Monday 12th December 1881
Vincent Hugo Bendix, the American inventor and industrialist who founded the Bendix Corporation of Chicago in 1907 to manufacture Bendix Buggies, was born. The company failed two years later after producing 7000 vehicles, but in 1910, Bendix invented and patented the Bendix drive, that allowed the development of practical starter motors for internal combustion engines. The device allows the pinion gear of the starter motor to engage or disengage the flywheel of the engine automatically when the starter is powered or when the engine fires, respectively. 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”.