Fact No. 1
It's hard to believe, but there was a time when cars already existed, and wipers were not there. Only in 1903, the first prototypes of modern wiper blades began to whisk water from the windshields. However, since they looked more like big toothbrushes, they smeared more drops on the glass than removed them.
Fact No. 2
Mankind owes to the wiper blades and the stove in the car to women - they invented these details. The mother of the hero of this article is Mary Anderson, who patented her know-how back in 1903. Then, during a winter trip from Alabama to New York, she was struck by the fact that even in the cold many cars drive with the glass down (nothing was visible through it). So she got the idea of a brush that would clean the windshield.
Fact No. 3
For a long time, the wipers were tame. Not in the sense that they perfectly obeyed their owner, but in that they were set in motion by mechanical rotation of a special handle in the cabin. Electric appeared only in 1917, and they were invented by a woman - American Charlotte Bridgewood. The contribution of men is the invention of a mechanism for changing the wipers operating mode: it became possible to change the speed of the brushes in 1962, so this year we are celebrating the 55th anniversary of this significant event.
Fact No. 4
Cars changed - brushes changed too. So, in response to the emergence of more aerodynamic forms, and consequently, a greater bending of the windshield and an increase in its size, new designs of wiper blades became. To make the brush bigger, but not to lose the clamping force necessary for an optimal fit to the glass, the so-called hybrid brushes were invented. If traditional wipers, with an increase in size, turned into a bulky design that worsened visibility, whistled in the wind and froze in winter, then these - with a more compact mechanism, also hidden in a plastic case - were deprived of such problems. At the same time, hybrid brushes were better cleaned than frameless ones - snow, water and even morning ice, as tests show, they remove much more efficiently. Today, with the top-end D ENSO hybrid brushes, the rubber part is additionally coated with graphite, making them even more durable.