Stutz, the obscure American luxury marque from the 1910s-1930s, pioneered the first production car with a safety cage integrated into the chassis structure—a welded steel skeleton that predated the modern monocoque by decades—yet the innovation was marketed so poorly that buyers interpreted it as a sign the car was fragile and needed extra protection, causing sales to plummet and the feature to disappear from production within five years.
Car Fact #32 — July 18, 2026
