Automotive History
Name It and It's Yours
By 1911 the automobile industry had come into its own. Securities of
automotive companies were listed in the New York Stock Exchange. The Ford
Motor Company had been formed, and by 1908 had introduced the historic
Model T. The Buick Motor Company, the Olds Motor Works, the Cadillac Automobile
Company and the Oakland Motor Car Company had already achieved individual
success - and had been combined with other firms by William Crapo Durant
into the General Motors Company. Durant then lost control of the organization
and moved on to another career, building and selling a new automobile,
which had been designed by and named for Louis Chevrolet, a French race
driver. Another promoter, Benjamin Briscoe, had brought together some 130
companies to create the United States Motor Car Corporation. This ambitious
merger soon ran into financial difficulties and ran into receivership in
1912. Michigan, and especially Detroit, were now established as centers
of automobile production. The general public took to motorized vehicles
like moths to a flame. While the heads of companies were inventing, merging,
maneuvering, suing, counter-suing, promoting, failing, or amassing fantastic
wealth, curious Americans from Oregon to Maine were interested enough to
open their wallets. Dealerships were set up in livery stables, blacksmith
shops and general stores in the largest cities and in the smaller towns.
Some of the mechanically-minded individuals assembled their own vehicles,
while others turned to their favorite source of supply for anything - the
Sears, Roebuck catalog - to order a motor buggy "so safe that a child could
run it."
Many of those who contributed to the automotive industry have faded
from memory and into historic oblivion (or those whose ideas were stolen,
into oblivion itself). Others have been engraved into automobile history
on nameplates. Walter Chrysler, Louis Chevrolet, David Dunbar Buick, Ransom
E. Olds, Henry Ford, John and Horace Dodge, The White, Mack, and Duesenberg
brothers have not been forgotten. John Mohler Studebaker, John North Willys,
Harry Stutz, William Crapo Durant, Edwin Ross Thomas, Francis and Freelan
Stanley, Johathan Dixon Maxwell, Charles W. Nash, James Ward Packard, Thomas
B. Jeffery, E. L. Cord, George N. Pierce, Albert Augustus Pope, Howard
C. Marmon and others like them have a niche in the automotive annuals because
their names graced the automobiles and radiator caps of their era.
Only an avid hobbyist or automotive historian is familiar with the pioneers
like H. Bartol Brazier of Philadelphia; J. L. Cato of San Francisco; Dan
J. Piscorski of St. Louis, Missouri; W. H. Kiblinger of Auburn, Indiana;
Percy L. Klock of New York; F. J. Fanning of Chicago; C. Clarence Holden
of Comanche, Texas; or J. A. Moncrieff of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They
had cars named for them as well, but for some reason, the vehicles failed
to catch on and their creators were ground into the oils of automotive
history by more popular models.
In 1904, Graham Fisher and James A. Allison organized the Prest-O- Lite
Company and introduced a new system of acetylene gas headlights. In 1908,
the year of the Model T, C. Harold Wills developed the use of vanadium
steel for Ford. At the same time, Charles Y. Knight was perfecting his
sleeve-valve engine, and the Fischer brothers founded a company which was
to gain fame as a producer of closed auto bodies. Scientific experimentation
of Charles Franklin Kettering of the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company
helped bring about such innovations as the electric starter and ethyl gasoline.
Harvey S. Firestone, B. F. Goodrich, Arthur W. Grand and others worked
with rubber to overcome deficiencies in tire construction. Edward G. Budd,
a young Philadelphia engineer, is credited with the idea for all-steel
bodies for automobiles. Before this time, many of the manufacturers had
been carriage makers and used the same techniques and designs they had
previously used for horse-drawn vehicles. The heat of early-day motors
caused wood to warp and weakened the glue which held it together. Rough
roads made joints give way so that the automobile creaked and groaned.
Budd left a good job to pursue his idea with his own company; in 1912,
he finally convinced the Oakland and Hupmobile people to try his all-steel
body frames, and the next year he received his first large contract from
John and Horace Dodge.
Arthur O. Smith, the son of a Milwaukee blacksmith and bicycle parts
manufacturer, shifted his interests from bicycles to the new-fangled horseless
carriage. He sold his first pressed steel frames to the Peerless Motor
Company early in the 20th century and when other auto builders became interested,
he offered a house and lot to a foreman who could increase his production
to twelve frames per day. It was then that he was visited by Henry Ford.
Ford ordered 10,000 Model T frames for delivery in four months; a challenge
that was accepted, and by 1921, the A. O. Smith Corporation was capable
of producing Ford's first order in a single day.
Hundreds of ideas have come from unknown mechanics who achieved neither
fame nor pay for their contributions. The automobile, as it progressed,
was a product of many hands, of revolutionary concepts, and of simple,
almost unnoticed upgrading. In the end, the one who received the most for
these challenges and changes was the motorist, whose interest, money, and
enthusiasm have forced the auto-moguls to upgrade, perfect, and add to
previous achievements in order to stay in the competition.
The Cadillac is named after the man who, in the 1700's, founded Detroit.
His name was Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.
Animal Names
Some of the cars that have been named after animals are:
Badger Colt Eagle Hawk
Barracuda Cougar Falcon Honey Bee
Beaver Coyote Fox Hornet
Black Crow Cricket Golden Eagle Impala
Bobcat Crow Great Eagle Jack Rabbit
Kangaroo Panther Stingray
Lark Pinto Wasp
Lion Rabbit Whippet
Lynx Road Runner Wildcat
Marlin Seven Little Buffaloes Wolf
Mustang Silver Hawk Wolverine
Star Names
Comet Jetstar Star Eclipse Meteor Starfire Flying Cloud Moon Sun Galaxie
Nova Sunset Golden Rocket Satellite Vega
Hero and Mythology Names
Ajax Centaur Hercules Apollo Cressida Mercury Ariel Croesus Minerva Argo
Diana Nike Argonaut Die Valkyrie Olympian Atlas Electra Pan Aurora Excalibur
Sphynx Ben Hur Goethe Vulcan
State Names
California Maryland Oregon Carolina Michigan Pennsylvania Illinois New
Yorker Texan Indiana Ohio Virginian
