Here at Indianapolis Auto Glass, we highly enjoy educating the public about all things that have to do with auto glass. We think it is important to know everything you can about your car and this includes your auto glass. By knowing a lot of information about it, you will better know what you need to do if something were to happen to it. Rather than giving you more information about when to get something fixed or what type of glass you currently have installed in your car, we would like to take a moment to look at the history of a windshield. This may sound like useless information, but seeing as the windshield keeps you and your passengers safe, we feel that it is important to know how it came to the way it is today.
When cars were first introduced, they had no glass in them at all. People would simply drive around almost in a shell of a car. There was nothing protecting them from things flying inside of the vehicle or flying out of it. As cars started to reach higher speeds, there was a sudden need for some protective wear. This protective wear was essential to protect the passengers from the outside elements. Since these cars were not hitting speeds higher than about thirty five miles per hour, goggles became the go to product. Goggles were great because they would protect your eyes from dust and bugs and were very cheap to purchase at the time.
As car companies began to create vehicles that went faster, goggles were no longer working as well as they were. The only problem is that nothing was very cost effective. They realized what they really needed was a large piece of glass on the front of the car to block dust and bugs from coming inside of the car. The real problem with this is that there was no good way to produce glass in a cheap way. In 1924 someone finally was able to mass produce glass panes. The only problem was that it was plain glass that if you crashed it would break into large, sharp pieces that could cut or even stab you.
Finally in 1927, laminated safety glass was introduced. This type of glass had a piece of plastic film sandwiched between two pieces of glass. This was great because it was much harder to break if you were to get into an accident. In fact, this is the same type of glass that is used in the windshield of your vehicle right now.
As you can see, the development of the windshield went through many different stages just like anything else. Thankfully, it did not take too long for people to realize exactly what they needed to use as a windshield. Today, all vehicles use a laminated safety glass as their auto glass.
