And, of course, that unmistakable blue-and-yellow can of WD-40.
Most of us know exactly what it looks like. We know the smell. We know that satisfying little hiss when you spray it. And chances are, someone in your family has reached for it when a hinge squeaked, a bolt refused to move, or something metal started looking a little too rusty.
But here’s the part that still amazes me:
WD-40 wasn’t originally created for your garage.
It was developed in the 1950s to solve a problem connected to aerospace technology and the Atlas missile program.
Yep.
That little can sitting beside your toolbox has a history that reaches all the way back to the tense technological world of the Cold War.
And the story gets even better because the name WD-40 isn’t a mysterious product code. It tells you exactly how the formula came to exist.
It took 40 attempts.
So let’s take a trip back to 1953 and uncover how a product designed to protect aerospace hardware from corrosion eventually became one of the most recognizable household maintenance products in the world.
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