On August 21, 1897, Ransom Eli Olds of Lansing, Michigan,
founded Olds Motor Vehicle Company, which would later
become Olds Motor Werks and then Oldsmobile.

Born in Geneva, Ohio, in 1864, Olds went to work for his
family’s machine-repair and engine-building business in
1883.

In 1896, Olds completed his first gasoline-powered vehicle,
and the following year he founded Olds Motor Vehicle
Company with financial backing from Samuel L. Smith,
who had made his fortune in lumber.

Ransom Eli Olds (1864 – 1950)

On July 30, 2003, the last of 21,529,464 Volkswagen Beetles
built since World War II rolled off the production line at
Volkswagen’s plant in Puebla, Mexico.

On July 15, 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company took
its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two
-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat).

The car, produced at Ford’s plant on Mack Street (now Mack
Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a
week later.

Dr. Pfenning’s order turned out to be the first of many from
around the country, launching Ford on its way to profitability.

Dr. Ernst Pfenning

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947)

Honda introduces its first Civic, a new breed of subcompact,
fuel-saving car. It arrives just in time for the energy crisis of
1973, which brought higher gas prices, long lines and
occasional fistfights at the pump.

The last Thunderbird, Ford Motor Company’s iconic sports car,
emerged from a Ford factory in Wixom, Michigan on July 1, 2005.

Ford began its development of the Thunderbird in the years
following World War II.