Mid-nineteenth century

WWII


The car seems to disappear in Europe during World War II. It clears the urban landscape to make room for bikes and essentially bicycle taxis. This period of deprivation that characterizes the Occupation forces drivers to leave their cars in the garage. The gasoline shortage - in the suburbs of Paris, only a station on fifty proposes gasoline - and only the Traction Avant Police and Gestapo means rouler. We see therefore appear engines gasifiers, substitutes gasoline engine. These engines operate with the explosion of carbon monoxide in contact with air. Panhard is one of the first manufacturers to look at this technique. Under the Occupation, about 130 000 cars are equipped with this système.


The car is experiencing new challenges in 1941. European industries, including French, are placed under the supervision of the occupant and should even work for it, so it is difficult to design automobiles. Despite these constraints, most manufacturers continue to imagine the future of automobile. The war will thus "pushed the technological progress" in the automotive field as in others, and promoted the development of the work chaîne. Automobiles began to be equipped with automatic transmissions, clutches, automatic, hydraulic suspension and gearbox synchronisées. Jeep Willys, light reconnaissance vehicle invented in 1940 for the U.S. government, is the model not only emblematic of the Second World War, but also significant progress on automobiles.