Grand Prix Peugeot. Roger Viollet/Getty Images
In 1776, a bunch of rabble-rousers fed up with the king’s rule took 13 pretty solid colonies and made them into a damn good country. Since then, we’ve adopted lots of other things from Britain, France, and Spain, the one-time superpowers that ruled what is now the United States.
Some of those haven’t really improved under our watch (wine). Others, we’ve made worse (Florida). A few, we should have just left where they were (Piers Morgan). But mostly, we’ve done a good job.
That’s especially true when it comes to ways of getting around. The Brits pioneered the jet engine during World War II. They shared it with us, and we really made it fly. The first tanks were British and French, now America dominates with the M1 Abrams. The French created the first mechanically-powered submarine in 1863 but today the U.S. Navy freely roams the seas in Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered subs.
In the spirit of Independence Day, here are five vehicles that were first developed in Europe, but didn’t find greatness until they fell into American hands.
The Grand Prix Peugeot
In the early days of auto racing, the French ruled over all. In the 1912 Grand Prix of France, a 7.6-liter Peugeot blew away a 16-liter Fiat. Then Europe got itself into a nasty war and didn’t have the time or resources to push the technology forward.
Enter America. That Peugeot emigrated to the United States, where it won the Indianapolis 500 in 1913, 1916, and 1919. Of course, the Americans didn’t leave things well enough alone. Fred Offenhauser used key features from the Peugeot to create the eponymous engine that dominated Indy until the 1960s.
“Because the French were sidetracked by the war, they stopped in terms of racing technology and engine technology, and the Americans did not,” says John Heitmann, president of the Society of Automotive Historians and a professor at the University of Dayton. “So by 1919, the war is over, and the French realize that all of a sudden, the Americans have all their technology and a bit more.”
The De Havilland DH-4
The de Havilland DH-4 bomber of World War I was among the world’s first combat aircraft. The two-seat biplane’s design flaws included a pressurized gas tank that had a tendency to explode and a fuel line that was prone to catching fire. It was so dangerous that pilots took to calling it the “Flaming Coffin.”
That didn’t stop the U.S. Army Air Service from adopting the plane once we joined the war and putting it into large-scale production. But the improvements came after the fighting was over, when the U.S. Postal Service embraced the plane for coast-to-coast routes. Engineers ditched the pressurized gas tank for a conventional tank, which they put in front of the pilot to make it easier to communicate with the co-pilot. Their improvements made the DH-4 a much better airplane, says Dr. Janet Bednarek, an aviation historian at the University of Dayton.
The Autogyro
Spanish engineer Juan de la Cierva invented and first flew his autogiro in Madrid in January 1923. The machine is similar to a helicopter, but the rotor blades aren’t powered. An engine pushes the aircraft forward, and the movement through the air makes the blades spin, keeping the contraption airborne.
American Harold Pitcairn was impressed, and licensed de la Cierva’s technology to produce the Pitcairn-Cierva PCA-1. The American take on the autogyro, ready by 1929, was bigger and more rugged, with landing gear better designed for hard landings. The whole thing was about the same weight, thanks to Pitcairn’s welded square steel tube fuselage.
Then came the PCA-1A, which cut weight using duralumin tubing instead of steel construction, and fabric covering the wings instead of plywood. It wasn’t especially fast or powerful, but it could fly as slowly as 20 mph and maintain altitude, an engineering feat that earned Pitcairn the Collier Trophy from the National Aeronautic Association in 1930.
The Martin B-57 Canbarra
Heading into the Korean War, the United States needed a jet-powered medium bomber to replace the aging, propeller-driven Douglas B-26 Invader, and didn’t have the time to develop a design from scratch. So the Air Force licensed the English Electric Canberra, and contracted the Glenn L. Martin company (which eventually merged into Lockheed Martin) to build it for American forces.
By 1953, Martin engineers had made a good design a whole lot better. They added air-to-ground rockets, a new bubble cockpit, ejection seats, and a new rotary bomb rack that could be loaded before being clipped onto the aircraft, cutting down reloading times on the ground. The Martin B-57 Canbarra could fly low-level attacks or high-altitude bombing missions, and earned the nickname “Night Intruder.”
In 1955, Martin made a new variant of the jet. With nearly double the original wingspan, the WB-57F would fly at 40,000 feet and watch Soviet military movements and nuclear testing. It was also used by NASA for high altitude research.
The Shelby Cobra
Before the Texan got his hands on it, the AC Ace was a lovely, lightweight British roadster. Then Caroll Shelby, a flight instructor during World War II and a highly accomplished race car driver in the post-war years, decided to stuff a Ford V8 under the hood.
The result was one of the most famous cars of all time, the 1962 AC Cobra, also known as the Shelby Cobra. With 271 horsepower, it ran from 0 to 60 mph in six seconds and could hit 150 mph, despite a not especially aerodynamic body. That led to even more impressive concoctions, and in 1965 the Shelby Daytona Coupe produced the win over Ferrari in the FIA World Sportscar Championship that Shelby and Ford had desperately wanted.
Did we miss any planes, cars, trains, or other vehicles that America made better? Let us know in the comments.
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