Automotive History Quotes

I came into the world at the same time as the auto, if you will.

I spent a lot of time behind the Iron Curtain, and their cars were abysmal.

I remember that, one day, I was visiting one training center in the 1990s that was teaching people how to fix Volkswagen engines from the 1960s, which were no longer sold. So you were training people on a skill that had zero value. The reason is that they hadn't received any new equipment in 20 years.

Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach, but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.

When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, 'Nah, what's wrong with a horse?' That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.

Once a rider [of an early automobile] is accustomed to the piston beat and the rattle of gears, he minds them no more than the pounding of horses hoofs in ordinary driving.

I have a whole new appreciation for Carroll Shelby, the Ford program of the 1960s, and it's awesome that Superformance is keeping the dream alive with their incredible cars.

With his Model T, Henry Ford affected the world more than any other man in 1500 years.

The first car the family owned was a Model A.

In 1964, when Lee Iacocca said, 'Shelby, I want you to make a sports car out of the Mustang,' the first thing I said was, 'Lee, you can't make a race horse out of a mule. I don't want to do it.' He said, 'I didn't ask you to make it; you work for me.'

I have one thing that I'm saving for my son. It's a 1965 Chevy Impala Super Sport. It's a beautiful sea-foam green color. It's like a teal green, white interior, and it's just a gorgeous car.

In the olden days I always got the impression that TVR built a car, put it on sale, and then found out how it handled. Usually when one of their customers wrote to the factory complaining about how dead he was.

I've always wanted to build a '37 Lincoln Zephyr.

Cadillacs have been used by every president since Woodrow Wilson.

I agree cars become classic with age and you never know which ones are going to be in vogue.

One of the most intensely unlikeable figures of the twentieth century, fanatical anti-Semite, enemy of labour unions and proud recipient of medals from Nazi Germany, where Hitler held him in veneration, Henry Ford was also an employer who paid his workers more than his competitors, an innovator who pioneered the assembly line and a visionary whose part in the creation of the twentieth century was so great that Aldous Huxley, in his Brave New World, prefigured a society whose calendar was divided into BF and AF-Before Ford and After Ford.

In its heyday, the car was an expression of technical flair and design genius: the original Mini, the Beetle, the 2CV, and the Fiat 500 were all, in their various ways, inspired incarnations of functionality.

I think cars encapsulate the history of innovation and style - it's the other side of the coin of the car being public enemy No.1.

Some people are drawn to a van Gogh or a Rembrandt. Some are attracted to exotic guns. Coins. Stamps. I am attracted to cars.

The Cobra is my personal favorite car. The original 289 Cobra is the car I respect the most. I like to drive the 289 better than the 427.

The Ford Motor Company has always been part of my life, and I continue to draw a lot of energy from this wonderful and exciting business.

I'd say the late 70s were probably pretty cool. Obviously the cars weren't safe and the tracks weren't safe and all that stuff, but I think back then it was more about the driver.

I've always wanted an old Vette... like, a '67 Stingray is the car I'd want.

I grew up in one of those households where, growing up in Detroit, you gravitate towards music and cars because we were the capital for a long time. Especially during my childhood. We were the Motown sound. We were the Motor City.

There is no doubt about precisely when folks began racing each other in automobiles. It was the day they built the second automobile.