While in the United States all cars had a laminated windshield decades ago (laminated windscreen) were supplied, it was still possible to opt for tempered glass in the Netherlands until well into the 1970s. You know, one stone or other iniquity against the glass and whips, it fell apart into tens of thousands of small pieces of glass.
Nice for the eyes, nice for the vacuum cleaner and years later it was still possible to note when the windscreen cleaner was turned on and pieces of glass flew into the cabin. In the case of laminated glass, the window also needed to be replaced, but visibility was maintained by a (heavy) star or one or more ugly cracks. But since when does laminated glass actually exist? In 1903, it was French chemist Edouard Benedictus who discovered it by accident when an accidentally a glass bottle covered with cellulose nitrate fell to the ground but did not fall apart. He then developed a windscreen for the automotive industry which he could fully agree with, because the layered windscreen resulted in far fewer accidents with a wrong end. Shortly before the Second World War - all gas masks already had laminated glass in the first edition of this disagreement - Ford used a yearly 56.000 square meter of laminated glass for its cars in the British Dagenham. That was the so-called Indestructo glass from the London-based firm of the same name. The British Indestructo Glass Company could have refined Benedict's invention in such a way that, in the event of damage, no splinters were formed, was crystal clear and did not discolour due to the action of the sun. Today's laminated glass, however, consists of two layers of approximately 3 millimeters thick glass with a sheet of polyvinyl (PVB) stuck in between.