The Crittenden Automotive Library

On This Day in Automotive History: May 9

On This Day in Automotive History
May 9

Return to the "On This Day..." calendar

May 8 « Go to » May 10

Birthdays: Henry J. Kaiser (1882), Bradford M. Crittenden (1912), Ray Lepage (1933), Moose Hewitt (1933), John Sears (1936), Jim Hickman (1943), John Bourassa (1947), Andy Sutcliffe (1947), Gary Lloyd (1948), Allen Lloyd (1949), Ed Brunnhoelzl Jr. (1951), Kevin Crowder (1955), Chris MacAllister (1956), Tim Fedewa (1967), Pat Bliss (1968), Scott Pruitt (1968), Kevin Weeda (1968), Kelly Kolodychuk (1971), Mattias Andersson (1973), Adam Edwards (1980), Stuart Kirby (1981), Mark Wilkins (1983), J.R. Fitzpatrick (1988), Shane van Gisbergen (1989), Jimmy Zacharias (1991), John DeAngelis Jr. (1994), Vittorio Ghirelli (1994), Reid Lanpher (1998)

1950: SEAT founded.

1978: Walter Egan released his album Not Shy, which included the song “The Blonde in the Blue T-Bird.”

1980: The ship “Summit Venture” strikes a pier of the southbound lanes of the I-275 Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay in Florida. Collapse of the main span kills 35 people. Emergency relief funds help the Florida DOT build a $240-million replacement cable-stay bridge, which opens on April 30, 1987. The New York Times says the new bridge “may rank as the most impressive piece of large-scale bridge design in this country in half a century.”

1981: The first episode of B.J. and the Bear aired.

1982: “Illegal bidding practices cannot be condoned by government, society, or the construction industry,” Administrator Ray Barnhart says via videotape in the opening address of the Anti-Trust Seminar for State Attorneys and Engineers, sponsored by AASHTO. “There will no longer be soft pats on the back, nor gentlemanly condolences. We cannot, and must not, accept such behavior.”

2001: Smokey Yunick died.

2008: The film Speed Racer was released in the United States, Canada, UK, and 11 other countries.

On This Day in Automotive History: May 9