The Rise and Fall of Plymouth
The Plymouth division was created by Chrysler in 1928. The original emblem featured a view of the Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock, however the name was actually chosen for the Plymouth Binder twine, which was quite popular with farmers, one of the segments of the population Chrysler was hoping to attract. Early in the history of Chrysler, of which Plymouth is a division, the founder of Chrysler Corporation Walter P. Chrysler had taken control of the financially ailing Maxwell-Chalmers car company.
The Maxwell automobile was a part of this package. In a stroke of genius, Chrysler decided to put the Maxwell car to good use. He had been toying with the idea of creating an economy class of vehicles with very attractive priced. The Maxwell car fit in with this plan. The car was soon reworked and renamed the Chrysler 52 model. The low-end market had been previously dominated by Chevrolet and Ford.
Volvo – Always Put Safety First
Volvo is a Swedish car manufacture that was founded in 1927. Because Sweden is known to produce high quality iron ore, company founders chose to use the ancient sign for ore as the company logo. The circle and arrow, the sign of mars is also considered to symbolize iron. Both symbols were incorporated and registered as Volvo trademarks.
Volvo has earned several distinctive reputations over the years; probably one of the best is the one it has earned for safety. Volvo engineers have come up with several innovative safety features that have eventually been adopted by most car manufacturers around the world. The concept for safety glass belongs to Volvo. In 1944, laminated glass was introduced in the PV Volvo. By 1958, another standard safety features was introduced by Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin who invented and patented the modern three-point safety belt. This was a standard feature in all Volvo’s by 1959. The company produced cars with the first padded dashboards including them in the 1956 version of the Amazon. The next safety feature pioneered by Volvo was the first rear facing child safety seat in 1964 and introduced the booster seat for children too big for the car seat but still small enough to slip out of the seat belt. Read more
Peugeot – From Coffee to Cars
The Peugeot Family has been in business in some form or another since the seventeen hundreds. From the production of coffee to bicycles in the early part of the twentieth century, automobiles would be the next big thing to come along.
The company produced its first automobile in 1889. The car was steam powered and had three wheels. However, steam proved to be unwieldy and cumbersome for use in any personal passenger vehicles. After meeting with Gottlieb Daimler, Armand Peugeot decided that the gasoline internal combustion engine was much more suited to what he had in mind. Peugeot acquired a license from Daimler to use their engines in Peugeot vehicles. Cars produced by the French company would remain powered by Daimler engines until the first Peugeot engines were developed in 1896.
Just as it had always been, Peugeot continued to produce a variety of products up through the turn of the twentieth century when Armand Peugeot formed his own company to focus exclusively on automobile manufacturing.