The Goldberg Brothers

[dsirkle]

In 1946 the 4 Goldberg brothers Lowell, Norman, Hiram and Max took their patented invention to the office of Henry Ford. They sweet talked the old man's secretary into telling him that 4 men were here to see him with the greatest new innovation in automotive history. They described their invention of an automobile air conditioning system to Mr Ford and he was quite interested. They told him that they had a working model installed in a car outside. He eagerly went outside with them. They started up the car. It was 96 degrees outside that day and the temperature in the car quickly cooled down. Henry Ford was beside himself. He wanted the rights to install this in his cars. He asked the Goldberg Bros how much they wanted. They told him that they wanted three million dollars and recognition in the form of a plaque installed on the dashboard stating "Goldberg air conditioning system". Well Henry Ford was a more than a little anti semitic and he didn't want the name Goldberg on the dashboard of his cars. So he made a counter offer of five million dollars and only their first names on the dashboard. And that is why even today the air conditioners in every Ford say Low, Norm, Hi and Max

[kc261]

That's funny. For a moment I thought I was reading a real historical thing and wondering where was the significance that was going to explain why it was being posted on a forum today.

I hope you don't mind if I thread hi-jack a little because this reminds me of a story a college friend of mine used to tell about her grandfather (or maybe it was great-grandfather...), who was a tailor. I have no idea how true it is.

One day a man walked into Grandfather Goldberg's tailor shop. The man had invented a new device for fastening clothes together, and wanted to go into a partnership. Grandfather Goldberg admitted that the device was quick and easy to use, but he doubted it would ever become popular enough to double his profits, which would be required for him to break even on a new partnership. He told the inventor he was not interested. So, the inventor went to the next tailor shop down the street, walked in and said "Hello, Mr. Levi. My name is Mr. Strauss, and I'd like to show you my new invention. I call it the zipper."