Car Turntable
Encyclopedia
Čar
Čar is a village in the municipality of Bujanovac, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the town has a population of 296 people.-References:...
; they can be motorized or manually rotated and are usually installed in a driveway or in a garage floor. They rotate a motor vehicle to facilitate its easier or safer egress. Sometimes a local zoning
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
prohibition of vehicles backing onto busy roadways prompts the installation of car turntables.
The residential car turntable traces its history to the steam locomotives turntable engine shed
Engine shed
Engine shed may refer to:* Engine shed, also called a motive power depot or roundhouse, a structure used for the maintenance of railway locomotives.* Engine Shed , a music and entertainment venue on the University of Lincoln's campus....
, or roundhouse
Roundhouse
A roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...
. The first turntable engine shed was the North Midland Railway
North Midland Railway
The North Midland Railway was a British railway company, which opened its line from Derby to Rotherham and Leeds in 1840.At Derby it connected with the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway and the Midland Counties Railway at what became known as the Tri Junct Station...
roundhouse, built in 1839 at Derby, England. The turntable allowed train engines, which could not safety be run in reverse owing to their design, to be rotated to a forward position.
The car turntable has existed nearly as long as the mass-produced automotive. Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile was a brand of American automobile produced for most of its existence by General Motors. It was founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In its 107-year history, it produced 35.2 million cars, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory...
was the first mass production
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
automobile built on assembly lines in 1902. Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
greatly expanded his production line manufacture with affordable automobiles beginning in 1913, most notably with his Ford Model T
Ford Model T
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from September 1908 to May 1927...
. Henry Ford’s Dearborn, Michigan
Dearborn, Michigan
-Economy:Ford Motor Company has its world headquarters in Dearborn. In addition its Dearborn campus contains many research, testing, finance and some production facilities. Ford Land controls the numerous properties owned by Ford including sales and leasing to unrelated businesses such as the...
Fair Lane
Fair Lane
Fair Lane was the name of the estate of Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford and his wife Clara Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, in the United States. It was named after an area in County Cork in Ireland where Ford's adoptive grandfather, Patrick Ahern, was born...
Estate garage (Estate construction began in 1914 and was completed in 1916) included an automobile turntable.
The architect Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
designed and implemented several residential vehicle turntables including the 1922 Doheny Ranch Estate in Beverly Hills, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, designed but never built for Edward L. Doheny
Edward L. Doheny
Edward Laurence Doheny was an American oil tycoon, who in 1892, along with business partner Charles A. Canfield, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field, setting off the petroleum boom in Southern California.At first he was an unsuccessful prospector in the state of...
, a Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
oil tycoon and the Westcott House built in 1908 in Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek and Beaver Creek, approximately west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. Springfield is home to Wittenberg...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, for Burton J. Westcott
Burton J. Westcott
Burton J. Westcott was one of Springfield, Ohio’s most prominent citizens and successful businessmen.-Life:He was born in Richmond, Indiana, the son of John W. Westcott, who was the founder and president of the Hoosier Drill Company, a noted manufacturer of farm implements...
, designer of the Westcott automobile
Westcott automobile
The Westcott was an automobile produced in Richmond, Indiana and Springfield, Ohio in the United States between 1912 and 1925. The car company was named for its founder, Burton J. Westcott....
and founder of the Westcott Motor Car Company.
Car turntables were first prevalent in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. As seen in the August 1938 Modern Mechanics issue, which displays a turntable used in Paris’ narrow streets “so that cars and autos don’t have to go miles out of their way to find turning places”. Possibly due to the dense urban planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
in Europe, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
(among others) an earnest adoption of turntables began in the 1950s.
Escalating urban density
Urban density
Urban density is a term used in urban planning and urban design to refer to the number of people inhabiting a given urbanized area. As such it is to be distinguished from other measures of population density. Urban density is considered an important factor in understanding how cities function...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and increased awareness of back-over and reversing accidents primarily involving children has helped in popularity of vehicle turntables.
Two primary types of vehicle turntables are available: the above-ground version and the in-ground version. The two versions are analogous to an above-ground and an in-ground swimming pool
Swimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...
. The above-ground version is not flush with the driveway or garage pad and does not require excavation
Earthworks (engineering)
Earthworks are engineering works created through the moving or processing of quantities of soil or unformed rock.- Civil engineering use :Typical earthworks include roads, railway beds, causeways, dams, levees, canals, and berms...
. The in-ground version is flush with the driveway or garage pad and does require excavation.
The non-American turntables tend to be more utilitarian; the operator often spins their vehicle around by hand, and these manufacturers offer few options other than motorized versions. The newer developed U.S. turntables tend to cater to the consumer behavior of the American marketplace
Marketplace
A marketplace is the space, actual, virtual or metaphorical, in which a market operates. The term is also used in a trademark law context to denote the actual consumer environment, ie. the 'real world' in which products and services are provided and consumed.-Marketplaces and street markets:A...
– some of these models offer microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
controls, safety engineering
Safety engineering
Safety engineering is an applied science strongly related to systems engineering / industrial engineering and the subset System Safety Engineering...
features, high vehicle weight capacities, lighting accessories and heated platters.
Bus turntables
Turntables have also been built for use by buses or trolleybusTrolleybus
A trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...
es in a few places. Examples of trolleybus turntables include the Christchurch trolleybus turntable
Christchurch trolleybus turntable
The Christchurch trolleybus turntable formed part of the Bournemouth trolleybus system, which served the town of Bournemouth and its environs, on the south coast of England.-History:...
, in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
(long disused but still extant); the Longwood trolleybus turntable
Longwood trolleybus turntable
The Longwood trolleybus turntable formed part of the Huddersfield trolleybus system, which served the market town of Huddersfield, in West Yorkshire, England.-History:...
, in Huddersfield
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....
, England (dismantled); one used on the Guadalajara trolleybus system
Trolleybuses in Guadalajara
The Guadalajara trolleybus system serves Guadalajara, the capital city of the state of Jalisco in Mexico.Opened on 20 November 1976, the system is owned and operated by Sistema de Transporte Colectivo de la Zona Metropolitana . , it had two lines, each of which connected the area west of the city...
in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
in the 1980s; and the Unterburg trolleybus turntable, at Burg, Germany, near Solingen
Solingen
Solingen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and with a 2009 population of 161,366 is the second largest city in the Bergisches Land...
, which was used by trolleybuses of the Solingen trolleybus system
Trolleybuses in Solingen
The Solingen trolleybus system , also known locally as the Stangentaxi, serves the city of Solingen, in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany....
in regular service until November 2009 and remains in place for occasional use by heritage vehicles.