5 simple innovations that changed motoring forever (and one that could)

The global car market is an arms race between a, relatively, large number of manufacturers owned by a much smaller number of big companies. In that race, the best a manufacturer can hope for is that it can bring an entirely new innovation to market before any of its competitors do. Failing that, it’ll hope that it can present that innovation in a manner or at a cost that its competitors simply cannot match.

Right now, some those innovations can seem silly and overwrought (hands up if you’ve ever been blinded by an over-enthusiastic set of automatic headlights) but that’s hardly a new state of being for the car industry.

At various times we’ve tried to replace the steering wheel with all manner of objects and replace the internal combustion engine with nuclear reactors. Despite the best efforts of designers and engineers over the years, both remain resolutely part of most cars built today.

Every now and then though, an innovation comes along that’s so simple it’s difficult to believe that no one thought about it before. The very best of these innovations are so effective that they become commonplace in cars across the board, from the luxurious wheels of the uber wealthy to the cheap and cheerful hatches that are so popular among first time buyers.

We’ve outlined a few of our favourites from history as well as one that could make complete sense.

1. Rearview mirror

If you take a standard view of history, then you probably acknowledge Karl Benz as the inventor of the modern automobile, with the first car being his Benz Patent-Motorwagen, first built in 1885. Around the same time, there were a number of people working on similar concepts and marques such Daimler, Studebaker and Peugeot were pretty well established by the turn of the century.

It seems however that it was only in 1906 that someone had the idea of putting in a mirror that allowed drivers to see what was happening behind them. In her 1906 book The Woman and the Car Dorothy Levitt notes that women should “carry a little hand-mirror in a convenient place when driving” so they may “hold the mirror aloft from time to time in order to see behind while driving in traffic”. Sounds safe right?

It wouldn’t be until 1914 that manufacturers would start introducing rearview mirrors (that didn’t have to be held in your hand) as standard. To be fair, there wasn’t much traffic around in the early days of motoring, but can you imagine trying to reverse, change lanes or brake suddenly without the benefit of a rearview mirror?

2. The three pedal, gear lever layout

One of the first things any new driver learns is the layout of the pedals and — if they’re driving a manual car — how the gears work. Aside from minor variations in the latter, the layout is generally the same in most cars. It has to be, otherwise everyone would have to re-learn how to drive every time they bought a new car.

Thing is, that was the case for a lot longer than you might imagine. Even the world’s first mass produced car, the Model T, had a layout that would seem completely bonkers to most modern day drivers.

The first car to come with the layout we’re all familiar with today was the Cadillac Type 53, which remained in production for one year only: 1916. It did however inspire the Austin 7, which ran from 1922 until 1939 and was massively popular.

3. Cruise control

You’d imagine that cruise control is a relatively modern innovation, designed only when people started driving long enough distances that we’d appreciate something that freed up our legs for balncing a fast food meal on (yes, we are aware that it also saves petrol on long journeys).

The technology’s history actually stretches pretty far back. Speed control with a centrifugal governor first appeared in trains in 1788 and in cars in 1910.

Modern cruise control meanwhile was invented in 1948 by the inventor and mechanical engineer Ralph Teetor. It came about primarily because driving with his lawyer, who sped up and slowed down every time he talked, left him so frustrated.

4. Three-point seat belt

Image: Gerdbrendel via Wikipedia

Every year seatbelts save thousands upon thousands of lives, but our resistance both to seatbelts themselves and any changes to seatbelts has been staggering.

Despite being invented in the early 19th Century, most car manufacturers didn’t start introducing them as standard until the 1950s.

As this was starting to happen, Swedish inventor Nils Bohlin developed the first three-point seatbelt, having previously worked on ejection seats at Saab. Effectively a combination of lap and sash belts, the beauty of a three-point seat belt is that it spreads out the energy of the moving body over the chest, pelvis, and shoulders in a collision, greatly reducing the risk and severity of injury.

After introducing the three-point seat belt in the 1959 Volvo 122 , the Swedish car maker made the new design patent open in the interest of safety, allowing other car manufacturers for free.

5. Independent suspension

Image: Ralf Roletschek via Wikimedia Commons

Without independent suspension in at least your front wheels, driving would be an uncomfortable nightmare. Broadly speaking, the system allows each wheel on the same axle to move vertically (i.e. reacting to a bump in the road) independently of each other.

The most innovative early attempt at doing this came in the form of the Citroen DS, which used hydraulics to provide a self-levelling system. The suspension allowed the car to achieve sharp handling combined with very high ride quality, frequently compared to a “magic carpet”.

Motoring innovation isn’t just a thing of the past though. Here’s one simple innovation that we think could lead the way in modern budget cars:

The stereo in the Datsun Go

The new Datsun Go, Nissan’s first attempt at bringing back its most famous abandoned badge, doesn’t have a radio. It has speakers and an audio connector with a docking station. In other words, you can only play music through your phone (or iPod, but honestly it’s more likely going to be your phone).

In an incredibly cost-effective manner, it’s managed to put the smartphone at the centre of the driving experience. The adaptable docking station means that you can safely make phone calls, navigate and listen to music without having to fish it out from under the seat like you would in most budget cars.

Also, let’s be honest for a moment: given the right music, or podcasts, most of us could really do without FM radio in our cars.