10 innovative features of the car… Fell hard | So Good News

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Innovation is one of the most important aspects of the ever-evolving automotive industry. Clever inventions have helped change the way manufacturers build cars, while also inspiring generations of gearheads to tinker with their cars and innovate. Those who are afraid to go beyond their imagination will close the shop. Constant innovation is the main reason cars aren’t what they were a century ago.


In the pursuit of excellence, car manufacturers introduced innovative but strange creations that simply failed. While there are some ridiculously impractical ideas, some fail because of bad timing. They either don’t make economic sense or they are way ahead of their time because they lack the right technology to make them viable. Some highly innovative features, such as advanced autonomous driving, promise to dramatically improve the driving experience. But others have failed in their quest and suffered misfortune.

10/10 Saab Sensonic transmission

Saab operated with a culture of innovation and few manufacturers were as innovative as the Swedish outfit on a limited budget. They pioneered innovative features such as headlight wipers, making electric seat heating a standard feature and introduced the first fuel-injected, wastegate-equipped turbocharged engine. But they also got some of their innovations wrong, like the Sensonic gearbox.

The Sensonic transmission provided a manual driving experience with automatic clutch and smooth gear changes. But reverse parking on a hill became a nightmare, and the car rolled forward when you stepped on the gas.

RELATED: 10 Features of the Modern Car That Driving Enthusiasts See as the Enemy

9/10 Fifth wheel parking

Parking a car can leave a learner alone, even for an experienced driver. Modern cars practically park themselves thanks to technological innovations such as intelligent parking assistance systems using sensors and cameras. In the 1930s, we didn’t have capabilities like sensors, but engineers dared to dream.

Brooks Walker invented a fifth wheel that pushed down the rear of the car at a side angle and turned the car around in tight spaces. He first tried it in the 1933 Packard and again in the 1950s Cadillac, but it was unsuccessful because many thought it was too expensive.

8/10 A Rolls-Royce toilet

short-term-car-innovations-rolls-royce-toilet
via bonhams

In 1954, New Yorker Joseph Masuch commissioned a Rolls-Royce to build a custom wagon with one of the strangest features in automobiles. It came with a functional toilet that emptied the contents of the back seat onto the road.

short-term-car-innovations-rolls-royce-toilet
via bonhams

But it was not the first car to have the same feature. In 1947, Cadillac created a car with a functional engine to make sure it could be driven for thousands of miles without stopping. It can be said that innovation has failed.

7/10 Bose electromagnetic suspension

Bose is best known for its audio equipment, but more than 30 years ago it tried to create a revolutionary suspension system. They have spent a long time developing it to create a dynamic driving experience with a high level of comfort on the road.

The technology deployed electromagnets and it was successful after being tested on the Lexus LS400. It was perfectly functional technology, but it failed because it was too expensive and heavy to install on a production car.

RELATED: 10 Features to Look for in an Affordable Sports Car

6/10 Ford’s nuclear reactor

ford nuclon nuclear powered car concept red truck 50s 60s
ford.com

The nuclear arms race was one of the most terrifying periods in human history, with the threat of nuclear war always looming. Meanwhile, Ford was busy with something less harmful; Ford Nuclon atomic machine. The idea was to create a car that could go more than 5,000 miles between fill-ups.

This was a very ambitious project in 1958, because today we have not yet developed the technology to make the nucleon a reality.

5/10 Vinyl player

Playing music from your phone on your car stereo is a modern fad; the situation was much more difficult then. However, automakers have gone out of their way to provide exciting road trips with features like an in-car vinyl player.

It was an ambitious project, but it was fraught with setbacks. It used custom records when you brought records from home, the player’s needle jumped when you hit a beat, and it was just an added feature that didn’t make it attractive to buyers.

4/10 Eye of Tucker Torpedo Cyclops

Jay Leno with Donald Osborne and his 1948 Tucker 48 sedan
Via: CNBC Prime YouTube Channel

The Tucker Torpedo is one of many cars that should have changed the automotive landscape but had a different result. However, he left a lasting impression thanks to his incredible discoveries, such as the eye of the Cyclops.

Tucker Torpedo
By Hemmings

The eye of the cyclops is a headlight placed in the center of the Torpedo, which rotates when the steering wheel is turned more than 10 degrees. The trucker argued that this helped improve safety and gave the driver precious seconds to avoid an accident.

RELATED: 10 Car Features That Enthusiasts Hate But Everyone Else Loves

3/10 Cadillac V8-6-4

Cadillac V8-6-4 engine
Via: Mecum

General Motors had its low moments, such as surviving bankruptcy to create the Pontiac Aztec, considered one of the worst American cars of all time. Long before that, they developed a revolutionary but disastrous 4-6-8 cylinder shutdown engine for Cadillac cars.

The technology was a good idea to save fuel. Instead, it was a crude and flawed technological innovation that was a decade ahead of its time and inevitably failed.

2/10 Automatic seat belt

Automatic safety belts-2
Via Curbside Classic

Modern cars are equipped with many automatic safety features that either actively react to avoid accidents or react passively after a collision to ensure the safety of passengers. In the 1990s, automakers experimented with automated safety features such as automatic seat belts.

After the driver or front-seat passenger enters the vehicle, the motor-driven transverse lap belt moves along the A-pillar and rests against the B-pillar, thereby automatically pulling the belt across the passenger’s chest. But the passenger still had to pull and hang a separate seat belt. But many ignored the second part and were not protected in the event of an accident.

RELATED: Why head-up displays aren’t a useless feature in modern cars

1/10 Lighted tires from Goodyear

In the 1950s, Goodyear invented wheels with eighteen lights in the center, which illuminated the clear “tire of tomorrow” in brilliant hues. The tire joints were unique because they allowed light to pass through, and the bulbs created a wonderful electroluminescent glow.

Goodyear illuminated tires
By Evan Ackerman

However, the innovation came with safety concerns as the compound did not provide enough grip in rainy weather or hold well under hard braking.

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