Cadillac 1902 - 1904 1896 Cadillac was not the first gasoline automobile to ply the streets of Detroit. That honor befalls a lightweight horseless carriage with cow-tail (tiller) steering, built by Charles Brady King and German immigrant, Oliver Barthel. That event occurred March 6, 1896 when that first "car" puttered down Woodward Avenue in Detroit with King at the tiller and (engineer) Barthel seated at his side. King had formed the Charles Brady King Company in 1894 to make brakes for railroad cars. That same year he hired talented engineer Oliver Barthel as his assistant. They began to build Detroit's first car in John Lauer's machine shop on St. Antoine Street, where Lauer manufactured products for King's company. Although his invention put Detroit on the road to becoming the motor capital of the world, King never built any cars for sale. 1899 With his experience of the gasoline-powered car, Oliver Barthel was invited to give an opinion on the chances of survival of Henry Ford's first, modest venture into building automobiles. Around the same time Henry Leland, who was VP and general manager of the Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Company, a budding tool and die manufacturer, convinced Ford's investors that there was a future in horseless carriages, provided they could be powered by a reliable motor ...and Leland had one. His robust little single-cylinder engine would soon be proving its mettle in the fledgling motor works of Ransom Eli Olds. Later that year, the Detroit Automobile Company was founded. Henry Ford was still involved in it but he soon backed out; he was more interested in a car's speed, he said, than in its endurance. Saved from bankruptcy two years later (1901) by Henry Leland, the Detroit Automobile Company was renamed the Cadillac Automobile Company, in August 1902, in honor of a French adventurer and self-styled "nobleman", Antoine Laumet Sieur de Lamothe- Cadillac who, 200 years earlier, had founded "Detroit", a small French trading post at the confluence of lakes Erie and St. Clair. Oliver Barthel was kept on by Leland although credit for the earliest Cadillac automobiles went to another engineer by the name of Alanson P. Brush. In this respect, on the 50th Anniversary of the first automobile operated in Detroit, in 1946, early auto pioneers were asked to write their memoirs. In his "Ramblings", Oliver Barthel felt he had never got the proper credit for what he did for Cadillac; he described some details of the first cars that only an insider could know about [This info from Tim Pawl, CLC member in charge of the Club's Museum and Research Center]. ~~~~~ This excerpt from a company advertising booklet published in 1913 summarizes well the situation of the automobile in America at the turn of the century: The worthwhile accomplishments in this world are usually things concerning which the wiseacres with one accord, have raised their hands and loudly proclaimed "It can't be done." Nowhere, perhaps, has this been more strikingly illustrated than in the automobile industry and its products. The first significant example occurred back in the year 1902. At that time the automobile industry was just in its swaddling clothes. A few car had been made with rather indifferent success. The automobile was somewhat of a curiosity and to many minds considerable of a joke. "It will never amount to anything for practical purposes" was the common verdict. "Of course it is an interesting plaything for the man with plenty of money but beyond that there is nothing to it". There were also some other brilliant opinions whose values have been dimmed by time and progress. About that time Mr. Henry M. Leland who had been associated with the manufacture of fine tools, fine machinery, gas and gasoline engines for many years, developed plans for the building of a real automobile. Mr. Leland succeeded in interesting several Detroit business men in the project and the Cadillac Automobile Company was formed. These men "foresaw the future of the motor car" and placed an order for 3000 one cylinder engines with the Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Company of which the aforesaid Mr. Henry M. Leland was the head. Immediately all hands went up. "It can't be done." "They're crazy." "Why they can't sell 3000 automobiles in the whole world." You hear these things on every side. But in a little more than a year, the whole quota of 3000 engines had been used. Then another similar order was placed, then another and another. In the meantime, the Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Company and the Cadillac Automobile Company had combined their interests and Mr. Leland became the active head of the consolidated institutions which became the Cadillac Motor Car Company. More than 20,000 of these one-cylinder automobiles were manufactured and marketed in the five years following. No, it couldn't be done. ...but it was! 1902 Facts: Henry Martyn Leland was co-founder of the Cadillac Automobile Company in August 1902 (earlier he had been founder, vice-president and general manager of the Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Company, where his son Wilfrid was assistant treasurer under William H. Murphy - it was the latter company that supplied the first engines for the new Cadillac car). The Detroit Automobile Company [see "1899", above] had called on Leland to come and appraise their assets with a view to liquidating the company but Leland convinced them to stay in business, offering them his own 1-cylinder motor, built at the Leland & Faulconer works, to power a new automobile. Left: Where the first Cadillac engines were built (1902); right the Cadillac Automobile Company located at 448-500 Trombly Ave., Detroit, MI Left: Engine assembly in the Leland & Faulconer foundry building Right: belt-drive machines in the new Cadillac Automobile Co. premises (1903) Reformed as the Cadillac Automobile Company in August 1902, it began manufacturing runabouts named "Cadillac", after the city's founder. The first Cadillac was completed on October 17, 1902 [October 20, according to the book Henry Leland - Master of Precision, p.69]1; it had patent leather fenders (image, below). The first Cadillac By year's end, three of the small runabouts had been built. They were not called the Model A until 1904 when that designation was first used to differentiate between them with the new Model B. The earliest Cadillacs had wooden wheels with 14 spokes, as shown in the early catalogs and ads for the marque; the first Cadillac Automobile Company product catalog was published in late 1902 {*}. 1 [This update from Feb. 2004 is from the Cadillac-LaSalle Club Museum and Research Center, headed by CLC member Tim Pawl] The Cadillac LaSalle Club museum has a copy of the ledger for 1903 which shows the first five cars as being built in 1902. Car #3 has surfaced and shows a build date of October 16, 1902; its Michigan registration dates from 1923 [the first year of documented registrations]. Note: options in 1902-03 were limited to color (either maroon or black), tires (either Fisk or Hartford) and gear teeth (either 32 or 36). There is still quite a debate over the number of spokes on the early cars 12 or 14, as the early photos show NO valve stems [YS adds: true, the early factory photos, or artists' views (?), appear to be retouched and show no valve stems; however, I have a photo of what is believed to be the FIRST Cadillac and one valve stem is visible, albeit very dimly; in addition, the two well-known photos of the "first" Cadillac - Alanson Brush and Wilfrid Leland on Trombley Ave and Alanson Brush climbing the steps of the Wayne County building in Detroit) clearly show cars with 14-spoke wheels]. Bodies were built by either The Detroit Body Company or Wilson. It has been speculated also that the five cars reportedly built in 1902 had bodies from P.L. Hussey's Hussey Auto and Supply Co. (Mr. Hussey apparently was the first sales manager of Cadillac, followed shortly thereafter by William E. Metzger who took three of them to the New York Auto Show and quickly sold out the entire first year's production [1903]. Note that an early ad for the Hussey Body Company features the same "car" as was used in an early Cadillac ad [YS adds: this is ad #0013 on my listing; published in Cycle & Automobile Trade Journal in January, 1903, it should really be in position #0002 or #0003 - it is recognizable by the rectangular inspection doors located on the body sides, below the seat overhang; that feature is visible also on the early Cadillac runabout that Alanson Brush drove up the steps of the Wayne County Building in Detroit - photo below, at "Trivia 1"; however, "The first Cadillac" (photo, above) - does NOT have those inspection doors; it may have been supplied by Wilson]. With regard to the foregoing footnote, another enthusiast and Database visitor, Robert Szudarek, said in August 2004: I don't believe the first Cadillacs were built in the Leland and Falconer shop. They were built in the D.A.C [Detroit Automobile Company], aka the Henry Ford Co. on Cass Ave. Barthel took over for Ford, but was struggling and went to join Henry Ford. Patrick Hussey, located west of the LF buildings took over and completed three cars ...but money ran out. Henry Leland was paid to estimate the value of the tools and machines, which were to be sold. Upon completion, Henry reviewed the results with the management. He also brought his one cylinder engine (which was developed for Oldsmobile) but they declined.