The seventh generation (C7) of Chevrolet’s iconic two-seater Corvette was unveiled at this year’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It’s been a long journey for a car that began as a General Motors styling concept created by legendary stylist Harley Earl for their 1953 Motorama show in New York City’s famed Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

Since the dawn of the automobile cars have been guided by a driver turning a steering wheel, or moving a tiller in some very early cars.

The U. S. has legislated an aggressive automobile Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard that rises incrementally to 35.5 mpg by 2016 and continues to 54.5 by 2025.

The French Le Mans 25-hour race has run annually with few exceptions due to war since 1923, and the cars have evolved from slightly modified stock cars to today’s high tech sports racers. 

The pneumatic tire was invented by a Scot named Robert Thompson who patented his “elastic bearing” to “present a cushion of air to the ground” in 1845. High cost and lack of a ready market doomed Thompson’s elastic bearing to obscurity.