On this day in 2000, 19-year-old Adam Petty, son of Winston Cup driver Kyle Petty and grandson of National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) icon Richard Petty, is killed after crashing into a wall during practice for a Grand National race at Loudon, New Hampshire. The young Petty was the first fourth-generation driver […]
Category Archives: Automotive
NASCAR Legend Lee Petty Dies
On April 5, 2000, Lee Petty, an early star of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and the patriarch of a racing dynasty that includes his son, NASCAR legend Richard Petty, dies at the age 86 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Lee Petty won more than 50 races during his career, including three […]
Three Race Fans Killed At Michigan Speedway
The U.S. 500, the most prestigious race in the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series, dissolves into tragedy on this day in 1998, when three fans are killed and six others wounded by flying debris from a car at Michigan Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. CART (later known as Champ Car) was an open-wheel racing circuit […]
Bidding Starts On South Korea’s Kia Motors Corp.
On this day in 1998, South Korea’s government opens the bidding for the Kia Motors Corporation, the country’s third-largest car company, which went bankrupt during an economic crisis that gripped much of Asia. Founded on the outskirts of Seoul in 1944, Kia began as a small manufacturer of steel tubing and bicycle parts. The name […]
Autoworkers’ Union Calls Strike At GM Parts Factory
On this day in 1998, 3,400 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union walk out on their jobs at a General Motors (GM) metal-stamping factory in Flint, Michigan, beginning a strike that will last seven weeks and stall production at GM facilities nationwide. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, after rising fuel prices […]
Daimler-Benz Announces Purchase Of Chrysler Corp.
On this day in 1998, the German automobile company Daimler-Benz–maker of the world-famous luxury car brand Mercedes-Benz–announces a $36 billion merger with the United States-based Chrysler Corporation. The purchase of Chrysler, America’s third-largest car company, by the Stuttgart-based Daimler-Benz marked the biggest acquisition by a foreign buyer of any U.S. company in history. Though marketed […]
Entertainer Bill Cosby’s Son Murdered Along CA Interstate
On this day in 1997, comedian and TV star Bill Cosby’s 27-year-old son Ennis Cosby is murdered after he stops to fix a flat tire along California’s Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. The 405, which runs some 70 miles from Irvine to San Fernando, is known as one of the planet’s busiest and most congested […]
GM Announces Its Electric Car
On this day in 1996, General Motors announces at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show it will build an electric car, dubbed the EV1, to be launched in the fall of that year. The EV1 wasn’t an entirely new concept, as electric vehicles had been around since the auto industry’s nascent days. In the early […]