Re: IML: history of power steering

[Kenyon Wills <imperialist1960@xxxxxxxxx>]

Buried in the advertising (on the website) that I've
collected are 1951/52 ads explaining that HydraGlide
Power Steering was developed by Chrysler for their
heavy military vehicles (6x6 trucks?) and that they
then migrated it into their passenger cars.  -Your
military industrial complex at work!

There was a big push on this as the significant
driving improvement that it was, especially for
parallel parking.  They showed the fairer sex in
gloves, a skirt, and a hat daintily and easily using
the strongly boosted steering to navigate what before
would have been a very taxing excercise - landing a
car parallel beside a curb between two other cars with
minimal effort.  No comment on the required depth
perception and ability to point the car correctly, a
human deficiency that even today's microchip
superprocessor has yet to address.

The phrasing does not say that they were the actual
inventors as far as I can tell, just touting that they
had great experience.  Ad copy isn't the best place
for historical research, but with Chrysler being such
an engineering-oriented company, I'd bet that they
were definitely leaders in this area.

The question would be:  Did Chrysler beat others to
market as an early innovator, or did they cop the idea
off of someone else as a "me-too", must-have gadget?


-K

--- Gale jorgensen <gjorgensen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> when was the advent of power steering?
> 
> 
> 
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Kenyon Wills
 
 






















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