Car Repairs & Detailing

The first car washes in the form that we recognize them opened in 1914 in the United States of America. Since then, car washes have appeared in many different incarnations, from completely manual to fully automatic, and although these have developed separately, all types continue to exist.

The first fully automatic car wash is often considered to have been opened in 1951 by the Anderson brothers in Seattle, Washington. Their system was completely hands-free, using a bevy of tools to achieve this, some new and others from their predecessors’ attempts at automation.

The 50s and 60s saw a number of other improvements to this system, typically around improving efficiency and reducing cost. All of these advances eventually culminated in the automatic car wash systems we know of today, where you simply drive your car onto the conveyor belt and let it go through without any staff members involved in the actual cleaning process.

(Source: techhistorian.com)