The cupholder race
The design of car cupholders went through dramatic changes throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
In the early dark days of automobiles, built-in cupholders were either non-existent or unusable. Many people purchased an accessory cupholder which hung from a window or dashboard.
There was a higher demand for cupholders due to more people commuting to work and the insurgence of drive-thrus.
Today it seems simple, but engineers and designers investigated the very best shape and mechanisms to hold a variety of cups securely in place.
Chrysler designed the ones we typically see today in a 1983 minivan. But more iterations were explored before cupholders became ubiquitous in the late 1990s.
The 1994 lawsuit, Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants, may have also been an influencer in the standard presence of cupholders. Stella Liebeck, a 79 year old woman, scorched her lap with 180°F McDonald's coffee in her car. This led to horribly severe burns and $480,000 in punitive damages. If her 1989 Ford Probe had cupholders, perhaps the situation could have been avoided altogether.
