Auto4N

Auto industry titan Semon Knudsen was born in 1912 to William Knudsen, who himself would later become president of General Motors (1937-1940). His father gave him the nickname Bunkie, referring to the WWI term for bunk mate. The pair had a special bond, and the elder Knudsen knew how to play into his son’s interests. When 14-year-old Bunkie asked for a new car, his father gave him a brand new 1927 Chevrolet. The only thing, it was fully disassembled. Bunkie went to work putting the car together piece by piece by hand, a process that cemented an interest in automobiles. His automotive career began after earning an engineering degree from MIT and then taking a low level position at Pontiac in 1939. Like father, like son, he would go on to become a successful executive in the industry. Over the next 16 years he would work in 106 different GM plants, eventually leading to his promotion to general manager of Pontiac in 1956. His mission was clear, improve sales at the division. To do so he yanked Peter Estes from Oldsmobile to be his chief engineer and hired John DeLorean from Hudson to be his assistant. With this team they transformed the image of Oldsmobile from boring yet reliable to fast and fun. This included pushing Pontiac’s participation in NASCAR and resulted in the wide-track Pontiacs, including the Pontiac Bonneville. His success at Pontiac led Knudsen up the corporate ladder, become GM of Chevrolet in 1962. He continued to push performance models at Chevy, leading to the introduction of SS (Super Sport) models. He would also lead efforts on the Chevrolet Chevelle, which first came to market for the 1964 model year and later become Chevrolet’s main muscle car. However he wouldn’t stick around GM long enough to witness the peak of the horsepower wars. After being elected VP of GM in 1967, he was passed over for the presidency, watching it go to Ed Cole instead. This led to him leaving GM in February 1968 to become the president of Ford Motor Company. AUTO4N is your local foreign car service specialist, Bunkie would approve!

The V12 Liberty and the birth of the Lincoln Motor Company

The roots of Lincoln trace back to the visionary mind of Henry Leland, the man behind the creation of the Cadillac in 1902. Initially hired by William Murphy and his partners at the Henry Ford Company to appraise assets before liquidation, Leland saw potential where others saw failure. Advising against dissolution, he proposed reorganization and the development of a new car powered by a single-cylinder engine originally designed for Oldsmobile. The result? The birth of Cadillac. Leland’s impact extended beyond Cadillac, influencing modern manufacturing principles and earning recognition from industry giants like Alfred P. Sloan. However, in 1909, he sold Cadillac to General Motors for $4.5 million. The deal allowed him to stay on as executive. However, when Cadillac received request from the US government to build aircraft engines during World War I, General Motor’s founder William Durant said no, citing his position as a Pacifist. Leland did not take kindly to this decision and in 1917 he left Cadillac, accepting a $10,000,000 government contract to form a new company to build the V12 Liberty aircraft engine. Lincoln Motor Company was born. Post-war, Lincoln underwent a transformation, retooling its plant to manufacture luxury automobiles, with its first V8 engine drawing inspiration from the Liberty engine’s design. in 1920, the first Lincoln car, the Model 8, started to roll out of the factory. AUTO4N is your local foreign car service specialist "We keep your car happy!"

London Transport’s first female bus mechanic!⁠
⁠
In August 1984, at the age of 18, Clifford qualified as London Transport’s first female bus mechanic after completing a course at West Ham garage. Up until then, women had only been given the temporary opportunity to take on what were considered typically male roles in stations, garages, depots and engineering works during the First and Second World Wars. It’s likely that Clifford would have worked on the RM type, best known as the Routemaster, as well as cheaper off-the-peg buses and driver-only operation that were used on some routes to reduce costs.⁠
⁠
Clifford was also a qualified bus driver, a position which was opened up to women in 1974. That didn’t stop London Transport launching a recruitment campaign in 1980 that ran adverts which played on the then-prevalent, and untrue, stereotype that women were poor drivers.

Wednesday January 10th 1979 the last convertible Volkswagen Beetle was produced. The VW "Bug" was a popular car throughout the 1970's, leading to innovations such as sun roofs and convertible tops, in an otherwise unchanging design. Also noteible in January of 1979, the Blues Brothers "Soul Man" hits the charts at #14. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as The Blues Brothers with their cover of Sam & Dave's 1967 hit. The band's live debut album Briefcase Full of Blues reaches #1 on the Billboard album chart and sold over two million US copies, going double platinum. A world record 103 cars were wrecked during filming of the Blues Brothers Movie. "The Junkman (1982)" broke the record 2 years later, wrecking 150 cars and a plane. That record held for 2 decades, until over 300 cars were wrecked during the filming of "The Matrix Reloaded (2003)." AUTO4N likes the Blues Brothers!