Biography Carl Benz (Founder Mercedes Benz)

German inventor Carl Benz (1844-1929) is one of the many individuals given credit for the creation of the first automobile. In 1885 he invented the motorized tricycle, which became the first "horseless carriage" to be driven by an internal combustion engine. Benz's contributions to automotive design also included the creation of such features as a carburetor and an electrical ignition system.

Carl Benz was a German engineer and inventor who was responsible for many contributions to the design of modern automobiles. He developed an internal combustion gasoline engine for his 1885 version of the "horseless carriage," which was initially a three-wheeled vehicle. Other innovations by Benz included a simple carburetor, an electrical ignition system, rack-and-pinion steering, and water cooling. For his development of the 1885 motorized tricycle, Benz is given credit by some for creating the first automobile, while others contend that the three-wheel design did not constitute a true modern car. Regardless of his right to the title of inventor of the automobile, Benz did leave his mark on the auto industry by pioneering one of the first marketable motorized vehicles and founding the automobile company that came to be known as Mercedes-Benz.

Benz was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, on November 25, 1844. His father was a railroad engineer who died of pneumonia when his son was two years old. The income that Benz's mother received after the death of her husband was small, and Benz was called upon to help support the family as soon as he was old enough. Even as a boy, Benz was fascinated with technology, and he was able to use his talents in this area to make extra money. His earliest jobs were fixing watches and clocks, and he later constructed a darkroom where he would develop pictures for tourists visiting the nearby Black Forest.

Benz's facility for technical matters was also displayed in school, where he worked as an assistant for a physics teacher. He continued his education at Karlsruhe Polytechnic and then went to work for an engine manufacturer. Benz had a very specific motive for working at the engine plant--he dreamed of creating a horseless carriage, and he wanted to learn as much as he could about engines. After gathering what knowledge he could there, in 1871 he moved on to a position with a wagon and pump company in Mannheim, Germany, where he gained more valuable experience. By 1872, he was ready to open his own engine shop. Just before starting his business, he married Berta Ringer.

Founded Successful Engine Companies

Benz was quite successful as a manufacturer, selling a large number of engines and winning the confidence of investors. With the financial backing of others, he founded the Mannheim Gas Engine Manufacturing Company, which he intended to use in part to develop his horseless carriage. Even though the venture quickly made a profit, Benz's investors did not want him to spend valuable resources on inventions. Benz unsuccessfully fought their decision and, after being in business for only three months, left the company. He quickly lined up new shareholders and founded a third business, Benz and Company, in October of 1883. The company was to sell stationary gas engines, but the new investors were also willing to support Benz's horseless carriage as long as it did not detract from the production of the primary product.

After two decades of planning his horseless carriage, Benz finally had the resources to make it a reality. In 1885, he debuted his automobile, a motorized tricycle that was revolutionary primarily for its use of a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. Earlier in the century, self-propelled vehicles had been developed with steam engines, but the internal combustion engine marked an important breakthrough for automobiles. It provided a lighter, more compact, and more efficient means of powering a vehicle. It was the adoption of the internal combustion engine that made Benz's car a truly practical and appealing consumer product. For this reason, many consider Benz's 1885 motorized tricycle the first automobile.

Horseless Carriage Demonstrated in 1885

Another important feature of Benz's vehicle was an electrical ignition system that used a battery to start the engine. This system became the basic model for all later ignitions. The tricycle also incorporated a carburetor, rack-and-pinion steering, a water cooling system, and rear springs. Benz held a public demonstration in the fall of 1885 to promote his invention, although he claimed to have first driven it the previous spring. On the road near his workshop, Benz and his wife began a ride on the automobile in front of a gathering of witnesses. After apparently forgetting to steer the tricycle, however, Benz quickly ran into a brick wall. Both passengers emerged from this early auto accident without injuries. The mishap did not dampen enthusiasm for Benz's creation--a positive review of the vehicle appeared the following summer in the publication Neue Badische Landeszeitung.

Benz continued to improve his design with the introduction of a second gear, a larger, 3-horsepower engine, and improved brakes and springs. The first sale of a Benz automobile occurred in 1887, after it had been displayed at the Paris Exhibition earlier in the year. At the Munich Imperial Exhibition in 1888, Benz was awarded a gold medal for his invention. This recognition brought in many orders for the automobile, which at that time was a novelty that was only affordable by the wealthy. Still, business was so good that the Benz Company grew to 50 workers by 1889 and soon moved to a larger factory where a new four-wheeled model began production in 1890.

Benz had given into the idea of a four-wheeled automobile reluctantly and only after much lobbying by others in his company who sought a more modern design. Unlike other automobile inventors, Benz did not feel that a car needed to physically resemble the traditional four-wheeled carriage. After the model of 1890, he was even more opposed to changes in his design. His opinions were so strong that after a major update of the Benz automobile in 1905, the manufacturer continued to drive his older models of the car.

Encountered Competition from Daimler Cars

One major challenger of Benz's claim to be the inventor of the automobile was a fellow German, Gottlieb Daimler. Daimler had created a better internal combustion engine and patented it five months before Benz's engine. The first vehicle in which he demonstrated his, however, was a bicycle, resulting in the first motorcycle. Those supporting Benz argued that the two-wheeled vehicle resembled the modern automobile less than the Benz tricycle. Regardless, Daimler also went on to become a successful producer of four-wheeled automobiles and became one of Benz's strongest competitors in both French and German markets. To try to gain a greater share of the French market, Daimler gave his car a French-sounding name--Mercedes--at the suggestion of a business partner. Despite their professional interest in each other, Benz and Daimler never met.

The Daimler company continued to do business after its founder died in 1900. Both it and the Benz company suffered a downturn during the economic depression after World War I. To strengthen their chances of survival, the companies merged to form Mercedes-Benz in 1926. By that time, Benz was no longer closely involved with the operation of the business, although he continued to receive recognition for his accomplishments as an automotive pioneer. His cars were collected by museums, and he was honored with a special procession of hundreds of automobiles from the city of Heidelberg to his home in Ladenburg in 1929. On that occasion, a number of prominent people made speeches in his honor and proclaimed him the inventor of the automobile. Two days later, on April 4, 1929, Benz died at his home in Ladenburg. Although later automotive innovators such as Henry Ford turned the car into a more successful product for the general public, Benz is remembered for his inventive genius and his groundbreaking work to create and market the first commercial automobile.
Ref :
http://www.bookrags.com/biography/carl-benz/

Read More..

Biography Soichiro Honda (Founder Honda Motor Company)

A dream
Throughout his life, Soichiro Honda never forgot the day he became a small figure who ran hopelessly after the first motor car he ever saw.

Long before it actually reached Yamahigashi, a small village in Japan's Shizuoka prefecture (now called Tenryu-shi), its own extraordinary noise heralded its imminent arrival. The small boy who heard the rumble was at first astonished, then excited, and finally enthralled, by it.

Later he would describe that moment as one of those life-changing experiences. He was seeing his first car, and as he began to tremble the closer it drew, and the dust cloud of its passage engulfed him, something inside him was triggered off.

"I turned and chase after that car for all I was worth," he said later. "I could not understand how it could move under its own power. And when it had driven past me, without even thinking why I found myself chasing it down the road, as hard as I could run."

He had no chance of catching it, and the experience became a symbol for his life: always he was chasing something that was just beyond his reach. By the time the road was empty and the car long departed, the young boy continued to stand there breathing in its gasoline stench. When he came upon a drop of its precious lifeblood spilled on the dusty track, he dropped to his knees and sniffed the oily stain like a man in a desert smelling water.

Childhood

Soichiro Honda was born in Yamahigashi on November 17 1906. His father, Gihei Honda, was the local blacksmith but could turn his hands to most things, including dentistry when the need arose. His mother, Mika, was a weaver.
Honda's subsequent spirit of adventure and determination to explore the development of new technology had its roots in his childhood. The family was not wealthy, but Gihei Honda instilled into his children the ethic of hard work, and a love of mechanical things. Soichiro soon learned how to whet the blades of farm machinery, and how to make his own toys. A nearby rice mill was powered by a small engine, and the noise fascinated him. He would demand daily that his grandfather took him to watch it in action. At school he got the nickname 'black nose weasel', which is less derogatory in Japanese than it sounds in English, because his face was always dirty from helping his father in the forge.

Soichiro Honda's childhood days are full of examples of technical ingenuity, including using a bicycle pedal rubber to forge his family's seal on school reports that were less than promising.

The bicycles had another use: those that his father sold from the shop he subsequently opened helped Honda to hone his engineering skills. As he grew, the dream of the car on the country road acted like a magnetic force, drawing him ever closer towards things mechanical. In 1917 a pilot called Art Smith flew into the Wachiyama military airfield to demonstrate his biplane's aerobatic capabilities. Honda raided the family's petty cash box, 'borrowed' one of his father's bicycles and rode the 20 kilometers to a place he had never before visited. When he got there he soon realized that the price of admission, let alone a flight, was far beyond his meagre means, but after climbing a tree he watched the plane in motion, and that was enough. When Gihei Honda learned what his son had done to get to the airfield, he was more impressed with his initiative, determination and resilience than he was angry with him for taking the money and the bike.

Adult years

By 1922 Honda was working in an auto shop in Tokyo called Art Shokai. Initially he had done menial tasks, but more and more he became a trusted mechanic. He worked on the racing car Art Daimler, then the famous machine born from the marriage of a Curtiss aircraft engine and an American Mitchell chassis. The need to make parts for this monster taught him things that would be invaluable later in life.

When Shinichi Sakibahara raced the car for the first time at Tsurumi, and won the Chairman's Trophy, the young man riding alongside as his mechanic was Soichiro Honda. He was 17 years old.

As customers brought in Mercedes, Lincolns and Daimlers for attention, Honda's experience grew in proportion with his ambition. Four years after that first race he started his own Art Shokai auto shop in Hamamatsu . It opened its doors for business on the day that, thousands of miles away on Daytona Beach , Frank Lockhart crashed to his death trying to break the land speed record. April 25, 1928. The American track star and the Japanese kid lived in different worlds but had much in common besides their willingness to take a risk. Lockhart's mechanical genius had set new standards for record car design, and in the years that followed Soichiro Honda's own technological ideas would similarly revolutionize Japan 's motorcycle and automobile industries.

Yet Honda himself never sought dominance in his homeland. At a time when nationalism was at its peak, he always saw the bigger picture. "I knew that if I could succeed in the world market," he said, "then automatically it would follow that we led in the Japanese market."

Employees in the Art Shokai shop soon came to understand that sloppy workmanship and poor performance would not be tolerated, but while his tool-hurling antics did not always encourage loyalty, those who stayed recognized his total determination to succeed and to establish an engineering business second to none. And Honda was sufficiently aware of his own managerial shortcomings.

Honda Motor Company

The history of the Honda Motor Company began with the vision of one man - Soichiro Honda. His dream was personal mobility for everyone.

Honda Motor Co. Ltd. was established in September 1948, initially to build small capacity motorcycles to get Japanese workers mobile. While Honda focused his considerable energies on the engineering side, using all the experience he had painstakingly accumulated, including time out taken to study piston ring design at Hamamatsu tech and subsequent experimentation with a small engine-powered bicycle, he left the running of the company in the hands of Takeo Fujisawa. His most trusted friend and urged him to look to the long-term. They complemented one another perfectly.

When the first fruits of their partnership hit the streets it was a 98cc two-stroke motorcycle appropriately named 'Dream' . Several times Honda Motor Co. sailed close to the rocks in the years that followed, for both Honda and Fujisawa were gamblers who knew that expansion would only be possible with risk. Growth at one stage was unprecedented, until the purchase of state-or-the-art machinery in the early Fifties led them perilously close to bankruptcy. But Honda was never faint-hearted.

'Challenging the Limits' is a phrase commonly heard across the length and breadth of Honda. It was made popular by its founder, Soichiro Honda, who knew that his fledgling company had to out-think and out-perform its competitors every step of the way in order to survive. After all, he started out at a time when his country was devastated by war.

To make these things, Honda also changed marketing methods, and manufacturing. High quality comes from a creative combination of design for use and design for manufacturing, all aimed to hit a specific market need. A product that can be made in easy steps can be made well, and a product that does its job reliably pleases its users.

The step-through Honda Cub was the first international success for the Honda Motor Company, and it was a model for all the successes that were to follow. Recognize a need, create a unique way to satisfy it, incorporate unusual performance, quality and reliability, then build from an expanding reputation into yet other areas. This pattern defined the Honda Way. A need was recognized, and after trial and error, the trouble-free, easy-to-operate 50cc Cub was created.

Marketing targeted the general public with good, clean two-wheeled fun, and introduced millions to motorcycling. When the market was saturated, Honda had the vision to see that a similarly trouble-free kind of sports motorcycle could become equally popular, building on the proven reputation of the Cub. As that success expanded into many countries, Honda expanded its line, always offering customers a step up to more sophisticated models.

Honda opened his first dealership in Los Angeles with six employees in 1959. By 1963, Honda was the top-selling brand of motorcycles in the United States. In 1961 the company produced 100000 motorcycles in a month, and in 1968 Honda has sold its 'millionth' bike. Till the end of 80's Honda has held a 60% position on the world market of motorcycles, and in 1990 the yearly output of bikes has reaches 3 million items. Now the dream of his childhood was becoming real. Soon thereafter came auto production, and the rest of the story is familiar recent history.

'Racing is in our blood'

Later his reaction was to embark on the Tourist Trophy race program that would eventually make Honda's name as an international motorcycle manufacturer. It took him five years, but by 1959 Hondas were racing on the Isle of Man. Two years later they were the talk of the TT.

Soichiro Honda was the prototypical F1 engineer. He was always probing new limits of technology, always seeking better and greater feedback from the men who rode or drove the machines that bore his name. He preached the gospel that ambition was no sin, and that success was the reward for hard work and investment. Honda was the first major manufacturer to understand that motorsport was the perfect crucible in which to develop not just superior machines, but superior engineers, and today every global player in the F1 game rotates its engineers through its motorsport programs.

Honda's lifestyle and last days

Yet there was more than even that to Honda. He and his wife Sachi both held private pilot's licences, he was still skiing, hang-gliding and ballooning at 77, and he was a highly accomplished artist. And he was a man of rare understanding. He had never wanted to follow his father in the smithy or the bicycle shop, and he and Fujisawa made a pact never to force their own sons to join the company. Soichiro Honda died in Tokyo's Juntendo Hospital on August 5 1991, aged 84 years and eight months.

Ref :
http://www.myviplife.com/lifestories/vipbusiness/Soichiro_Honda_bi.php?c=3

Read More..

Biography Henry Ford (Founder Ford Motor Company)

Henry Ford was an inventor, philanthropist and successful American businessman. Ford was the founder of the still popular Ford Motor Company which had its first success with the Model T Ford car that was released in 1908. Henry Ford revolutionized the way cars were designed and built, introducing assembly line factories for producing mass amounts of vehicles that led to lower prices for consumers and an explosion in car ownership throughout the United States.

Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863 in Dearborn, Michigan, United States, in what was then known as Springwells Township. Ford's parents were Irish immigrants and the family lived on a farm, with Henry Ford being the eldest of six children. The family had a comfortable upbringing on the farm with a decent income, but even as a young person, Ford believed there was too much work and not enough income living from the land.

"It was life on the farm that drove me into devising ways and means to better transportation. I was born on July 30, 1863, on a farm at Dearborn, Michigan, and my earliest recollection is that, considering the results, there was too much work on the place." Henry Ford Quote

Ford began his career as an apprentice machinist in 1879, then returned to his family farm in 1882 before starting work with the Westinghouse company to service their steam engines. Ford then went to work at the Edison Illuminating Company where he became chief engineer in 1893.

Henry Ford had always enjoyed mechanical things and was always trying to improve or create more useful machinery. In 1893 he created his first gasoline driven buggy or Quadricycle that was completely self propelled. He then started the Detroit Automobile Company with several other investors to improve on his design, but the company went bankrupt soon after. Ford then started the Henry Ford Company, which he also left, before eventually starting the Ford Motor Company in 1903.

The Ford Motor Company released the successful Model T car in 1908. Generally cars were built one at a time and were only accessible to the very wealthy, but Ford continued to improve the way the cars were manufactured. In 1913 the cars were being mass produced by one of the first moving assembly lines. In 1918, half of the total amount of cars in the United States were Model T's, 15 million cars were sold, and production of the Model T was finally stopped in 1927.

By 1926, flagging sales of the Model T finally convinced Henry to make a new model. Henry pursued the project with a great deal of technical expertise in design of the engine, chassis, and other mechanical necessities, while leaving the body design to his son. Edsel also managed to prevail over his father's initial objections in the inclusion of a sliding-shift transmission.
The result was the successful Ford Model A, introduced in December 1927 and produced through 1931, with a total output of more than 4 million. Subsequently, the Ford company adopted an annual model change system similar to that recently pioneered by its competitor General Motors (and still in use by automakers today). Not until the 1930s did Ford overcome his objection to finance companies, and the Ford-owned Universal Credit Corporation became a major car-financing operation.


Ford also had interests in politics but was never successful as a politician, and unsuccessfully ran for Senate as a Democrat. He also had strong views on labor and how the workforce should be treated. He paid his workers more money for less working days and made the 5 day 40 hour working week a normal part of working life.

Henry Ford created the Ford Foundation in 1936 to promote human welfare through research grants, educational grants and development.

In 1947, at the age 83 Henry Ford died of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit.

Ref :
http://www.woopidoo.com/biography/henry-ford/index.htm
Wikipedia

Read More..

Sakichi Toyoda (Founder of Toyota)

Born February 14, 1867 (1867/02/14) in Japan, died October 30, 1930 in Japan
Sakichi Toyoda is a Japanese inventor and industrialist. He was born in Kosai, Shizuoka. Son of a poor carpenter, Toyoda is referred to as "King of Japanese Inventor".

Career

Sakichi Toyoda is often referred to as the father of Japanese industrial revolution. He is also the founder of Toyota Industries Co., Ltd.
He created a variety of weaving device. The most famous invention is the automatic power loom in which he applied the principles of Jidoka (autonomous automation). Jidoka principle, which means that the machine stops itself when the problem occurs, then became part of the Toyota Production System.

Toyoda developed the concept of 5 why: When a problem occurs, ask 'why' five times to try to find the source of the problem, then put into place something to prevent these problems from recurring. This concept is used today as part of implementing lean methodologies to solve problems, improve quality and reduce costs.

History

Toyota Motor Corporation was founded in September 1933 as a division of Automatic Weaving Factory car Toyota. The company's car division and then separated on August 27, 1937 to create the Toyota Motor Corporation as today.

Departure from the textile industry, the Toyota plant itself as one of the automotive manufacturer of some standing in the world. Brands that produce 1 car every 6 seconds it was used more for the naming reference to Toyota's better than using the family name of its founder, Toyoda. Here are some exciting milestone Toyota way.

Toyota is the third largest automobile manufacturer in the world in unit sales and net sales. Japan's largest manufacturer is producing 5.5 million units worldwide. If calculated, this figure is equivalent to produce 1 unit of the car in 6 seconds.

Compared to industries other automotive uses its founder's name as the brand like Honda, founded by Soichiro Honda, Daimler-Benz (Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz), Ford (Henry Ford), Toyoda name not be used as a brand. Since the departure from simple ideas and vision that time, the mention Toyoda less pleasant and not so intimately known to diplesetkan Toyota.

Sakichi Toyoda was born in February 1867 in Shizuoka, Japan. This man is known as the inventor since I was a teenager. Toyoda devoted his life to studying and developing textile assembly. In the 30 years of age completed Toyoda loom. This then led him to establish the origin of the Toyota assembly, namely the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd.. in November 1926.

Here patent automatic textile machinery and then sold to Platt Brothers & Co., Ltd.. from England, United Kingdom. Proceeds from sale of this patent, the development of capital used automotive division. Beginning in 1933, when the automobile division of Toyoda building, then a lot of teams run by his son Kiichiro Toyoda, producing endless innovations ahead of his time. Machinery Type A successfully completed in 1934. A year later this engine transplanted the first prototype of their passenger cars, A1. Toyoda automotive division also produces trucks G1 model.

In 1936 they launched their first passenger car, Toyoda AA (then still using the name Toyoda). This model was developed from the prototype model A1 and body and machine equipped A. This vehicle is from the beginning expected to be a people's car. Product concept Toyota on hold until now.

Four years of waiting for delivery are considered to automotive companies own and break away from their textile industries. Then in 1937 they inaugurated the automotive division and the name of Toyota, rather than Toyoda as a textile industry. Obtaining a Toyota in the Japanese language are represented in the 8 characters, and eight is a lucky number for the Japanese society. Another reason that makes sense is considered automotive industry is a business lifestyle and even the mention of a name (and what sounds like), a side that is so important. Because the name was considered too rigid Toyoda in a dynamic business that turned into a Toyota that felt better. No doubt, the year 1937 was an important era of the birth of Toyota Motor Co., Ltd.. forerunners of the giant Toyota Motor Corp. (TMC) today.

Kiichiro Toyoda spirit of innovation is never dim. Toyota later developed into producing powerful vehicles. In the 1940s, Toyota was busy developing the capital including the company entered the bourses in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.

After World War II era ended, in the 1950s is proving Toyota sebgai producing tough versatile vehicle. At the time Jeep vehicles familiar in Japan. Inspired by this car, and then develop orototipe Toyota Land Cruiser that came out in 1950. A year later was officially launched early models of the Land Cruiser BJ model.

Buln July of that year, a test driver Ichiro Taira trial ended with remarkable results. Samurai character inspired by the Heikuro Magaki Atago Mountain climbing on a horse in 1643, Taira drove his Toyota to BJ Fudo temple in town Okasaki. This well used as a promotional car toughness of all these fields. Not long ago, Toyota Land Cruiser began to rival the dominance of the Jeep Willys. Even with more models, Toyota Land Cruiser can be accepted in the market when it is difficult to penetrate the North America. Through this model, Toyota entered the market in different parts of the world, including in Indonesia known as the Toyota Land Cruiser Hardtop FJ40/45. In Africa, the models are the Toyota Land Cruiser used as an alias Technical armed jeeps equipped submachine guns, heavy guns or bazookas without starting behind (Recoilless bazooka) and deployed throughout the armed conflict with very strong performance.

Toyota is not only known through the Toyota Land Cruiser. They also developed a model that became a favorite of the world, a small sedan. Through the Corolla made its debut in 1966, the early generation small sedan was put on the back drive to change the order of the popular sedan bongsor then headed toward the small sedan a compact, efficient and compact. Entering the year 1975, the Corolla into the third generation and sold more than 5 million units. The amazing thing is still strong today. Corolla engine is then used in Indonesia as an engine for multi-purpose commercial vehicle family, the early generation Toyota Kijang known as Kijang Buaya.

Along more mengglobalnya Toyota products, they have not realized the logo graphic. Even in Indonesia found the Toyota branded vehicles such as Toyota Kijang with Toyota logo on the grille on the bonnet (nose) car. In 1989 Toyota decided to make two circles oval (ellipse) which produce the letters T and the third ellipse will indicate the spirit of understanding in design. The third circle is the circle once around the ellipse before the T-shaped as evidence of care and affect the surroundings.

In the 1990s, Toyota is increasingly proving that Japanese cars can compete with European and American cars. Toyota Celica managed to rally world champion, and the Toyota Camry became best-selling car in America.

Reference: wikipedia

Read More..