What did the US car industry ever do for us?

11 landmark Detroit innovations

Big on brawn, short on brains. That’s the stereotypical criticism of classic American cars, which are often seen as being lazy, outdated and inefficient next to their European cousins.

That’s not true, of course, and the US car industry has given us plenty of innovations over the years. Indeed, some were so forward-thinking that it took the rest of the world decades to catch up.

Here, then, are 11 game-changing car innovations from the United States.

1. Cruise control

Frustrated by his lawyer’s inability to drive at a constant speed on a straight empty road, inventor Ralph Teetor conceived cruise control in the 1940s – though it would be a full decade before it made it to production on the 1958 Imperial.

Cruise control (continued)

It was a simple idea: the driver twisted a dial located in the centre of the instrument panel to select the required speed between 30 and 80mph and the car would would take over.

This Auto-Pilot system could also work as a speed limiter, or more precisely, speed reminder; choose a speed and the car would warn you if you were in danger of crossing it by increasing the accelerator pedal resistance.

2. Self-dipping lights

Headlights that switch on automatically at night and dip the beam in the face of oncoming traffic have only recently made on to the spec lists of modern European cars. 

But some American cars were fitted with the technology back when Brits were still buying butter with their ration books.

Self-dipping lights (cont.)

GM’s automatic light-dipping gadget was called Autronic Eye and worked via a strange pod mounted on the dash top that housed a light-sensing phototube.

By the mid-1950s GM had introduced Twilight Sentinel, a companion system that switched the headlights on and off depending on ambient light conditions.

3. Electric starter

Early cars were started via a handle that turned the crankshaft, which wasn’t just tiring – it also caused more than its fair share of injuries.

According to legend, an automotive engineer called Byron Carter, who’d stopped to help start a woman’s stalled Cadillac, was hit in the jaw by the handle when the car backfired, and unfortunately later died.

Electric starter (cont.)

Apparently, Cadillac founder Henry M. Leland was spurred on by the tragic tale to fit electric starters to its cars, starting in 1912.

Charles Kettering’s Delco company created a starter unit for Cadillac that could replace the starting handle and produced a current for lights and ignition. 

4. Air conditioning

Until the 1990s, only the most expensive British and European cars came with air conditioning, but luxury US marque Packard offered a fairly basic system as early as 1939.

Air conditioning (cont.)

Cadillac launched its fully automatic Comfort Control in 1964, and by 1969, when the pictured Camaro was built, over half of all cars sold in the US were fitted with air conditioning.

5. Turbocharging

Porsche, BMW and Saab introduced European car fans to turbocharged power in the mid 1970s, but over in the US General Motors had offered the same thing to its customers an entire decade earlier.

Turbocharging (cont.)

Fitting a turbocharger almost doubled the 80bhp of the Corvair Monza’s flat-six and gave Oldsmobile’s comparatively small 3.5-litre V8 the punch of a much bigger engine – though the Olds’ version was dogged by reliability problems and swiftly killed off.

6. Sequential turn signals

If you’ve followed a modern Audi at a road junction you might have seen the narrow strip of light from its LED indicators slide left or right in the direction of intended travel.

Nice trick, but it’s one borrowed from Ford, which offered something similar (minus the LED bit) on its 1965 Thunderbird.

Sequential turn signals (cont.)

From 1967, Ford offered the same technology on two Mustang spinoffs, the Mercury Cougar and Shelby GT350/GT500.

Ironically, Audi can’t use its clever European-spec Dynamic Light system in the US – the law says the lit area isn’t big enough, so the main light unit must also flash at the same time. 

7. Power-assisted steering

Before the 1950s, Detroit-built cars came with huge steering wheels and massively slow steering ratios to make steering weight bearable for drivers.

Chrysler was the first of the Big Three companies to artificially lighten steering loads when it offered power-assisted steering on its Imperial-branded cars in 1951.

Power-assisted steering (cont.)

Chrysler’s system was based on expired patents from Francis W. Davis, who’d worked on the concept while employed by General Motors years earlier.

GM had declined to pursue the idea, citing high costs, but changed its mind promptly, introducing power steering on Cadillacs in 1952.

8. Anti-lock brakes

Mercedes pioneered the use of modern four-channel anti-lock brakes when it introduced a Bosch-developed ABS option on its flagship W116 S-class in 1978. But it wasn’t the first to put the skids on skids.

Anti-lock brakes (cont.)

It was Chrysler, and its Imperial brand (making a third entry in this list, if you’re counting) that got there first, offering a Bendix system in 1971.

Unlike the Bosch/Merc setup, which could control all four wheels independently, the Chrysler version operated on just three channels, meaning one valve controlled both rear brakes.

9. Deformable bumpers

Shiny chrome bumpers are a key ingredient on almost all 1960s and 1970s classics, such as the Plymouth Roadrunner in this picture. But they’re not particularly resistant to parking knocks and difficult to repair if you pick up a ding.

Deformable bumpers (cont.)

Pontiac’s answer was the Endura front bumper fitted to the 1968 GTO. Made of polyurethane and painted the same hue as the body panels, it could withstand minor parking impacts.

Pontiac even released a TV advert showing a load of engineers beating one with a crowbar to show how tough it was. Strangely, the rear bumper stuck with chrome.

10. Clean exhaust emissions

A desperate need to improve Los Angeles’ terrible air quality prompted the introduction of the world’s first car emissions regulations in the early 1960s. From 1961, all cars sold in California had to be fitted with positive crankcase ventilation, recycling evil crankcase fumes back into the engine.

By 1968 all cars sold in the US were required to meet new tailpipe emissions standards and catalytic converters, which required lead-free fuel, were mandatory from 1975 – almost 20 years before Europe followed suit.

Clean exhaust emissions (cont.)

That was great for clean air, but not so great for performance. Legendary US engines such as Chrysler’s Hemi were killed off and performance cars that did survive into the mid-1970s were massively neutered.

Pontiac’s fastest Firebird made 310bhp in 1971; by 1976 it coughed out just 200, and it would be another 10 years before performance levels started to recover.

11. Automatic transmission

Unless you were driving a Cadillac, which had introduced a fully-synchronised manual transmission in 1928, changing gear back in the 1930s took skill and patience, two traits many drivers lacked.

The big car companies battled to make life easier for their drivers with partially automated transmissions, but it was GM who gave us the world’s first mass-produced automatic transmission, the HydraMatic.

Automatic transmission (cont.)

Introduced in 1939 for 1940-year cars, GM actually trialled the technology on Oldsmobiles first, waiting until 1941 when it knew the transmission was reliable before installing it in its flagship Cadillac brand.

HydraMatic combined four ratios with a fluid coupling in place of a clutch for truly automated gear changes, though unlike modern autos (and GM’s own later Turbo-Hydramatic) it lacked a torque converter, so could not provide torque multiplication.

Still, with Caddy’s legendary L-head V8 under the bonnet, there was plenty of torque to go around.