Car

A car is a wheeled, self-powered motor vehicle used for transportation and a product of the automotive industry. Most definitions of the term specify that cars are designed to run primarily on roads, to have seating for one to eight people, to typically have four wheels with tyres, and to be constructed principally for the transport of people rather than goods. The year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the modern car. In that year, German inventor Karl Benz built the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars did not become widely available until the early 20th century. One of the first cars that was accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the United States of America, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, but took much longer to be accepted in Western Europe and other parts of the world.

Cars are equipped with controls used for driving, parking, passenger comfort and safety, and controlling a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex. Examples include rear reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Most cars in use in the 2010s are propelled by an internal combustion engine, fueled by deflagration of gasoline (also known as petrol) or diesel. Both fuels cause air pollution and are also blamed for contributing to climate change and global warming. Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles are also gaining popularity in some countries. Electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, began to become commercially available in 2008.

List of Hope & Faith episodes

Hope & Faith is an American sitcom that originally aired on ABC from September 26, 2003 to May 2, 2006. This is a list of the 73 broadcast episodes.

Episode list

Season 1 (2003/04)

Season 2 (2004/05)

Season 3 (2005/06)

External links

DeSoto (automobile)

The DeSoto (sometimes De Soto) is an American automobile marque that was manufactured and marketed by the DeSoto Division of the Chrysler Corporation from 1928 to the 1961 model year. The De Soto marque was officially dropped November 30, 1960, with over two million vehicles built since 1928.

1929–1942

The DeSoto make was founded by Walter Chrysler on August 4, 1928, and introduced for the 1929 model year. It was named after the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. The DeSoto logo featured a stylized image of the explorer who led the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States (Florida, Georgia, and Alabama), and was the first documented European to have crossed the Mississippi River.

Chrysler wanted to enter the brand in competition with its competitors Oldsmobile, Mercury, Studebaker, Hudson, and Willys-Knight, in the mid-price class. DeSoto served as a lower priced version of Chrysler products, with Dodge and Plymouth added to the Chrysler family in 1928.

Forward Look

Forward Look was a design theme employed by Virgil Exner in styling the 1955 through 1961 Chrysler Corporation vehicles.

When Exner joined Chrysler, the company's vehicles were being fashioned by engineers instead of designers, and so were considered outmoded, unstylish designs. Exner fought to change this structuring, and got control over the design process, including the clay prototypes and the die models used to create production tooling.

After seeing the P-38-inspired tailfins on the 1948 Cadillac, Exner adopted fins as a central element of his vehicle designs. He believed in the aerodynamic benefits of the fins, and even used wind tunnel testing at the University of Michigan—but he also liked their visual effects on the car. Exner lowered the roofline and made the cars sleeker, smoother, and more aggressive. In 1955, Chrysler introduced "The New 100-Million Dollar Look". With a long hood and short deck, the wedgelike designs of the Chrysler 300 letter series and revised 1957 models suddenly brought the company to the forefront of design, with Ford and General Motors quickly working to catch up. The 1957 Plymouths were advertised with the slogan, "Suddenly, it's 1960!"

V8 engine

A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder V engine with the cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two sets of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other, but sometimes at a narrower angle, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft.

In its simplest form, it is basically two inline-four engines sharing a common crankshaft. However, this simple configuration, with a flat- or single-plane crankshaft, has the same secondary dynamic imbalance problems as two straight-4s, resulting in vibrations in large engine displacements. Since the 1920s most V8s have used the somewhat more complex crossplane crankshaft with heavy counterweights to eliminate the vibrations. This results in an engine that is smoother than a V6, while being considerably less expensive than a V12 engine. Most racing V8s continue to use the single plane crankshaft because it allows faster acceleration and more efficient exhaust system designs.

Applications

The V8 with a crossplane crankshaft (see below) is a common configuration for large automobile engines. V8 engines are rarely less than 3.0 L (183 cu in) in displacement and in automobile use have exceeded 8.2 L (500 cu in) in production vehicles, such as the American Cadillac Eldorado for instance. In some applications, e.g. industrial and marine V8 engines, displacement can be even larger.