Our Two Cents: What was the most important automotive invention?
Time always marches forward, sometimes upward when it comes to technology. In the world of the automobile, that march of progress has been a good thing. Cars get better and better over time, but a singular innovation usually sparks the change that sends the trajectory climbing even higher. I asked my cohorts at Hagerty Media for the automotive invention they think has made the biggest difference. I even started off with some low hanging fruit to get their wheels turning:
- Tubeless tire
- Oil Filter
- Cup Holder
- Cigarette lighter
So let’s see what the gang came up with for this installment of Our Two Cents. I expect you’ll be surprised by a few of them.
The hand crank delete?
“Charles Kettering’s self-starter for the 1912 Cadillac.” –Joe DeMatio
“Another step forward that borders on being as important as Joe’s with the electric starter would be synchronized gears. Don’t get me wrong, one of the best feelings in the world is double clutching an unsynchronized box and getting the shift perfect, but the convenience of not having to double clutch cannot be understated.” –Greg Ingold
Three-point safety belts
“I am gonna go with Volvo’s three-point seatbelt, created by engineer Nils Bohlin.” –Eric Weiner
“Airbags owe their implementation to a whole lot of inventors. Cars would be a lot less safe without them.” –Brandan Gillogly
You can’t pick just one!
“I have a few that stick out in my mind: implementing the assembly line for automobiles, electronic fuel injection, the catalytic converter, and definitely radial tires.” –Larry Webster
“Safety glass and disc brakes.”–Todd Kraemer
Standardized Controls
“I’m going to go with the traditional control layout. Accelerator on the floor to the right, brake pedal on the center and clutch on the left. Drive something like a Model T where it is a combination of hand and foot controls and you’ll quickly appreciate the standardization.” –Greg Ingold
“To Greg’s point, even the steering wheel.” –Todd Kraemer
Not standardized controls?
“Haptic volume and HVAC sliders, for the purpose of reminding everyone that physical controls are and always will be superior.” –Eddy Eckart
“And to combine Eddy and Todd’s comments above, let’s mention Tesla’s yoke steering wheel.” –Sajeev Mehta
The love of the rings?
“The piston ring. The ability to seal a cylinder and moving piston, especially in a way that has any longevity in the environment created by combustion, is amazing and the reliability and longevity of the piston ring is likely what has allowed the automobile to progress from a novelty to near necessity. Imagine if engines required re-ringing after just 20k miles: Would we use cars and trucks the way we do today? It’s one of the hardest working parts of an engine and rarely is ever thought of until failure.” –Kyle Smith
“I’m kinda glad for the failures present in piston ring design, otherwise I wouldn’t have a silly name for my advice column.” –Sajeev “Piston Slap” Mehta
Overhead valve engines?
“Pushrods. Heck yeah!” –Cameron Neveu
Integrated circuitry
“While I admit that electronics are reaching too far in some instances, our motoring lives have improved significantly once the integrated circuit made its way into the automobile. There’s solid state ignition, improved radio performance, anti-lock brakes, the gauge cluster on the Series I Aston Martin Lagonda … the list goes on and on.” –Sajeev Mehta
Smartphone integration
“Apple CarPlay, and I am approximately 64% serious about that.” –Grace Houghton
“General Motors would like a word about that, Grace.” –Nathan Petroelje
One for Minivan
“Automatic sliding doors on minivans.” –Ben Woodworth
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As my wife points out, I am getting old. That being said, I find a couple of the ‘improvements’ to be quite the opposite. (1) Cell phone integration into your car. Cell phones are accelerating the demise of civilization. Not enough space here to explain exactly why, but why do you need your car to be a phone? (2) Minivans? Really? Does that really need an explanation? (3) Airbags? Maybe people ought to drive like their lives depended on their sane driving rather than worrying how many airbags the car has (4) Video screens…..to run everything. Anybody remember when the heater controls physically moved a damper for the foot or defrost direction? (5) Anybody else care that your car tells the world everything about it, your, your driving habits, the engine condition? Remember when car ads touted the performance, the ride, the styling? Now the big plug is for how large is the screen in the middle of the dash and how connected you can be. Yeah, lots of good stuff but plenty of bad that intrudes on individual freedoms and personal responsibility.
Well said! Give me a new car without a single computer or “chip” that’s well engineered and reliable, and I’ll be first in line to buy it. (I’m dreaming of course). And the phone? I’ll wait till I get home to get that message I couldn’t live without. “Demise of civilization” is right on. They just issued a recall for virtually all Tesla’s that pretend to drive themselves. Put your hands on the wheel you lazy bastards, that’s why it’s there!!
Windshield washer and in-car trunk release come to mind for me along with a lot said here already. Oh, and maybe tire inflation monitors!
Tubeless tires
The only ones that are helpful, power windows and locks, cruise control and delayed wipers…
Antifreeze. My dad told me that freezing weather they would drain the radiator whenever the car was not in use and when they used the car again, they would refill the radiator. What a hassle that must have been.
Eh, ok I guess. But what are you looking for? The difference to what? Safety, comfort, usability? Positive difference or negative?
Oh, the integrated circuit wasn’t an “automotive invention”, it was just technology that was applied to the automobile. So it does not fit the category in the title of the article.
Power steering and power brakes also come to mind. Delay wipers are nice as well. I’m not crazy about having too much electronics, though; it’s going too far if the window switch does not go directly to the motor but instead submits a request to the body control computer.
Surprised it took so long for someone to mention power steering. A real game-changer.
Learned to drive in a car without power steering. My dad advised me to not steer unless the car was moving (just a little was enough).
I swear every time I drive my husband’s 52 Willys pickup (with the Chucky Atlas steering), or parallel park it, I’m going to gain a bra size!
My car has no power brakes. I cannot tell any difference between my 61 year old car with no power brakes and my daily driver of the same make. Same with power steering. The effort to roll up the windows is the same as power switches. The old push button radio is miles ahead of any touch screen. The one thing I will admit to as being better is the electronic ignition replacing the old points.
For me, after the necessities like four wheel brakes and a self starter, would be brake lights, windscreen washers and intermittent wiper blades, followed by OHV engine and four wheel disc brakes..
Eliminating the “nut” behind the wheel….
Safety glass has to be high on the list. Stone chips are annoying but it is not hard to imagine the consequences of a shattered plate glass windshield at 60 mph.
HIgh octane fuel – were it not for this, power increases in engines would have been practically impossible. Note, however, that higher octane was for years gained by using highly toxic tetraethyl lead when other non-toxic compounds could have been used.
You nailed it! It was there all along two carbon or one carbon, alcohol, i.e. methanol or ethanol! The recent EngineMasters they compared octane levels to power. The only advantage is E85.
The positive crankcase ventilation system. The elimination of many tons of caustic gases from the urban atmosphere, the deletion of the draft tube and the tremendous amounts of raw oil spillage onto the roadway they caused (and the resulting super-slick roadway conditions after precipitation). Extended engine life as well. Two pieces of hose and a one-way valve. A pittance for such effective gains. Look at old films from before 1975 and see how dark the center of freeway & highway lanes were.
This is a great addition to the list, and reasoning as to why it was so necessary is brilliant!
True, I think how crazy the Chuck Berry song Maybelline is when you think about it. Yea it is fiction.
but in the song, he is going 100 mph and it starts to rain. (Nice slick roads). Plus no one mentioned electric windshield wipers, most? were vacuum operated back then. So how much vacuum would your V8 ford have running full throttle?
How about windshield wipers followed by intermittent wipers. Unibody construction with integral roll cages and not to forget mirrors.
Tube tires (I believe you call them pneumatic) as opposed to solid ones. Of course add the Schrader valve, which is still in use today on thousands of applications besides just cars.
Some of these responses are just silly….
So if we are going to get silly, lets restate the obvious….the invention of a horseless carriage based on an enclosed carriage. Compare an early high wheeler to a early sedan.
Whether you want to call it a coupe, sedan or limousine (which had a much wider use back then), getting people INSIDE where they could get out of the cold made autos much more practical and desirable. Remember, even it it is not windy, the car’s slipstream creates a wind for its occupants…this coming from a guy with a brass roasted and an open Jeep.