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Generous support from the Ellen Browning Scripps Foundation Winter 2018 “The Information Place” Volume 20 # 1 The Far-Reaching Impact of Ralph Nader's Crusade

On November 30, 1965, a vancements abound in the name of scathing literary criticism of the safety and convenience. American Automobile Industry Depending on where you land was levied upon an unsuspecting in the realm of research, it cannot population by a man that some be disputed that Nader himself considered a crusader for the rights seemed to be almost embarrassing- and safety of the individual and a ly under-qualified to present his champion of the consumer; and findings to the world; he had nei- others considered him a charlatan ther a degree in automotive engi- and a muckraker who used sensa- neering, or even a drivers' license tionalism to project himself into at the time of his book being pub- the theatre of politics. Whichever lished. He proceeded undeterred angle you took on the man and his by his detractors - and even his positions, the impact of his foray harassers (he was surveilled and into consumer watch-dogging still pestered mercilessly by corporate resonates today. The man was strongmen at GM following the Ralph Nader. The book - 'Unsafe release of the book) - and proved at Any Speed.' Few examples of that at the very least, the ability to any book having the immediate cast doubt into the minds of the impact on the world that this one American consumer was infinitely did upon its release can be found - possible when done with enough even in our modern times, where bravado and self-assuredness. Ralph Nader within every industry, seemingly 'Unsafe at Any Speed' came out of exponential technological ad- the corner swinging, and everyone surrounding the Corvair was the handling of the vehicle - due to in the automotive industry was a Up Coming Events potential target - from the design- what Nader claimed was an ill- Sept 30, 2018 ers all the way to upper manage- conceived and poorly designed Palos Verdes Concourse, ment at General Motors Corpora- swing axle rear suspension. De- Zamperini Field, Torrance, CA tion. spite the fact that Motor Trend Magazine named it "Car of the Oct 27, 2018 The primary target of Nader's Year" in 1960, and that a number Palm Springs Car Show, Palm fury was the Chevrolet Corvair. Its of its foreign competitors were us- Springs Air Museum legacy was forever dogged by ing similar swing axle rear suspen- Dec 27 -30, 2018 Nader's crusade (even though the sions in their offerings (namely the San Diego International Car model's run lasted for almost a Volkswagen Beetle and the Re- Show, SCC San Diego. decade). It wasn't the fact that it nault Dauphine), the lowly Corvair was compact - or even that it was Feb 22-24, 2019 was singled-out. the only mass-produced American BIG3 Parts Exchange, San car that boasted a rear-mounted, In fact, the entire first chapter Diego air-cooled engine. The controversy was dedicated to eviscerating the Continue on Page 5 WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR NEWSLETTER? One of the biggest donations came from an auto museum. They decided to expand to make more room for vehicles, so they disman- tled some of their library and gave it to us. We had a small window of opportunity to pickup all of these items or they intended to put all of it in the recycle bin, so I made it happen. It ended up being a little short of 350 banker’s boxes worth of automotive research material. Picture of the museum donation in the trailer. It’s a special thing when re- search facilities can help out one These are some of the boxes of tear out ads another, because the clients and sales brochures that are waiting to get (meaning you, the person reading this) are the ones who benefit from sorted by year, Inventoried, and added to the that the most in the long run. database. We’ve yet to even dive into the It’s a question we’ve been get- majority of the donation, because of ting for a while; not just from mem- its size. We’re not even sure what it bers, but also from our Board of contains, but we’re soon going to Directors. “What happened to the find out. From what we’ve uncov- newsletter?” Well, the truth is, we ered already, it appears that the ma- The three of us loaded the truck and trailer in haven’t put out a new newsletter jority of what we got is late-model around 3 hours. because frankly, we’ve been franti- sales portfolios from multiple car cally busy here at the library due to lines. These aren’t just one or two pand from a pre-war inventory to an influx of donations from all over pages – these are big, glossy bind- include all years, makes, and mod- the country, and we’re just scratch- ers that are full-color and chock-full els into the inventory. In twenty ing the surface of the work that’s of specs from front bumper to rear years, when you want to know ahead. bumper of all these vehicles. Right about the engine displacement of an now, they probably aren’t worth so Though we do have several vol- Acura Integra in 2013, you’ll be much, but we here at the HCFI Li- able to find it here. unteers that come in periodically to brary are focusing on the future of help out, for the most part there is automotive research, and have been And, as you know, you’ll still only two of us here to perform day- since we made the decision to ex- be able to find all your pre-war in- to-day operations. Some of the do- nations are so large that were still processing a few of them, and that doesn’t include finding space for all of it. This causes delays in other areas. We have one donation that en- compassed five truck loads, fortu- nately he did not need a donation list for tax purposes. The donation is a mix of Sales Brochures. Volun- teers have so far separated them out by manufacturer (only about 90 boxes). Now they need to be inven- toried by year, entered into the da- Some of the boxes that were unloaded from the truck so we could load the truck for the tabase and filed. Bakersfield Swap Meet. seem to compound every time we WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR NEWSLETTER? get a big donation like this, but we Continued from Page2 always manage to make it work. Many of you are probably thinking “why don’t you just turn donations away if you don’t have space?” There is a reason for that – and it’s because we cannot afford to lose the ‘good stuff’ by turning things away. It’s a lot like panning for gold, to use a metaphor: it takes a lot of hard work, and you must go through massive amounts of dirt, mud, and rocks, but eventually you will find a hunk of the good stuff that will make it all worth it. Believe me, it doesn’t always feel like that, but it’s true, and that’s why we don’t turn stuff away. The additional boxes from the truck. We have also been participating in swap meets; starting the year off formation as well. By then, I’m con- track down the problem after a few with the BIG3 in San Diego, then of fident that technology will have days, we ordered a new server, and I to Chickasha, OK. Then to Bakers- made it fairly simple to find this re- got the old server going temporarily field, CA and the latest in Long search, and it will all be made possi- (which was fortuitous, as it took Beach. So far this year we have sold ble by people who took the initia- about 3 months to get the new serv- 164 duplicate books and donated tive to catalog and create digital im- er built, shipped, installed, and 191 duplicate tech books to the ages of all of these items – which transfer the data from the old serv- McPherson College. brings us to the other reasons we er). In case you were wondering, the fell behind on newsletters; scanning price of servers has gone up, so if Plus, we have been promoting and editing periodicals. you’re interested in helping us in the Library at a lot of car shows, starting at the La Jolla Concourse To date, we’ve scanned over funding that new server, please call me here at the library. We’d be d’Elagance, San Marino Concourse, five million pages of periodicals and a couple of local car shows, and (equaling out to about 7TB of infor- most grateful for any help we can get. we are looking forward to the Palos mation). All that information has to Verdes Concourse next month. also be edited and formatted to be I should also mention the size of presented to you, the client, in a donations have once again made us So, combine all of those things manner that’s legible and of en- take another look at the space issues with trying to put together new hanced quality – which gets better that we face here at the library; they book collections to venture out into every year. Keeping up with that tech surge is also part of our respon- sibility, because we want to contin- ue to stay atop of new software in- novations that make it easier for you to access the information you need from us, and make it look better when you get it – every time. Problems occur sometimes that slow us down as well, such as when our server decides to shut down right in the middle of checking mul- tiple donations into the inventory. That happened to us 4 months ago, and basically operations came to a full stop. Although I was able to Long Beach Swap Meet , July 21,2018 Continue on page 7 Nader's Crusade restraint systems - or what we us than anything we've experi- Continued from Page1 know today as SRS or 'airbag' sys- enced in cars before. After all, the tems. Just think about all of the scandal involving air bag manu- Corvair and its designers for creat- "technological advancements in facturer Takata and its' undeniably ing what seemed to be an accident safety" that are being advertised dangerous secondary restraint sys- waiting to happen, particularly on any given modern automotive tems that have killed hundreds when using tire pressure differen- commercial, and you will find not worldwide is still in the courts, tials between the front and rear only these SRS systems, but side and probably will be for some wheels to compensate for the ill- curtain air bags, lane departure time in the future - and to what conceived design and save a buck alarms, back-up cameras -the list end? Can they, and will they actu- or two - and blaming corporate goes on and on. ally make them safer in the future? greed alone for passing over, or Adding all that new technolo- It seems that only time will tell. outright ignoring, simple measures gy to the sticker price means big This practice of overcharging that would have made the Corvair bucks for the consumer to fork out consumers for safety 'extras' on infinitely safer to drive for con- upon purchase, and even more cars is nothing new, and really has sumers (in this case, the addition money to be made for the automo- gotten out of control in the last of a simple stabilization bar that tive industry. The question really twenty years, and is now border- had been pushed by a single engi- seems to be now is: are we really ing on the ridiculous. The distrac- neer; a part that would be added at safer, or are we being distracted by tions that consumers fall for are all a later date before the entire sus- all of the bells and whistles that part of a corporate smokescreen pension was scrapped for a new are being dangled in front of us in that makes us believe that the au- design five years later - a fully in- the name of safety? Perhaps Nader tomotive designers have our best dependent rear suspension in 1965 was on to something after all. It interests in mind, but those among - the year this book came out). almost seems like 'Unsafe at Any us that bother to do the research In essence, the summary of the Speed' was a foreboding - a warn- and stay informed (which was re- book seemed to be that it was far ing of things to come in the distant ally what Nader wanted us con- easier (and also the responsibility future, and we as consumers better sumers to do in the first place) of the automotive industry and get wise to them or become vic- know better. We also know that government) to design safer vehi- tims - not of the "faulty engineer- the primary distractions have noth- cles for people than it is to train ing" of the automotive industry, ing to do with the automobile or them to drive in a safer and more but the misdirection of technology its engineering - that they are responsible manner. In other being offered to keep us safe that, mostly hand-held and ever present words, the majority of human be- in actuality, is more dangerous to (I'm referring of course to smart ings on the road are too stupid to properly reprogram into safe, smart drivers, so through bureau- cratic channels and a strong hand in government regulation and oversight, we can turn the tide of unsafe driving by ensuring safety FOR the driver via design and en- gineering and governmental inter- vention. The impact of this theory still affects us today - worldwide. The automotive industry, which reluc- tantly fell in lockstep with the will of the public following the books' release (and a little help from the 100-plus lawsuits that were filed involving the Corvair), found that it inevitably could benefit greatly from this new direction, especially in the advent and application of digital technology and secondary 1969 Chevrolet Corvair Convertible Nader's Crusade and won his case Continued from Page2 - using the money from his win to phones). finance his lobby- Being that our modern society ing for consumer is far more litigious than it was rights and giving fifty years ago means that it’s only birth to the Clean a matter of time before something Air Act as well as goes wrong again, and the legal the Environmen- paperwork starts flying. You only tal Protection have to look as far as the lawsuits Agency. All of that are currently being filed these things were against Ford Motor Corporation a direct result of for carbon monoxide poisoning this book, and it due to exhaust leaks in the new continues to af- fect us today. Explorer models designed primari- An Example of the Driver and Passenger SRS System ly for police municipalities to re- Given that the primary motiva- In place the Crown Victoria - ironi- tion these days of the properly ed- the end, no amount of engineering cally enough - safety vehicles. ucated and politically motivated and government oversight is going consumer involves safety and posi- to prevent a sixteen-year-old who I happen to think that the im- is under the influence (and is pay- pact of the book affected far more tive environmental impact, one can only wonder who will be looking ing more attention to their smart than consumer awareness, and that phone and their friends than on it seemed to affect so many aspects back at this book and its ramifica- tions on what seems to be the fu- driving) from doing the deadliest of life even today - not only from a amount of damage in a collision literary standpoint, but it was the ture of transportation in the very near future - autonomous vehicles. (notice that I didn't use the word beginning so many changes. For accident - because in that case it instance, the introduction of prima- After all, they are already among us, and already getting into acci- wouldn't have been). In other ry restraint systems (or seat belts, words, a large degree of common as we now know them), the rede- dents, claiming lives, and in turn changing the way these next gener- sense is what is lacking in today's sign of the automatic transmission society on every front. Nader was tree layout (or PRNDL switch/ ation vehicles are designed on a minute-to-minute basis. correct about one thing: until con- lever) and dashboards, the impact science takes precedence over of automobile emissions them- It's my belief that the primary commerce, driving will always selves on the environment - which source of danger behind the wheel hold a large degree of probability in turn prompted the entire indus- of any automobile then and now is for danger - for everyone. It's up to try to embrace clean emission the driver - the only constant varia- us as informed consumers and technology that inevitably resur- ble. However, I do not believe that drivers to be mindful of the world rected the hybrid and now fully government oversight and over around us - on the road and electric vehicles that will render engineering by the manufacturer otherwise. - Kevin J Parker automobiles burning fossil fuels hold the answer to the danger that extinct in the next 30 years; replac- the driver poses to one another or *All Photos courtesy of Wik- ing ultra-stiff and extra-large himself, although logic dictates ipedia Commons and are public chrome front and rear bumpers that some degree needs to exist. I domain. with pedestrian-friendly foam think that even Ralph Nader would filled facias, the passage of the Na- agree that removing the individu- tional Traffic and Motor Vehicle al's proclivity to distractions and Safety Act in 1966, and the con- correcting behavioral abnormali- sumer watchdog movement itself ties through proper education at The Library has scanned just to name a few. (an age that far precedes the age of over Following a US Senate Sub- consent for driving a motor vehi- committee investigation into Gen- cle) is paramount, and should be 5,000,000 eral Motors' harassment of Nader addressed in the home by parents, following the release of his book, and at school by teachers. After Pages so far... he later sued on the basis of GM all, driving is still a privilege - not violating and invading his privacy a right. HALF OF KNOWLEDGE IS … KNOWING WHERE TO FIND IT! The Automotive Research Library has:

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The past is our future. Become a member or donate to the HCFI Library today. For more information on how we can help you or you can help us, visit www.hcfi.org, [email protected], or call us at (619)464-0301. Automotive Research Library of the HCFI Horseless Carriage Foundation, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. PO Box 369, La Mesa, CA 91944-0369 • 8186 Center Street, Suite F, La Mesa CA 91942-2959 WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR NEWSLETTER? Scott Continued from Page3

the world for Swap Meet sea- son, you can see how something New HCF Members: Mathein, Unionville, CT like the newsletter can get pushed Rose White, Bellevue, NE Randall Krystosek, Evansville, IN to the backburner. After all, there Tom Spear, Phoenix, AZ Bob Halgren, La Mesa, CA is only so much two guys can do. Michael Beeney, Belfast, Jim Grigsby, La Mesa, CA Again, we want to apologize, and Northern Ireland Karl Darby, Stockton, NJ ask you to bear with us in these Laura Giner, Palm Harbor, FL David Zatz, Teaneck, NJ busy times, because in the end – Mark Mathews, West Hollywood, CA Clark Nickles, Ponca City, OK it’s all to make your experience Jerry Mandel, Huntington Beach, CA with us the best it can possibly be. David Smith, Indian Wells, CA Fred Savage, Arlington, TX We hope that any future delays in Gordon Lillie, San Diego, CA Al Tarkington, Del Mar, CA the delivery of the newsletter will Larry Eisner, San Francisco, CA James Payne, Green Lane, PA be met with understanding of what David Smith, Indian Wells, CA Herbert Redman, Huntington, WV we’re up against on a daily basis. Joel Bailey, Ann Arbor, MI Tod Mesirow, Los Angeles, CA I have also been working on an Jeffrey Keysor, Bouckville, NY Chawoong Kim, Ansan-si, South Korea updated and more user friendly Tanner Benton, Wilmington, NC Ronald Sieber, Hillsborough, NC website. The database programs Barbara Fox, Bar Harbor, ME Gillies Laviolette, Rockland, On are getting updated to meet your David Peeler, Waxhaw, NC Daniel Buschmann, Bel Air, MD needs and make the research time less. We had every intention of put- ting out newsletters this year (and the end of last year), but honestly, we just got buried. Time has a way of slipping away from you when you have to prioritize on the fly, and the newsletter took a back seat. We apologize. At any rate, enjoy this one, and look forward to autumn and the upcoming holiday season. 2500+ Duplicate Books for SALE Call or email to get your list. Next Board Meeting The next Board Meeting will be on November 15, 2018 9:00AM at the Library Office: D. A. “Mac” MacPherson 8186 Center Street, Suite F Executive Director La Mesa, CA 91942 Horseless Carriage Foundation, Inc. LIBRARY INFORMATION Chronicles of the Automotive Industry in America, For 1907 Production this Year: 43,000 passenger cars, 1,000 trucks and buses. Horseless Carriage Foundation Oakland Motor Car Company was organized by Edward M. Murphy, buggy builder, of Pontiac, 8186 Center Street, Suite F Mich., to make two-cylinder car designed by A. P. Brush. La Mesa, CA 91942 Correspond to: A White won the Hower trophy in the Glidden Tour. PO Box 369, International Harvester Company moved it truck plant from Chicago to Akron. La Mesa CA 91944-0369 A REO crossed the continent and back, negotiating such climbs as Mt. Hood and Raton Range. Phone/Fax: 619-464-0301 E-mail: [email protected] The Association of Licensed Automobile Manufactures presented a formula for figuring horse- Web site: www.hcfi.org power which was adopted by many States as a means of taxation.

HCFI 2018 Board of Directors Oldsmobile employed nickel plating for trim parts that had hitherto been brass.

President Greg Long, CA Humps were purposely built into streets of Glencoe, Ill., to discourage speeding. Vice Pres. Roberta Watkins, CA The Ford Motor Company made more than a million dollars in profits. Treasurer Gordon McGregor, CA Buick adopted four-cylinder engine with sliding-gear transmission, an won the Dead Horse Hill Secretary John Adams, CA Climb at Worcester, Mass. Director Gail Garrison, CA The industry weathered the panic of this year fairly well. Director Nick Fintzelberg Ph. D., CA A franklin was driven from New York to Chicago in 39 hours, 36 minutes. Director Terri Cuthbert Proffer, CA These makes appeared for the first time: Abendroth & Root, Albany, Allen-Kingston, America Director John Wilkinson, CA Coulthard, Anderson, Atlas, Bailey Electric, Barns, Belden, Bell, Belfontains, Bendex, Black Crow, Brush, Bugmobile, Cartercar, Cato, Chase, Colburn, Conover, Continental, Director James Nicoloff, CA Coppack, Cosmopolitan, Crescent, Crown, Cucmobile, C.V.I., Diamond, Duer, Durocar, Director Emeritus David Gast Ed. D., CA Earl, Easton, Emerson, Euclid, Eureka, Evansville, Firestone-Columbus, Four Traction, Fritchie Electric, Garford, Gearless, Gilford-Pettitt, Griswold, Halladay, Harper, Hawley, Executive Director D. A. “Mac” MacPherson Hay-Berg, Haydock, Heine Velox, Hill Huntington, Imperial, International Harvester, Jay, Jenkins, Kiblinger, Kingston, Kling, Lauth-Juergens, Lion, Lorraine, MacNaufhton, Mar- vel., Mathews, Medcraft, Miller, Ogren, Page, Palmer-Singer, Pennsylvania, Postal, Pull- Newsletter Editors man, Ranger, Rassler, Sauer Sayer & Scovill, Single Center,Speedwell, Staver, Steel Swal- D. A. “Mac” MacPherson low, Thomas-Detroit, Trebert, University, Vandergrift, Wolf. From: A Chronicle of the Automotive Industry in America, Published 1949. Established 1984

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