and lower prices.[N 1] To an increasing extent, the owners of these vehicles began using them on the country roads, as well as the city streets, bringing about a rural road crisis that began to be seriously felt by about 1910.
Competitive Auto Racing Spurs Vehicle Development
Some of the pre-1900 autos were used as for-hire cabs in the cities, but most were owned by wealthy people who used them for personal convenience and as pleasure vehicles. In Europe, where there were many miles of smooth macadam roads, road racing by wealthy owner-drivers was a popular sport. Backed by motor car manufacturers and tire makers, road racing eventually became big business there, and contributed a great deal to the rapid improvement of motor design and mechanical reliability, which, in turn, gave Europe undisputed leadership of the motor car industry up to the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1914.
As the Wheelmen had done before them, the American motorists organized themselves into clubs for social enjoyment of their hobby and to protect themselves from restrictive legislation. The Automobile Club of America, one of the oldest of these social clubs, organized a road race, which was run on April 14, 1900, between Springfield and Babylon, Long Island. A 5-horsepower electric car won this 50-mile event in the surprisingly good time of 2 hours 3½ minutes, followed by a steamer (2 hours 18 minutes) and a gasoline car (2 hours 30 minutes).[2] However, road racing never became popular in the United States, partly because of hostile laws, but mostly for lack of sufficient mileage of reasonably motor able roads.[N 2]
“Toot ‘n’ be darned.” A common problem when horsedrawn vehicles and automobiles mixed on narrow roads.
Harry Grant driving a 60-hp Berliet at Lowell, Mass, Sept. 7, 1908. Grant came in second.
- ↑ Annual production of U.S.-made motor vehicles was 25,000 in 1905, 187,000 in 1910 and 969,930 in 1915.[1] The average new motor vehicle price in the United States in 1916 was about $605.
- ↑ In 1906 a group of racing enthusiasts, headed by William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., organized the Long Island Motor Parkway Company, which built a motor road on private right-of-way as a race course for the Vanderbilt Cup. The first unit of this parkway, opened October 10, 1908, was 11 miles long, paved with reinforced concrete, and was one of the first roads in the world to have superelevated or banked curves. When completed in 1910, this road was 45 miles long, and when not used for racing, it was opened to pleasure vehicles as a toll road.[3][4] The European counterpart of the Long Island Motor Parkway was the Avus, begun in 1913 but not completed until 1919. This was a divided highway 6 miles long laid out on an absolutely straight line from Charlottenburg to Berlin, Germany, with no grade crossings and limited access to the traffic lanes.[5] In 1909 Carl G. Fisher built a 2½-mile oval racing speedway at Indianapolis, Indiana.[6]
56
