray Bradbury had some of the world’s best nightmares and I’m eternally grateful to him for sharing them with us.
He did a lot of other things, too — showed us that dreams of the future are compatible with nostalgia for youth, taught us the poetry of rocketry, and gave us many smiles — but it’s the nightmares I value most. Some of them came with the carnival, some lurked in the sea. One of them was just about being locked in a closet.
“I don’t try to describe the future,” said Ray Bradbury. “I try to prevent it.” For me, that one comment defined an entire style of science fiction, an approach that will always be valid as long as we have a future. I’m glad to live in a world where people learned from Bradbury’s nightmares.
-----Robin Hobb, author of The Farseer Trilogy
The work of Ray Bradbury that resonated with me the most was Dandelion Wine. The imagery he wrought in that tale comes back to me in the blink of an eye, even though it has been years since I’ve read it. The new hi-top sneakers, the sound of the push mower, the smells of the cooking…. It’s a door to a world that I cherish.
My other favorite is The Martian Chronicles. Each of those stories is like a carefully cut gem, shining in its own individual way, but when they are combined in the one book, they form a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
Most inspiring to me was that Bradbury’s writing spans such a broad spectrum. It defies the limits of genre and “literature” to become something that annihilates all boundaries. His books and stories are simply the Bradbury works. Don’t try to fence them in; it’s just as hopeless to exclude them from any classification.
Fahrenheit 451 was probably Bradbury's most well-known novel.
-----Elizabeth Bear, author of Range of Ghosts
My first conscious memory of reading a Bradbury story is not, as it was for so many, Fahrenheit 451. Instead, it was “All Summer in a Day,” a story of life on Venus and the cruelty of children that must have been assigned to us in a grade-school reader. I’ve written about that story, and I remember being impressed by how thoroughly this grownup understood and could demonstrate the casual cruelty of children and the way they’ll gang up on any kid who seems different, who doesn’t fit in.
It remains my favorite Bradbury to this day, although rereading it as an adult what I see in it is the craftsmanship, the terrible pellucid language, the way Bradbury takes a tiny domestic dilemma set on a fantastical Venus and forges it into a commentary on human nature and the eternal tension between science and superstition. We hammerers-out of sweeping epics could learn a few tricks from Bradbury’s detail work, his precision.
But I’m pretty sure I’d read Bradbury before then — I grew up in an SF-reading household, being a second-generation fan on either side of the family. I was encouraged to read things far beyond my putative grade level, and I know we had paperback copies of The Illustrated Man and The Martian Chronicles. I can’t remember ever having not read them. Bradbury’s work is part of the Zeitgeist.
And that is the thing that strikes me most about Bradbury. More than any other science fiction writer — by his craft, his humaneness, his skill — he’s permeated the world we live in with his vision.
Like Shakespeare, Bradbury is quoted by people who have never read his work.
Ray Bradbury was very good at his job.
-----Kim Stanley Robinson, author of 2312
I felt a bond with Ray Bradbury, because we were both born in Waukegan, Illinois, then were moved by our parents to Southern California when we were children. I feel that we both ended up as science fiction writers partly because of this childhood history; southern California has been a science fictional place for a very long time.
Bradbury was one of the first break-out stars from the science fiction community into mainstream American culture, and this was no coincidence but because of his open and welcoming style, and the way his science fiction always focused on the human side of things, adding strong emotions to what had previously been perhaps drier or simpler. He was a great ambassador to the world for science fiction, and was beloved in the science fiction community as well. He was a truly inspirational figure to many, because of his positive nature and his boundless enthusiasm for reading, which he conveyed so well, and for life in general. His fiction always reminds us that no matter what strange future we move into, human emotions will stay central to our story. His best stories and books will be a permanent part of American literature. We were lucky to have him and I’m sorry he’s gone.
-----David Morrell, author of Creepers
Ray Bradbury is a permanent monument in my imagination. I can’t think of another writer who wrote so many fascinating, evocative, meaningful novels. To me, he was a triple master. He not only created stories that extended the boundaries of what I imagined was possible, but he also gave them a hypnotic atmosphere that gripped me as much as his plots. And they were about something. They had meaning and texture and importance. Some writers can do one or two. But not all three. If Bradbury had written only one book, Fahrenheit 451, he would have been a permanent part of our culture. But he wrote so many other wonders. I felt honored to contribute a story to an upcoming anthology, Shadow Show, in celebration of his work. But of course, in celebrating him, no one could equal him. Now the man from the October country has regrettably returned home.
The short story collection A Medicine for Melancholy contains Bradbury's short story 'Dark They Were, And Golden-Eyed.'
-----Greg Bear, author of Darwin’s Radio
Ray Bradbury is, for many reasons, the most influential writer in my life. Throughout our long friendship, Ray supplied not only his terrific stories but a grand model of what a writer could be, should be, and yet rarely is: brilliant and charming and accessible, willing to tolerate and to teach, happy to inspire but also to be inspired, happy to share and even re-live a youngster’s awkward joy at discovery. We first met in 1967 and immediately began a lifelong correspondence. My friends and I attended so many Bradbury lectures and events in Southern California that he would spot our grinning faces in the audience and tell us, with a wag of his beefy finger, “I’m not changing a word just because you’ve heard it already!” Throughout my high school years, my classmates and friends were happy to inform our English teachers that we had the straight scoop on one of Ray’s stories, direct from the man himself. I wonder if they actually believed us!
In 1969, Ray took three of us and my Grandmother, who drove (Ray did not drive and we had neither car nor license), out to lunch in Beverly Hills – hamburgers and shakes at Frascati. There, he told us about eating his first steak in Mexico. He was in his mid-twenties, very poor – and from that cross-border odyssey, neither entirely happy nor sane, came so many stories, including “The Life Work of Juan Diaz,” where he tried to exorcize the horror of descending into the catacombs of Guanajuato. He concluded our memorable meal by telling us, “When you’re rich, you can take me out to lunch!” And so we did – but before we were rich.
In 1970, we invited Ray to be our guest at the first Comic-Con in San Diego, and the fact that he agreed (along with Jack Kirby and a select group of other luminaries) made all of us, the fledgling committee, believe we were creating something real and glorious. He attended every single Comic-Con until just a couple of years ago, when his health would no longer permit it, and drew huge crowds for his talks and interviews.
From the beginning, Ray enthusiastically supported my artwork and writing. As I sold more stories, and finally bundled them into collections, I would deliver freshly printed books to him and he would cry out, “Wonderful! Wonderful!” and encourage me to do more. He never treated me as anything other than a colleague – and for us, he was always that amazing, miraculous kid we got to hang out with. You know, the kid who told his readers they could send him letters care of Life magazine, or spin stories of hanging out with Walt Disney, or of having Ray Harryhausen as the best man at his wedding.
Ray expressed his admiration for Nikos Kazantzakis and his “The Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises.” Later, I relayed Ray’s enthusiasm for Kazantzakis to the translator, Kimon Friar, and helped them exchange addresses. When Ray produced his own play of “Leviathan 99″ at the old MGM studios in LA, I posted fliers at my college, went to LA, met him after the performance – and commiserated when it folded a week later, leaving him tens of thousands of dollars in the hole. I still have a few of those fliers – and his letter announcing he was back to another round of lectures to pay it all off. He dearly loved theater, and to this day, his plays are performed in Los Angeles and around the world.
It was my privilege to arrange for the Science Fiction Writers of America to present Ray with his Grand Master Nebula in 1989. Nowhere near full payback.
“Ray was storyteller, showman and alchemist — a master who remixed his own life and made it the stuff of legend.”
So I spent a lot of fine times with the man. But behind it all was the genuine love I have for Ray’s fiction. To this day, I can’t begin a Bradbury story without feeling his immediate presence, his amazing ability to make me nostalgic for a place I’ve never been, or recognize an emotion or a connection I may not have experienced. Ray was storyteller, showman and alchemist — a master who remixed his own life and made it the stuff of legend, the core within much of the myth of The Twilight Zone and modern American fantasy in general.
For our last visit, just a couple of months ago, my wife and I drove out to the Bradbury family home in the Cheviot Hills of Los Angeles, as we had so many times before. Ray was bedridden, but sitting up, receiving visitors, cheerful, as always, it seems now – and we spent a good hour talking about movies, about work, about new books and writing. As always. I noticed a hefty volume of the collected Buck Rogers newspaper strips, left on the floor by staff or family or previous visitors, and held it for Ray to see — “You did the intro for this, Ray!” “I did?” “Here’s your name. A great intro.” “Read it to me!” Ray could no longer read much, and friends would come by to read to him…
But I’m drifting again into that awkward tense. This story has to end.
And so here’s my ending, and it’s all true: I read aloud to Ray his own words, the story of his first love for science fiction, the wonder and joy of discovering Buck Rogers at age 10. One of his literary sons sits by his bedside, reading that fine introduction, and then lifts up, brings close to his pale, difficult eyes, the first page of 1920s-era strips, and Ray is suddenly 10 years old, he’s Ray Douglas Bradbury, starting all over, and he beams and cries, “Wonderful! Wonderful! It’s all still wonderful!”
And it is.
-----R. A. Salvatore, author of Charon’s Claw
The beauty of Ray Bradbury is that you can’t classify him as a science-fiction writer or a fantasy writer or any other (insert genre here) writer. Leave out the qualifier, please, unless that adjective is “brilliant.” So brilliant that he could subtly terrify a reader with softly apocalyptic views of the future, or stun a reader with shocking twists (“The Small Assassin,” a truly devilish short story). Few other writers of the last century could stand beside him; when he showed up at San Diego for Comic-Con a few years ago, his name was whispered with somber reverence throughout the hall. So now he is gone, and the world is diminished. But we still have his work, so much of it, and so good is that work that you can read each piece over and over again and come away with different and profound insights each time.
Rest well, Mr. Bradbury. You’re already missed.
-----Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians
Bradbury is one of the few writers who can crush you – casually – with just a title. Something Wicked This Way Comes — I had nightmares about it before I even read it, just seeing its spine on the shelf of my grade-school library was enough. “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed.” “The Day It Rained Forever.” “The Million Year Picnic.” (My adolescence was ruled – as was every nerd’s adolescence in the Boston area – by the comic shop of that name in Cambridge, Massachusetts.) Even before you read them those titles open up spaces inside you, where strange things can start happening. And that’s before the show even starts.
Bradbury was the writer who broke me out of the child’s understanding of science fiction – which is, more or less: I’m getting information about the future! – and made me understand that I was getting information on another axis, from a different dimension entirely, not ahead but underneath. It is not true that you can breathe the air on Mars, the way they do in The Martian Chronicles; I understand that now. What is true, however, is that there are aliens living in our unconscious, and we meet them every day, we can’t escape them, whatever planet we’re on. Because they are us.
Bradbury was not a soul-mate for me. His home planet was the American Midwest, which to a kid growing up in Massachusetts was as weird a place as Mars. He was also tougher than me: he wrote horror, and I was a wuss. As a child I wasn’t ready to face those dark places that Bradbury moved through apparently fearlessly and with impunity. (Like the air on Mars, he found the atmosphere there perfectly breathable.) They freaked me out too much. I was like those astronauts at the end of “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”: I couldn’t accept what was right in front of me.
But as I get older and I slowly learn to accept those truths, and I remember and think, yes, Bradbury was right. He warned me about this a long time ago. I should have seen it coming. The Martians were the colonists, all along.
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Other prominent authors posted lengthier articles elsewhere on the web Wednesday, including Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book), John Scalzi (Redshirts), Carrie Vaughn (the Kitty Norville series) and David Brin (The Uplift series).
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.....item 2).... Los Angeles Times ... articles.latimes.com/2012 ... (Page 3 of 4)
Ray Bradbury dies at 91; author lifted fantasy to literary heights
Ray Bradbury's more than 27 novels and 600 short stories helped give stylistic heft to fantasy and science fiction. In 'The Martian Chronicles' and other works, the L.A.-based Bradbury mixed small-town familiarity with otherworldly settings.
June 06, 2012|By Lynell George, Special to the Los Angeles Times
articles.latimes.com/2012/jun/06/local/la-me-ray-bradbury...
Bradbury married Marguerite McClure in 1947, the same year he published his first collection of short stories — "Dark Carnival" (Arkham House) — a series of vignettes that revisited his childhood hauntings.
His first big break came in 1950, when Doubleday collected some new and previously published Martian stories in a volume titled "The Martian Chronicles." A progression of pieces that were at once adventures and allegories taking on such freighted issues as censorship, racism and technology, the book established him as an author of particular insight and note. And a rave review from novelist Christopher Isherwood in Tomorrow magazine helped Bradbury step over the threshold from genre writer to mainstream visionary.
"The Martian Chronicles" incorporated themes that Bradbury would continue to revisit for the rest of his life. "Lost love. Love interrupted by the vicissitudes of time and space. Human condition in the large perspective and definition of what is human," said Benford. "He saw ... the problems that the new technologies presented — from robots to the super-intelligent house to the time machine -- that called into question our comfy definitions of human."
Bradbury's follow-up bestseller, 1953's "Fahrenheit 451," was based on two earlier short stories and written in the basement of the UCLA library, where he fed the typewriter 10 cents every half-hour. "You'd type like hell," he often recalled. "I spent .80 and in nine days I had 'Fahrenheit 451.' "
Books like "Fahrenheit 451," in which interactive TV spans three walls, and "The Illustrated Man" — the 1951 collection in which "The Veldt" appeared — not only became bestsellers and ultimately films but cautionary tales that became part of the American vernacular.
"The whole problem in 'Fahrenheit' centers around the debate whether technology will destroy us," said George Slusser, curator emeritus of the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Utopia at UC Riverside. "But there will always be a spirit that keeps things alive. In the case of 'Fahrenheit,' even though this totalitarian government is destroying the books, the people have memorized them. There are people who love the written word. That is true in most of his stories. He has deep faith in human culture."
Besides books and short stories, Bradbury wrote poetry, plays, teleplays, even songs. In 1956, he was tapped by John Huston to write the screenplay for "Moby Dick." In 1966, the French auteur director Francois Truffaut brought "Fahrenheit 451" to the screen. And in 1969 "The Illustrated Man" became a film starring Rod Steiger.
Bradbury's profile soared.
But as he garnered respect in the mainstream, he lost some standing among science fiction purists. In these circles, Bradbury was often criticized for being "anti-science." Instead of celebrating scientific breakthroughs, he was reserved, even cautious.
Bradbury had very strong opinions about what the future had become. In the drive to make their lives smart and efficient, humans, he feared, had lost touch with their souls. "We've got to dumb America up again," he said.
Over the years he amassed a mantel full of honors. Among them: the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (2000), the Los Angeles Times' Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award (1998), the Nebula Award (1988), the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (1970), O. Henry Memorial Award (1947-48) and a special distinguished-career citation from the Pulitzer Prize board in 2007, which was "an enormous nod of respect from the mainstream media," Lou Anders, editorial director of the science fiction and fantasy imprint PYR, told the New York Times.
Bradbury helped plan the Spaceship Earth at Disney's Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla., as well as projects at Euro Disney in France. He was a creative consultant on architect Jerde's projects, helping to design several Southern California shopping malls including the Glendale Galleria, Horton Plaza in San Diego and the Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles.
Even in his later years, Bradbury kept up his 1,000-words-a-day writing schedule, working on an electric typewriter even when technology had passed it by. "Why do I need a computer ... all a computer is is a typewriter."
Though he didn't drive, Bradbury could often be spotted out and about Los Angeles. A familiar figure with a wind-blown mane of white hair and heavy black-framed glasses, he'd browse the stacks of libraries and bookstores, his bicycle leaning against a store front or pole just outside.
A stroke in late 1999 slowed him but didn't stop him.
He began dictating his work over the phone to one of his daughters, who helped to transcribe and edit. In 2007 he began pulling rare or unfinished pieces from his archives. "Now and Forever," a collection of "Leviathan '99" and "Somewhere a Band Is Playing," was published in 2007 and "We'll Always Have Paris Stories" in 2009.
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Passions
Image by flakyredhead
Journal page created 23 December 2011. My journal page takes off on Amanda's prompt in the Artful Scrapping Outside the Box challenge at goDigitalScrapbooking.com: "Think of creating your custom curio cabinet- and just like you would in your house, you fill it with things that are important to you- each for their own reason." So, I was focused on the curio cabinet rather than the larger theme of curiosity. As I was thinking about the things that are important to me, I thought of my current passions -- reading, travel, and scrapbooking. So, I filled my cabinet with some of the books I've enjoyed this year, my passport, and some maps. All my art journal pages have a paper doll representing me -- she's constructed from parts downloaded from MakingFriends.com.
Credits:
-- background paper by Outside the Box Design Studio from CollectAKit Curiosity2 at goDigitalScrapbooking.com
-- Curio cabinet by Outside the Box Design Studio from CollectAKit Curiosity2
-- map element by Outside the Box Design Studio from I Dream of Africa kit at goDigitalScrapbooking.com
-- Camera from Far Far Hill, free scanned advertising images
-- art & color & draw WordArt by Sue Cummings from My Little Artist Paintbox, purchased at oscraps.com
-- suitcase & passport by Pink Reptile Designs from Wanderlust kit
-- butterfly from Far Far Hill, free scanned butterflies
-- font is Bradley Hand ITC
-- "Passions" formed from miscellaneous fonts on scanned antique paper from Far Far Hill
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