They knew things about cars that I never wanted to know about, such as torque ratio and the differences between rack and pinion steering vs. worm and roller.

FORBES: So, Why Would Ford Loan Someone Like Me a Car?

Other advances included rubber cone independent suspension, designed by Alex Moulton (who incidentally, went on to design the Moulton bicycle -- another of my favorite designs), rack and pinion steering and a monocoque body that eliminated the need for a costly separate chassis.

CNN: A design classic