Who’s first? When it comes to cars, there’s always been lots of boasting by auto manufacturers claiming that they’re the first offering this, or the first building that. Because all the lazy media types believe their every word instead of doing the proper research themselves, it’s no wonder that history books are filled with erroneous information. Wikipedia is another error-filled source that can’t be relied on.
Therefore, I wasn’t that surprised when I read the letters in last issue’s Readers’ Replies column about which car was the first to be fitted with disc brakes. However, I was somewhat surprised to read that one candidate was the 1955 Citroën. I say somewhat surprised, because Citroën introduced lots of firsts when it came to mechanical marvels.
In the case of disc brakes, that highly significant claim to fame goes to the little manufacturer of little cars, Crosley. As reader Ernie Knight correctly wrote, it was the Indiana-built 1949 Crosley which was first fitted with Goodyear/Hawley disc brakes on all four wheels. Unfortunately, these calipers, which were initially designed for airplanes, couldn’t stand up to the repeated use demanded by the automobile, and thus proved troublesome. So a little more than six months after they were introduced, Crosley went back to using the tried and true drum-brake system instead. Thus, Crosley was the first disc-brake-equipped automobile. Or was it?
Back in England in 1902, Lanchester built a car with disc brakes that looked similar in design to our current disc-brake system. The main difference was that the disc was nearly paper-thin and, I believe, made of copper, which made it quite troublesome. Although the brake pad was activated by a cable instead of hydraulic fluid, nonetheless it was still a disc-brake design.
Also in 1949, Chrysler introduced an optional “disc brake” system on their Imperial, which was retained through the 1953 model. But the reason I placed the words “disc brake” in quotes is because these brakes did not incorporate a caliper clamping down on a disc; instead, they relied on the engagement of a pair of discs rubbing against the inside surface of a cast-iron drum. I’d call that a true disc-drum setup, but not a disc brake.
For years, it’s been widely acknowledged that Jensen was the first manufacturer to adapt four-wheel disc brakes to their 1956 model 541 Deluxe–and they did, but it wasn’t until October of that year. Yet it was Austin-Healey, one year before, who fitted their 100S with the same Dunlop disc brakes on all four wheels. But the 100S was a limited-production competition-based model, and the Jensen was a true road car. However, if production vs. competition doesn’t matter, then Jaguar had them both beat with their beautiful C-type race car, which they built for the 1953 Le Mans, and in which they finished in first, second and fourth place.
As to the 1955 Citroën DS: Unlike the 541 Deluxe, of which Jensen built only 53 examples, the DS was truly a mass-produced car. But wait. When did Citroën introduce their 1955 DS? That was at the Paris Salon on October 5, 1955. Only seven DS models were built that month, followed by just one in November, then 61 in December. With several changes still being made during those waning days of 1955, many historians consider these early cars to be somewhat pre-production models: Just 69 were built that first year, but production really didn’t get going until January 1956. Production for the 1956 model year totaled 9,868, jumping to 28,593 units for the 1957 model year.
Which then leads us back to Triumph: The recent article on the TR3A in the January 2011 issue was the reason for our readers to write us in the first place. Although Triumph introduced their new 1956 TR3 with disc brakes to the public back in October 1955 at the London Motor Show, several months prior, at Le Mans in June, Triumph fielded three factory-built competition TR2s. One car had drums all around, another had Girling disc brakes up front and a third TR2 was fitted with Dunlop discs on all four wheels. Triumph did this to evaluate the effectiveness and durability of each brake setup before releasing a disc-brake system to the public. It wasn’t until September 1956 that the first production TR3 rolled off the assembly line fitted with Girling front-disc brakes.
Although Triumph wasn’t the first to equip their racecars with disc brakes, they were only two years behind Jaguar and just a few months after Austin-Healey–yet they were far ahead of all the exotic car manufacturers, including Ferrari and Maserati, as well as Alfa Romeo, Porsche and even Mercedes-Benz.
So who had disc brakes first? Well, it’s clear to see that the Citroën DS was the first volume-production car so equipped, while Triumph’s TR3 was the first volume-production sports car, and Jaguar the first racecar builder. Crosley is unquestionably the first American manufacturer, but there’s little doubt that Lanchester deservedly gets to be crowned king.
