Monday 12th December 1881
Born on this day, Vincent Hugo Bendix, an American inventor and industrialist who founded the Bendix Corporation of Chicago in 1907 to manufacture automobiles, called Bendix Buggies. After producing 7000 vehicles the company failed two years later, but in 1910, Bendix invented and patented the Bendix drive, a gear that could engage an engine at low rotational speed and then fly back and disengage automatically at higher speed; this drive made the electric starter practical for automobile engines, and later, for engines in aircraft and other motorized vehicles. The Bendix drive is still in widespread use at the beginning of the 21st century, so much so that mechanics often refer to such a mechanism simply as a “bendix”.
