Cadillac Independent Service

Precision from the Start

Henry Martyn Leland, born in Vermont in 1843, moved to Detroit in 1890 and built a reputation for precision manufacturing with the Leland & Faulconer works, which progressed from brake components to petrol engines for boats and machinery. In 1901 he developed a markedly improved engine for Oldsmobile, but the design was never put into production there.

A year later, investors William Murphy and Lemuel Bowen — disappointed backers of Henry Ford's early venture — asked Leland for his advice. Instead of recommending they wind the business down, he showed them the engine Olds had rejected and convinced them to stay in the market. The result was the Cadillac Automobile Company, named after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the explorer associated with the founding of Detroit.

The first Cadillac was completed in 1902, its test drive carried out by the young Alanson P. Brush, and it caused a sensation at the New York motor show, where more than two thousand orders were taken in a matter of days. The single-cylinder Model A earned a reputation for safe driving, comfort, strong hill-climbing and dependability, and in 1903 F.S. Bennett took Cadillac abroad for the first time, competing in England, where the car distinguished itself in reliability trials against rivals with larger engines.

In 1905 Cadillac merged with Leland & Faulconer to form the Cadillac Motor Car Company, with Henry Leland as general manager. The single-cylinder cars remained in production until 1909, and the marque's greatest early triumph came in England in 1908 — a testament to the precision engineering on which Cadillac's name was built.