- Cup holders, Americans love 'em.
We put them in everything from people carriers,
to street legal race cars.
My co-worker's Ford Explorer has 10 cup holders.
But that's nothing.
The new Volkswagen Atlas has 17 of them.
That's two and a half per passenger.
Surprisingly, cup holders are a relatively new innovation.
So where did they come from?
Who was the first person to put cup holders in a car?
What's the future hold for the humble cup holder?
I'm Nolan Sykes and this is Wheelhouse.
The first cars didn't have cup holders.
- [Bart] No (bleep)!
- People might be surprised to hear that, Bart.
I don't know.
They didn't have much of anything, really.
But I'm not sure you'd want to drink anything
driving around back then.
The roads were much rougher,
usually paved with gravel or just dirt.
Early suspensions didn't provide a smooth ride.
Driving a Model T was pretty labor intensive.
You didn't have time to focus on anything else.
Driving was its own activity,
separate from the rest of your life.
This was the attitude most drivers had
in both America and Europe.
That was until a culinary sensation
swept the U.S.in the early 1950's.
The drive-in diner.
It was a novel idea.
You drive up to the restaurant,
a nice gal rolls up to your car and takes your order,
and you eat your entire meal
without ever leaving your vehicle.
People loved it.
Drive-ins became community hubs especially for young people.
And if American Graffiti is accurate,
they'd hang out, talk trash and race their cars.
Sounds like a pretty good Saturday night.
Must be nice hanging out with other people.
The drive-in gave way to the drive through,
which made fast food even faster.
But that presented a problem.
Where do you put your drink?
A few inventions tried to solve this problem.
Drive-ins served food on carhop trays
which hung on your door.
But you couldn't take that with you.
Several patents were filed for in-car snack trays
that held on to your food and drink.
But those were still modifications you had to do yourself.
Automakers still hadn't thought of cup holders.
One of the first examples of OEM beverage stabilization
technology was in 1957 in the Cadillac Brougham limousine.
It had a little metal tray attached to the glove box
that held onto the included cocktail glasses.
It wasn't the same as the cup holder we know today,
but it was a step in the right direction.
So, who's responsible for the cup holder as we know it?
We don't really know.
Ford says that people used the floor tray as a cup holder
in the Econoline van as early as the 1960's.
Is that really a cup holder?
I don't really know.
What I do know is that the Dodge Caravan had
real cup holders in 1984.
It was the first car with cup holders as we know 'em.
The debate between Ford and Chrysler over
who came up with cup holders first
kinda comes down to semantics.
Like, what makes a cup holder a cup holder?
Whatever side you take, it's a fact that cup holders
became more and more popular from the mid-80's onward.
But some people were hesitant to embrace the growing trend.
By some people, I mean Europeans.
- Why would you want to drink anything
while you are driving?
You want to drink or eat?
Stop your car.
Enjoy the meal.
We get something. (laughs)
- This had become the prevailing attitude
of most European car companies from the 80's
through the mid-90's, and it makes sense.
Because on opposite sides of the Atlantic,
driving had become very different.
For example, every year the average American
drives nearly twice as far as the average Brit.
Why is this?
A couple reasons.
One, Britain has way better public transit.
And two, America's just big.
Take a look at this.
The state of California is bigger
than all of the United Kingdom.
And driving from L.A. to San Fran
is nearly the same distance
as driving from London to Glasgow.
In Europe, a hundred miles is a long way.
And in America, a hundred years is a long time.
The average American also drives 16 miles to work both ways.
Depending on where you live,
that could either take 15 minutes,
or in my case, an hour and a half.
I really need to move.
By comparison, the average Britain commutes about 10 miles.
And most of 'em do it by bus or train.
My point is, Americans spend more time in their car.
We also have less to do in 'em.
In Europe, most cars have a manual transmission.
But in the U.S., they're mostly automatics.
We don't worry about spilling coffee on ourselves
when we're shifting gears, 'cause we're not shifting gears.
Since we're not completely focused on operating the car,
we're free to find other things to fill our time.
And that's what European automakers were worried about.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Commission
doesn't track how many accidents are caused
by eating and drinking.
I'm talking coffee and soda, not booze.
So it's hard to say if their concerns were warranted.
However, in 1992, one case convinced car makers
to make cup holders standard.
You've probably heard of this case.
A woman named Stella Liebeck got a cup of coffee
from a fast food place and spilled it on herself,
and she got third degree burns.
I mean, she ended up getting skin grafts.
I only bring this up because, maybe,
this whole thing could've been avoided
if the car she was in, a 1992 Ford Probe, had cup holders.
This is when most U.S. automakers adopted the cup holder.
No automaker was involved in the lawsuit,
but what if it happens again and they did get sued?
It was better to play it safe.
But the Europeans still didn't quite get it.
It was only when U.S. dealers for Porsche and Mercedes
started losing sales because they didn't have cup holders.
They're like, guys, we need cup holders in our cars.
Like, how luxurious is a car if it can't hold my drink?
So, they gave it a chance.
But the Europeans weren't quite aware of
how much holder we Americans needed for our cups.
You know, I wore a medium sized cup in high school.
(quiet mumbled voices)
(phone rings)
(quiet mumbled voices)
(phone rings)
One Porsche engineer said that
Porsche team members in the U.S.
were sending cups of all shapes and sizes back to Germany.
- So many cups!
- To make sure that cup holders in the Cayenne
could handle anything we threw at them.
(banging)
So what's next?
Well, the world of cup holders is still growing.
We've got cup holder expanders for giant cups.
We've got cup holders for your French fries.
We've even got cup holders that hold onto your phone.
Automakers even make cup holders
that heat your drink up or keep it cold.
We're living in the future.
So next time you're in a car, take some time
to appreciate the unsung hero of automotive innovation.
Thank you, cup holders.
For everything.
Thanks for watching Wheelhouse.
I'll be here every Monday.
This episode was suggested by one of you guys.
So what else do you want to learn about?
We got merch at shop.donut.media.
Get yourself a shirt.
If you like this show, subscribe to Donut.
We've got all kinds of shows.
Monday it's Wheelhouse with me.
Tuesday is field prep with Matt Fields.
He's building a formula drift Corvette.
Thursday it's up to speed with James Pumphrey,
he teaches everything you need to know
about all your favorite cars.
Friday, that's the bestest with Tony.
He's giving you the top 10 of everything cool
in the automotive world, check it out.
It's Donut, thanks for watching.