Automotive Milestones ─ The Technological Development of the Automobile: Who, What, When, Where, and How It All Works

This is a general interest trade book that describes the development of automotive technology and engineering from the start of the industry before 1900 to the present day. It explains how various systems and elements in the automobile work in layman's terms, without resorting to mathematics, and highlights the keymilestones in the historical development of automotive technology. All photos and illustrations are in full color. The intended audience is older teens to adults of any age who are interested in the subject and may be involved in it as a hobby. Sometimes referred to as "gearheads" or "motorheads", they form a huge market. Over the years many of the author's engineering students were in this category, and he often would meet with on-campus car clubs to explain the way things automotive worked, being careful to damp down or eliminate any complicated mathematics, as he does in this book. An Internet search found only titles that are either "hard-engineering oriented" -- such as publications from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) -- or mere compendiums of dates. Books in the latter category note the milestones but without hardly any explanation at all of how these developments actually work in a technical sense - which is the aim of this book.

Robert L. Norton, P.E. has 50 years experience in the practice and teaching of mechanical engineering. He holds undergraduate degrees in mechanical engineering and industrial technology from Northeastern University, and a M.S. in engineering design from Tufts University. Having designed cams for camera mechanisms at Polaroid Corporation, he subsequently spent many years doing design work at Gillette and many other companies. He taught kinematics, dynamics, stress analysis, and machine design to mechanical engineering students for more than 40 years at Northeastern, Tufts, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he is theMilton Prince Higgins II Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering. Additionally, he has published many technical papers and holds 13 U.S. patents. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.