Nils Ivar Bohlin (July 17, 1920 – September 21, 2002)

Nils Bohlin, the Swedish engineer and inventor responsible
for the three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt–considered
one of the most important innovations in automobile safety,
was born in Härnösand, Sweden.

Before 1959, only the two-point lap belts were available in
automobiles; for the most part, the only people who regularly
buckled up were race car drivers.

The world’s first parking meter, known as Park-O-Meter No. 1, is installed on
the southeast corner of what was then First Street and Robinson Avenue in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 

The parking meter was the brainchild of Carl C. Magee (below), a lawyer and
newspaper publisher who moved to Oklahoma City from New Mexico in 1927.

Carlton Cole "Carl" Magee (January 1872 – February 1946)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kruse GWS Auctions announced Wednesday,
Elvis Presley fans, if they have the money, can take to the road in his
personal white 1973 stretch limousine (the car the music icon often
used to get around Memphis, Tennessee), a GMC pickup truck that
has since been restored or his last motorcycle, a 1976 Harley Davidson
FLH 1200 Electra Glide. The auction house said the items will be part
of its Artifacts of Hollywood auction on August 31.
 

Elvis Presley’s keys to his 1973 stretch limousine.

Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca (October 15, 1924 – July 2, 2019)

Auto industry icon Lee Iacocca helped create the Ford Mustang and
then rescued Chrysler from bankruptcy in the 1980s. A member of
the family said he passed away today, but could not provide any 
further details.

Adolf Hitler (fourth from left) at the Volkswagen factory, 1938. 

Adolf Hitler (center) looks at a model of the Volkswagen car with the designer (left).

On this day in 1937, the government of Germany–then under the control of
Adolf Hitler of the Nazi Party, formed a new state-owned automobile company,
Volkswagenwerk, or “The People’s Car Company.”

Originally operated by the German Labor Front,  Volkswagen had its head
office in Wolfsburg, Germany. In addition to his ambitious campaign to build 
a network of autobahns and limited access highways across Germany, Hitler’s
pet project was the development and mass production of an affordable yet still speedy vehicle that could sell for less than 1,000 Reich marks (about $140 at
the time). To provide the design for this “people’s car,” Hitler called in the
Austrian automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche.  However, soon after the
car was displayed for the first time at the Berlin Motor Show in 1939, World
War II began, and Volkswagen halted production. Volkswagen sales in the
United States were initially slower than in other parts of the world, due to the
car’s historic Nazi connections.

In 1959, the advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach launched a landmark campaign, dubbing the car the “Beetle.” Over the next several years, VW
became the top-selling auto import in the United States. In 1960, the German government sold 60 percent of  Volkswagen’s stock to the public. The last
original Beetle rolled off the line in Puebla, Mexico, on July 30, 2003 (below).
(from HISTORY and A+E Networks)