innovations – All about car

2020 Ram 2500 Power WagonDerek McNaughton / Driving The sheer number of cubic dollars shovelled into the marketing of pickup trucks is said to rival that of the GDP of a small nation. All of the Detroit Three, plus the two Japan-based brands in the fight, want you to know their trucks are over-powered, over-built and over-testosteroned.Listening to them, itd be easy to believe no one even considers buying a pickup truck without eight-wheel-drive and the capability to tow a house not to mention that failing to own a truck at all is virtually unpatriotic.Your author is a lifelong patron at the Store of Truck, a place where experienced shoppers are adept at sussing out features they want versus the dross simply forced upon the market for the sake of innovation.We cast our gaze around the modern pickup truck marketplace and selected a payload of features we feel best represent the useful end of the innovation spectrum.Tailgate StepsWhen engineers at Ford introduced the tailgate step about ten years ago, other manufacturers were caught flat-footed by its popularity. Instead of innovating their way into the game, some chose to sling mud in the form of derisive commercials, sarcastically labeling the things man steps. Their enduring popularity, and the introduction of similar steps from other brands, proved that tack didnt work.Ford gave its tailgate step a rethink a couple of years ago, tucking the telescopic grab handle inside the gate and reducing the effort required to unfold the thing in bad weather. GM saw fit to carve toeholds into the corners of its truck bumpers, a feature which first appeared in the early 2000s on its Avalanche quasi-truck. Its GMC brand now incorporates a swing-out grab handle to use with its MultiPro tailgate this after years of poking fun at Ford. Hey, if you cant beat em, join em.Wild New TailgatesFor the better part of a century, pickup truck innovation focused on raw power and creature comforts. Lately, companies have been investing time and money not to reinvent the wheel, but to reinvent the tailgate.GMC kicked off the this-aint-your-fathers-tailgate movement with the aforementioned MultiPro Tailgate. With six different ways to be deployed, this origami wonder can even be outfitted with waterproof speakers to amp up your next tailgate party. At the Ram brand, a barn-door style tailgate has been engineered, allowing drivers to drop the gate in a traditional fashion or open it up like barn doors in a 60/40 split. This allows one to step closer to the truck box itself, improving access when trying to reach that item which has rolled juuust out of reach up near the cab.RamBoxSpeaking of Ram, the next innovation is very brand-specific. The aptly named RamBoxes are a pair of lockable storage units residing in the flanks of a Ram pickup bed. Accessible from curbside, they are big enough to store a rifle or collapsed fishing pole, proving that truck-makers do occasionally pay attention to the types of activities in which their typical customer takes part.In their current iteration, RamBoxes can be locked and unlocked with the trucks key fob; are illuminated for easy night access; and have a drain plug in the bottom for evacuating water after using the Rambox to store beverages.Other brands have made attempts to replicate this success, with varying results. Nissan offers a storage solution of similar ilk, albeit one that is removable and only accessible from inside the box. This is good in terms of it not being easily accessed by nefarious passersby, but renders it useless if the owner fits a tonneau cover.Towing CamerasYour author is not ashamed to admit it took him the better part of a summer to get comfortable towing the family camper, one which spans nearly 40 feet in length. That time frame would probably have been significantly shortened if towing cameras were the norm, rather than the exception, back in 2010.All brands have some form of backup camera, allowing easier solo hookup of truck and trailer. GM has recently been crowing about its phalanx of coverage, from cameras under the sideview mirrors looking down the truck flanks; to a trailer-mounted cam that keeps an eye on whats astern.Ram incorporates its optional air suspension into the mix, permitting low-speed reversing in its lowest setting so when the ball and pintle are aligned, the truck can raise and two can be married without having to exit and crank a handle on the trailers tongue jack.Backup Assists Ford, with the help of a QR-style sticker and a bit of programming, has figured out how to relieve the ignominy of getting all crossed up when reversing a trailer. Instead of sitting in the drivers seat and trying to remember which way to turn the wheel in order to fit your 40-ft camper into a tight spot, the Pro Trailer Backup Assist uses maths and the trucks electronic steering to help avoid an aneurysm.Armed with the length of the trailer and the distance of the axles from the tongue, a computer figures
Origin: Trucking Awesome: The best pickup innovations of the past decade

The new Corvette makes an appearance at GMs Motorama car event in 1953.General Motors That the Corvette is here at all is a marvel. Designed as a plastic dream car purely to dazzle car-show-goers, the Corvette has survived multiple GM mutinies and a corporate bankruptcy. Along the way, moments passed that inarguably define Corvette.This is our list of the occasions and innovations that made the Corvette the fast, enduring and lovable car it is today.The V8Its common knowledge the Corvette was launched with the laggardly and un-sexy Chevrolet Stovebolt six-cylinder, so nicknamed for the shape of its head studs. But what GM really wanted to use was Cadillacs 331-cubic-inch OHV V8. Cadillac was then truly the Standard of the World, and was revolted by the idea of sharing its fine engine with a lowly Chevrolet. Thus, the Corvette soldiered on with the straight-six warbling through triple single-barrel carbs.But by 1955, a savior had arisen. The small-block Chevy V8 was nothing short of a revolution. Back then, it measured 265 cubic inches, it was light, it was compact and it was powerful. The Corvette had finally found its engine. The V8 added a much needed dose of power, and a new-for-1955 three-speed manual helped it scoot along even better. The Corvette was inching closer to becoming a real sports car.Literally Zora Arkus-DuntovZora Arkus-Duntov was undoubtedly a mechanical genius and a born racer. His first motorized vehicle was a 350-cc motorcycle that he raced. His parents worried this was too dangerous and told him to buy a car, which they believed would be safer. He bought a race car. He started working at General Motors in 1953, and by 1957 he had developed a performance camshaft for the Corvette that became known as the Duntov Cam; it was used in the gnarliest Corvette engines right up until 1963.Whereas most of GM management was content to let the Corvette stay a sporty-looking boulevardier, Duntov insisted it be a true sports car of the highest order and rarely settled for less. Mr. Duntov may not be the reason the Corvette still exists, but he is the reason it became a real sports car.His fingerprints are all over Corvette innovations, and he was a fixture in the Corvette world, giving his last Corvette presentation just six weeks before his death. His ashes are buried at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky (Im not kidding) and he will always be Mr. Corvette.The Fuel InjectionThe first fuel-injected production car was the world-beating Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing of 1954 complete with lambskin fuel filter! Just two years later, in 1956 (for the 1957 model year), Chevrolet made the second-ever fuel-injected production car engine when it installed a Rochester mechanical fuel injection system onto its top-spec 283-cubic-inch V8. The engine made exactly 283 hp, said GM, or one horsepower per cubic inch, a feat few had achieved in a production engine.The fuel-injected engine made the Corvette downright fast, and with acceleration gears, zero to 60 mph could be pulled off in under 6.0 seconds, a staggering number for the late 1950s. Though the injected 283 established the Corvette as a global leader in engineering, it wasnt exactly perfect. The mill was difficult to tune and very sensitive to adjustments, and most shops couldnt figure out how to work on the space-age piece of equipment.As such, most street cars and race cars removed the injection setup for the less efficient but doubtlessly practical dual four-barrel carburetors. Nonetheless, the fuel-injected classic Corvette soldiered on until 1965, reaching a peak output of 375 hp from 327 cubic inches.The Independent Rear SuspensionRace car tech has always had a way of trickling into street cars, and in the early 1960s, the tech the best cars had to have was independent rear suspension (IRS). Jaguar had lead the way on that front with the 1961 E-Type, a year that still saw live axles under cars like the Ferrari, Maserati and Corvette. By 1963, only one would adopt the new tech Corvette. The IRS system had been lobbied for heavily by Duntov, but Chevy execs were finding trouble seeing the value of making an entirely new rear suspension not shared with any other GM model.Various mid-engined CERV prototypes were made to prove the efficacy of the new setup and in the end, the bean counters acquiesced as long as Duntov agreed to use off-the-shelf parts for the Corvettes front suspension to save money. The rear suspension of the C2 (and C3) Corvette uses the half-shafts as the upper suspension arms, and then has typical lower suspension arms.The unique part is the Corvette uses a single transverse leaf spring to suspend all of this instead of two upright coil springs. The transverse leaf keeps the weight of the spring itself lower in the chassis and intrudes less into the cargo space. The independent rear suspension sprung the Corvette into the next era of sports cars.The Big-Block EnginesCorvettes had always been fast, but
Origin: These innovations defined the Corvette as we know it