An Automotive Pioneer
In 1916, Budd built one of the first steel car bodies, for Dodge. They jointly founded and from 1926 to 1936 held an interest in The Pressed Steel Company of Great Britain Limited (Cowley, England), which built bodies for Morris Motors and others, and Ambi-Budd (Germany), which supplied Adler, Audi, BMW, NAG and Wanderer; and earned royalties from Bliss (who built bodies for Citroën and Ford of Britain). The Budd Company also created the first "safety" two-piece truck wheel, used extensively in World War II, and also built truck cargo bodies for the U.S. military.
In 1940, Budd worked with Nash Motors on the development and production of North America's first mass produced "unibody" passenger vehicle, the Nash 600. In the mid-1980s, Budd's Plastics Division introduced sheet moulding compound, a reinforced plastic in sheet form, suitable for stamping out body panels in much the same way, and as quickly, as sheet metal equivalents are made.
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Famous quotes containing the word pioneer:
“The poet is no tender slip of fairy stock, who requires peculiar institutions and edicts for his defense, but the toughest son of earth and of Heaven, and by his greater strength and endurance his fainting companions will recognize the God in him. It is the worshipers of beauty, after all, who have done the real pioneer work of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)