Teckniska musset DIG92764, Stockholm

The automobile was first invented and perfected in Germany and France in the late 1890s. Americans quickly came to dominate the automotive industry after WWI. Throughout this initial era, the development of automotive technology was rapid. Hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included the electric ignition system, independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes. Transmissions and throttle controls were widely adopted and safety glass also made its debut. Henry Ford perfected mass-production techniques, and Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler emerged as the “Big Three” auto companies by the 1920s. Car manufacturers received enormous orders from the military during World War II, and afterward automobile production in the United States, Europe, and Japan soared.

Things on Wheels from Tekniska museet. The Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology (Swedish: Tekniska museet) is a Swedish museum in Stockholm. It is Sweden’s largest museum of technology, and has a national charter to be responsible for preserving the Swedish cultural heritage related to technological and industrial history. Its galleries comprise around 10,000 square meters, and the museum attracts annually about 350, 000 visitors. The collections consist of more than 50,000 objects and artifacts, 600 shelf metres of archival records and documents, 200,000 drawings, 620,000 images and just over 50,000 books. The National Museum of Science and Technology also documents technologies, processes, stories and memoirs in order to preserve them for generations to come.