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My mom had a 1977 Mercedes Benz 450 SEL. She let me drive it. It was a fucking tank. Carl Benz was the first to mass produce automobiles.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: January 29, 1886--
First vehicle I drove was my dad’s beat-up Ford truck on a gravel road. It was a stick shift, and I was 12. You know how dads yell about holding the flashlight? Imagine trying a clutch for the first time. Actually, imagine trying to drive this fucking thing. It was the opposite of my mom’s car. A stiff breeze could blow it over. And don’t wear a scarf or it might get caught in that spinning belt behind the seat and strangle the fuck out of you. Is that a steering … wheel?
Carl Benz was born in 1844. He followed in his father’s footsteps to study locomotive engineering but struggled to find his place. Despite some business problems, he patented numerous inventions, including the two-stroke engine, the spark plug, clutch, carburetor, gear shift, radiator, and throttle. It was on January 29, 1886 that he patented his first vehicle: The Benz Patent-Motorwagen. He began selling them in 1888; it was the first ever commercially available motorized vehicle. Continues below …
I’m mostly a Toyota man now, and our minivan is a 2009 and even though our kids are grown fucking I’m buying another minivan because bike racks are a pain in the ass and our bikes just slide right into the back no problem but Toyota’s aren’t cheap so you know where this is going right please click the green button.
We know what happened next. People fucking loved cars and there was money in making better ones to get you to go into debt to buy them and pollute the planet. Speaking of vehicular innovation, remember that sweet Ferrari from the original Magnum P.I.? The 308 GTS? Kia makes a minivan now that can out accelerate it.
Let’s talk buggy whips. Actually, first a bit about early 19th century England and the textile workers calling themselves Luddites who didn’t want to adapt to using new textile machinery. They’d developed skills that were becoming obsolete, and they were pissed. They even got violent. In that same spirit of believing that the more that things change the more they suck, buggy whip makers failed to roll with the changes. They were in the minority.
At the time that Benz created his first motor vehicle, horse-drawn wagon and carriage manufacturing was big business. Many who made parts for those carriages saw motor vehicles becoming more in demand, and they adapted their product offerings to the new automobile manufacturers springing up all over. Studebaker was in the carriage-making business first, switching to manufacturing motor vehicles in 1902.
There are those who criticize the buggy whip maker analogy as a failure to adapt to changing times, but it has merit. Companies that made roller bearings for carriage wheels could easily adapt their product to automobiles. But you don’t need a fancy horse whip to make a car go. Maybe they could have switched to leather steering wheel covers? But they didn’t, and they failed capitalism.
I live in Alberta, and we are failing capitalism. As of writing we have a regressive right-wing government that fucking loves pandering to big oil, even though it’s a dying industry. Unlike buggy whip makers, we have the ability to adapt to renewables. Alas, many refuse.
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