2005 Thomas McKean Memorial Cup Winner - Voted most important original research in automobile history by The Antique Automobile Club of America Best Of Books Winner, 2005 International Automotive Media Awards Author Beverly Rae Kimes, 2005 International Automotive Media Award for Lifetime Achievement Honorary This "cast of characters" provides the lens through which award-winning author Beverly Rae Kimes focuses on the early years of the American automobile industry. While some names - Ford, Dodge, Buick, and more - are easily recognized, this book also introduces snapshots of lesser known, but vitally important actors in this dramatic saga. The famous, the infamous, and the unknown are brought together by their common dedication to this great invention - and united by the fascinating stories that characterize each person.

This biography of Beverly Kimes, was written by her beloved husband, Jim Cox. This is not a book about the illustrious career of Beverly Kimes, first woman editor of Automobile Quarterly, renowned author, or the foremost classic car historian of her time. But, a story about Beverly Kimes; daughter, sister, friend, mentor, wife, and inspiration to women and men who had the distinct honor of having her be part of their lives. Determination is everything. This was her mantra, the creed that she lived by from the time she was a small girl growing up West Chicago, until the day she died in 2008. Beverly Kimes was a woman on a mission: to do whatever it was she was destined to do (and she did plenty!) by taking on a leadership role, and helping those who travelled with her. This biography chronicles Beverly's early years, taken from copious notes, letters and pictures found in numerous personal scrapbooks saved over the years. It follows her adult life in New York, through her rise up the ranks to editor of Automobile Weekly, her notoriety as an automobile historian, and life with her husband, family and friends. How does someone so determined for greatness, make it happen in a career she initially knew nothing about? When she went to her interview with Scott Baily at Automobile Quarterly, she told him, "The only thing I know about automobiles, is that I have a driver's license." This inspiring story is about a woman, in a man's world, overcoming odds, getting involved, and touching the hearts of all types of people worldwide along the way. The road to greatness was not easy for Beverly, in fact it took its rocky turns. Life was filled with obstacles due to illness, circumstances, or just plain fate. But she travelled on, nonetheless, with dignity and style. And for all who had come to know and love her, it was a hell of a ride!

2005 Thomas McKean Memorial Cup Winner - Voted most important original research in automobile history by The Antique Automobile Club of America Best Of Books Winner, 2005 International Automotive Media Awards Author Beverly Rae Kimes, 2005 International Automotive Media Award for Lifetime Achievement Honorary This "cast of characters" provides the lens through which award-winning author Beverly Rae Kimes focuses on the early years of the American automobile industry. While some names - Ford, Dodge, Buick, and more - are easily recognized, this book also introduces snapshots of lesser known, but vitally important actors in this dramatic saga. The famous, the infamous, and the unknown are brought together by their common dedication to this great invention - and united by the fascinating stories that characterize each person.

Women used automobiles as soon as they had access to them. Black, Indigenous, and White American women utilized the automobile to improve their quality of life and achieve greater freedom. These women shared unique concerns and common aims as they negotiated their way through a time when advocacy for social change was undergoing a resurgence. The years that brought the automobile to the United States, 1893-1929, also brought increased legal and social restrictions based on racism and gender stereotypes. For women the automobile was a useful tool as they worked to improve their quality of life. The automobile provided a means for Black, Indigenous, and White women to pull away from limitations and work toward greater freedom. Exploring these key issues and more, this book is a history and social exploration of women and the automobile during the early automotive era.

Auto historians and readers interested in business history will enjoy Storied Independent Automakers.

Before the "Big Three," even before the Model T, the race for dominance in the American car market was fierce, fast, and sometimes farcical. Car Crazy takes readers back to the passionate and reckless years of the early automobile era, from 1893, when the first US-built auto was introduced, through 1908, when General Motors was founded and Ford's Model T went on the market. The motorcar was new, paved roads few, and devotees of this exciting and unregulated technology battled with citizens who considered the car a dangerous scourge, wrought by the wealthy, that was shattering a more peaceful way of life. Among the pioneering competitors were Ransom E. Olds, founder of Olds Motor Works and creator of a new company called REO; Olds' cutthroat new CEO Frederic L. Smith; William C. "Billy" Durant of Buick Motor Company (and soon General Motors); and inventor Henry Ford. They shared a passion for innovation, both mechanical and entrepreneurial, but their maniacal pursuit of market share would also involve legal manipulation, vicious smear campaigns, and zany publicity stunts -- including a wild transcontinental car race that transfixed the public. Their war on wheels ultimately culminated in a courtroom battle that would shape the American car industry forever. Based on extensive original research, Car Crazy is a page-turning story of popular culture, business, and sport at the dawn of the twentieth century, filled with compelling, larger-than-life characters, each an American original.

Each year car manufacturers release new production models that are unique and innovative. The production model is the result of a lengthy process of testing aerodynamics, safety, engine components, and vehicle styling. The new technologies introduced in these vehicles reflect changing standards as well as trends of the market. From Acura to Volvo, this book provides a snapshot of the key engineering concepts and trends of the passenger vehicle industry over the course of a year. For each of the 43 new production models, articles from Automotive Engineering International (AEI) magazine detail technology developments as well as a comprehensive look at the 2013 passenger car models. This book provides those with an interest in new vehicles with all the information on the key automotive engineering and technology advancements of the year. AEI’s association with SAE International guarantees that these articles come from a trusted and reliable source with a reputation 100-plus years in the making. The 2013 Passenger Car Yearbook features articles covering a wide variety of topics from styling, safety, testing, hybrid systems, powertrain designs, lightweighting, and materials. Interviews with key designers and engineers offer the reader an in-depth look at the strategies behind the year’s technology advancements. This yearbook is a must-read to any vehicle enthusiast or engineer. The 2013 Passenger Car Yearbook explores where automotive engineering and styling is heading in years to come, and where it has come from in the past.

From the acclaimed author of Birdmen comes a revelatory new history of the birth of the automobile, an illuminating and entertaining true tale of invention, competition, and the visionaries, hustlers, and swindlers who came together to transform the world. In 1900, the Automobile Club of America sponsored the nation’s first car show in New York’s Madison Square Garden. The event was a spectacular success, attracting seventy exhibitors and nearly fifty thousand visitors. Among the spectators was an obscure would-be automaker named Henry Ford, who walked the floor speaking with designers and engineers, trying to gauge public enthusiasm for what was then a revolutionary invention. His conclusion: the automobile was going to be a fixture in American society, both in the city and on the farm—and would make some people very rich. None, he decided, more than he. Drive! is the most complete account to date of the wild early days of the auto age. Lawrence Goldstone tells the fascinating story of how the internal combustion engine, a “theory looking for an application,” evolved into an innovation that would change history. Debunking many long-held myths along the way, Drive! shows that the creation of the automobile was not the work of one man, but very much a global effort. Long before anyone had heard of Henry Ford, men with names like Benz, Peugeot, Renault, and Daimler were building and marketing the world’s first cars. Goldstone breathes life into an extraordinary cast of characters: the inventors and engineers who crafted engines small enough to use on a “horseless carriage”; the financiers who risked everything for their visions; the first racers—daredevils who pushed rickety, untested vehicles to their limits; and such visionary lawyers as George Selden, who fought for and won the first patent for the gasoline-powered automobile. Lurking around every corner is Henry Ford, a brilliant innovator and an even better marketer, a tireless promoter of his products—and of himself. With a narrative as propulsive as its subject, Drive! plunges us headlong into a time unlike any in history, when near-manic innovation, competition, and consumerist zeal coalesced to change the way the world moved. Praise for Drive! “[A] marvelously told story . . . The author provides a terrific backdrop to the ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ era in which his story takes place. On display are lucky scoundrels and unlucky geniuses, hustlers, hacks, and daredevils galore. . . . Goldstone has written a book that beautifully captures the intertwined fates of these two ingenious pioneers.”—The Wall Street Journal “A wonderful, story-filled saga of the early days of the auto age . . . Readers will be swept up in his vivid re-creation of a bygone era. . . . ‘Horse Is Doomed,’ read one headline in 1895. This highly readable popular history tells why.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred reviews) “A splendid dissection of the Selden/Ford patent face-off and its place in automotive historiography, this work will be enjoyed by business, legal, transportation, social, and intellectual historians; general readers; and all libraries.”—Library Journal (starred review) “This book contains the great names in automotive history—the Dodge brothers, Barney Oldfield, all the French (they seemed, until Ford, to lead the Americans in development of the vehicle)—and it is fascinating. . . . An engaging new take on the history of technological innovation.”—Booklist

We’ve all been there. Seduced by the sleek designs and smart capabilities of the newest gadgets, we end up stumped by their complicated set-up instructions and exasperating error messages. In this fascinating history, Joseph J. Corn maps two centuries of consumer frustration and struggle with personal technologies. Aggravation with the new machines people adopt and live with is as old as the industrial revolution. Clocks, sewing machines, cameras, lawn mowers, bicycles, electric lights, cars, and computers: all can empower and exhilarate, but they can also exact a form of servitude. Adopters puzzle over which type and model to buy and then how to operate the device, diagnose its troubles, and meet its insatiable appetite for accessories, replacement parts, or upgrades. It intrigues Corn that we put up with the frustrations our technology thrusts upon us, battling with the unfamiliar and climbing the steep learning curves. It is this ongoing struggle, more than the uses to which we ultimately put our machines, that animates this thought-provoking study. Having extensively researched owner’s manuals, computer user-group newsletters, and how-to literature, Corn brings a fresh, consumer-oriented approach to the history of technology. User Unfriendly will be valuable to historians of technology, students of American culture, and anyone interested in our modern dependence on machines and gadgets.

Profiles jobs in manufacturing such as aerospace engineers, cost estimators, industrial designers, industrial engineers, and more.