Читать книгу The Fall of Detroit - Dmitry Nazarov - Страница 2

It’s impossible to imagine our modern world without cars.

Despite the fact that a car, in general, is just a pile of metal and a set of parts, no one thinks of it like that.

Many people believe that a car possesses a soul. It’s like a full-fledged family member. And some people prioritize a personal car above themselves, and even family.

Pretty often, we only have to look at the car to understand everything about its owner. We don’t even have to converse, everything goes without saying.

And, of course, not all cars are created equal. If you drive a Renault Logan, you would hardly be allowed to pass other cars as freely as an owner of a Geländewagen. Although, some old, rusty Geländewagen would cost just as much a new Logan.

But still, they would let it pass by more often.

I wonder, could it be the case that a car might be a real problem for its owner?

I’m not talking about the classic story where your DSG breaks for the second time in a week.

Could the owner be gradually beaten down for having a car of the wrong brand? Could someone even kill the man who choses his car incorrectly?

It sounds absolutely crazy.

Today, if you’d come for a Peugeot club meeting and began yelling that a Peugeot was a worthless waste of a vehicle, the worst consequence would be beauty bags thrown at you. Believe me, I know.

However, the problem is real.

There were examples in human history. And today, from this video, you will know how and why the cult surrounding the car was born. How car makers shot their workers down, and the workers demolished their manufactures. How one worker from the Ford factory arrived here, to the USSR, and how that trip changed the course of car history. What people were willing to do when an empire built on cars was crashing. You will witness a detailed, thorough and eventful story of Detroit, the main city of the car industry.

Enjoy!

When Detroit was originally founded, no one could predict anything about it becoming a car empire, there was never a hint of such an ambition.

First of all, Detroit belonged to Canada and was originally a trading settlement. Just a piece of land enclosed by a fence; and the purpose of that settlement was trading fur skins with Native American Indians.

Fur skins are fur wheel covers. The Natives couldn’t drive without them.

Every Native had to have them. And before the XIX century, there was only about a thousand ethnic europeans in the area. The Black population, slaves and the Natives were not regarded as substantial men, hence we only have information about the white population.

One thousand people lived there, more or less.

When we speak about that period, in context it was was quite a large settlement. But still only a settlement.

It was a camp with a fence.

And at some point, that village burned down in 1805. And the property development began.

They built shipyards and the first manufactures.

That’s what Detroit looked like a hundred years later, in 1905.

But it would start to become more significant on August 5, 1899. That day was the day when DAC was founded. Detroit Automobile Company.

That was the first US car company in Detroit. It was founded by the infamous Henry Ford.

Suddenly.