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Úvod »Automobily osobní a dodávky»Americké automobily » The American Automobile - A Centenary
Vazba: | Vázaná | ||
Počet stran: | 288 | ||
Rozměry v mm: | 295 x 280 | ||
Počet obrázků: | 400 | ||
Rok vydání: | 1992 |
The history of the car is the history of the American way of life over the past 100 years.
In 1900 there were 30 million horses in the United States and 8,000 registered cars. Rural communities required car drivers to stop and switch off their engine or pull into the side of the road when they met a horse. Uriah Smith of Battle Creek, Michigan, even mounted a life-size horse's head on the dash-board of his car to pacify "frantic and fractious" animals.
By 1916, American manufacturers were turning out 1 million passenger cars a year and the horse, as a means of transportation, had diminished. In 1920, car production reached 2 million. In 1929, on the brink of the Depression, it was up to 4.4 million. Recovering to 3.7 million in 1941, output rose to an all-time peak of 9.7 million in 1973.
Today, one third of America's annual domestic market of about 10.5 million cars is supplied by imports, and Japan has supplanted the United States as the world's leading producer of cars.
Behind such a bald statistic are the cars themselves. Since 1893, when the first gasoline-powered car took to the streets of Springfield, Massachusetts, some 4,000 makes have coughed and roared and purred along American roads. Many of the finest are illustrated in this book, which has more than 300 newly commissioned photographs.