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There's A Story behind Every Car

Very rarely do we bother to look into the trouble taken to produce things that make our life easy. We take everything for granted. For example, had the automobile not existed, how would our life be? We would either have to walk mighty distances, or, our lives would be confined to the small area around our homes. Thanks to the great geniuses who invented and improved upon the primitive means of transport to create the modern car. Here's a small note on some of the cars and their founders. Every car has a story and here are small portions of the different stories.

Audi

Audi is the Latinized version of Horch. August Horch was the founder of this car manufacturing giant. The name "Horch" has an intimate relationship with the English word "hark", meaning listen and "hark" when translated into Latin, becomes Audi. Horch, a German engineer was born on 12th October, 1868 and built his first automobile at the age of 33.

BMW

Different candidates have been put forward as the founders of the Bavarian Motor Works or BMW. However, Franz Josef Popp can be considered as the prime force behind this popular brand of cars. BMW built the world's first jet airplane engines during World War II and suffered financially after the war. Hence, the company started manufacturing cars. The production of these high-performance cars was started only in 1969 which had earlier concentrated to manufacture motorcycles.

Bentley

Walter Owen Bentley was the founder of the British car maker, Bentley Motors Limited. At the age of 16, he worked as an apprentice railway engineer. He kept experimenting with motorcycles all the time. After completing the apprenticeship, he studied engineering for some time. After this, he worked at a cab company and then worked in a company called 'Bentley and Bentley' with his brother. W.O.Bentley founded his own car company 'Bentley Motors' in 1919.

Chevrolet

Chevy was founded by Louis Chevrolet and GM founder William C. Durant. Louis was a fearless automobile racer who never thought of his own safety when it came to racing. His driving skills attracted the attention of an auto executive, William Durant. The two men combined their talents to form the Chevrolet Motor Company.

Fiat

Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino or Fiat, the Italian manufacturer of automobiles was founded in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli. He led the firm until his death in 1945. Agnelli heard about the invention of the new horseless carriage and immediately saw an opportunity for using his engineering and entrepreneurial skills. He met Count Emanuele Bricherasio di Cacherano of Turin, who was looking for investors for his horseless carriage project. The result; Fiat was born.

Ford

Henry Ford worked as a machinist and then as an engineer. In his spare time, he kept experimenting on creating a motorized vehicle. In 1896, he successfully created a four-wheeled cart with a gasoline engine. In 1903, he founded the Ford Motor Company.

Honda

A rebel in a country not known for its willingness to accept such people, Soichiro Honda created an automobile giant despite the opposition of the Japanese government. Soichiro had begun his career as an apprentice auto repairman and was interested in cars and racing. Soon he was experimenting with engines and founded the Honda Motor Co. in 1946.

Hyundai

Hyundai in Korean means modernity. Chung Ju-yung showed an early inclination for entrepreneurship. He tried to leave his village in search of better prospects. In his first attempt at the age of 16, he financed his journey by selling the family's only cow for a small fee. He finally succeeded in 1931, when he was 18. He had found work as a construction labourer. After surviving the Korean War, he set up two new companies dealing in auto repairs and construction. These became the base of the vast empire, the Hyundai Group.

Mahindra

The company was set up in 1945 in Ludhiana as Mahindra & Mohammed. But, after India's partition, Ghulam Muhammad returned to Pakistan and became the first finance minister there. The name was then changed to Mahindra & Mahindra in 1948. Mahindra & Mahindra which was a manufacturer of army vehicles has now grown into a major automobile and tractor manufacturer.

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz has its roots in Karl Benz's creation of the first petrol-powered motorcycle in January 1886, and by Gottlieb Daimler and engineer Wilhelm Maybach's conversion of an 1873 Bollee steam-engine automobile by the addition of a petrol engine the same year.

Nissan

The company got the name 'Nissan' only during the 1930s. Earlier, it was DAT Motorcar Co., a name got from the company's partners' family names; Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi. In 1931, the company came out with a new smaller car, "Datson", meaning "Son of DAT". It was then changed to "sun", because "son" also means "loss" in Japanese, hence the name "Datsun". Datsun changed to Nissan in the 1930s.

Porsche

Professor Ferdinand Porsche founded the company Porsche SE in 1931. Without a complete engineering degree, Porsche entered the field of automobile design in his mid-twenties. He patented an electric motor and also presented an electric car at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900.

Volkswagen

Volkswagen means "people's car" in German. Volkswagen was founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front. However, its origins lay in Ferdinand Porsche's designs for small cars in the early 1930s, the most significant of which was his design for a 'people's car', the Volkswagen Beetle.

Volvo

Volvo in Latin means "I roll". In 1924, Assar Gabrielsson, a SKF Sales Manager, and Engineer Gustav Larson, decided to start construction of a Swedish car. They wanted to build cars that could withstand the rigors of Sweden's rough roads and cold temperatures. Volvo products seem to comprise of this main feature till date.

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