1902 Cadillac Runabout

Henry Martin Leland was a precision machinist and, along with partner Robert Faulkner, owned the Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Company. The company had begun in the 1890s and at that time was known as the Leland, Faulconer, and Norton. Charles H. Norton was a tool designer who remained with the company until 1894, later finding success as a manufacturer of crankshaft grinders. The Leland & Faulconer Manufacturing Company specialized in producing precision gears, adding steam engines to its catalog by 1896, and gasoline engines for marine purposes.

In June of 1901, the Olds Motor Works company enlisted their services to produce engines for the curved dash Oldsmobile. The Olds Motor Works plant had just endured a travesty, as its plant had caught fire on March 9th of 1901 and only a single gasoline runabout remained, a curved dash runabout powered by a single-cylinder four-stroke engine offering 7 horsepower at 500 RPM. Leland's engine design provided substantially more horsepower but was ultimately rejected as retooling the factory would cause even more delay.

In August of 1902, Leland was hired as a consultant by William Murphy and Lemuel W. Bowen, financial backers of the Henry Ford Company. The Henry Ford Company had primarily produced racing cars and had seen little in regard to commercial success. When Henry Ford left the company, the investors hired Leland to appraise the plant and equipment to recoup some of their losses. Instead, Leland persuaded the pair to continue manufacturing automobiles using the rejected Olds engine. A new company was formed, called the Cadillac Automobile Company, on August 22nd of 1902, re-purposing the Henry Ford Company factory at Cass Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The company was named after French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, who founded Detroit in 1701.

The newly formed Cadillac company completed its first automobiles, the Runabout and Tonneau, in October of 1902. These simple, two-seat horseless carriages were equipped with a single-cylinder engine with a 98 cubic-inch displacement offering as much as 10 horsepower (rated at 6.5 horsepower). Much of the design and engineering were attributed to Alanson P. Brush, a 24-year-old engineer who had contributed substantially to the project. In recognition, Leland and Faulconer entrusted the maiden test drive honors to Brush. Brush's talents were later used for designing the early Oaklands, working as a consulting engineer to General Motors, and producing a car under his own name - the Brush Runabout Company of Detroit, Michigan (1907 through 1912).

The Cadillac was brought to the New York Automobile Show where company sales manager William E. Metzger took orders for 2,286 cars. Metzger had opened one of the first automobile dealerships in the United States, participated in the early development of several early automobile companies including the Olds Motor Works, and later was the 'M' of E-M-F. His automobile retail showroom opened on June 7th of 1897 selling Waverley electric cars. A year later, he added steamers, then gasoline-power cars built by various companies. In 1899, he helped organize the Detroit Auto Show, and the following year he helped stage the New York Auto Show in New York's Madison Square Garden.

The Cadillac used an angle steel frame with a straight, tubular front axle, a single chain to spur gear differential, and two half-elliptic springs in the front and rear. It had right-hand, wheel steering with the controls to the right, an adjustable rack and pinion steering gear, and rode on single tube tires with wooden wheels. The horizontal single-cylinder engine dubbed the 'Little Hercules' was mounted to the left under the front seat. It was a water-cooled unit with vertical valves, built inline and perpendicular to the cylinder bar. It used a detachable combustion and valve chamber, a detachable cast-iron cylinder with a copper water jacket, and a fulcrum for the sliding cam operated by a lever on the steering column, resulting in variable lift to the inlet valve and throttle adjustment for the engine. A rocker and push rod from a cam on the gear-drive half-speed shaft in crankcase operated exhaust. The inlet was by rocker operated by a sliding cam driven by an eccentric on the half-speed shaft. The exhaust was at the bottom and the inlet at the top. A fuel tank under the driver's seat gravity-fed an updraft mixture that automatically delivered the needed amount by the inlet valve opening. A gravity-fed oiler provided internal lubrication.

The engine was backed by a two-speed planetary transmission with a left foot pedal operating the low speed, and a controller lever on the right controlling high speed and reverse. A foot pedal controlled mechanical brakes on inboard ends of the rear half axles. Easing the controller lever into reverse provided additional braking.

Cadillac was reorganized in 1905, merging with Leland & Faulconer; Metzger obtained 3000 shares of the merged company. Metzger remained with Cadillac as sales manager until 1908. A year later, Cadillac was acquired by General Motors, becoming the prestige division within G.M. Leland left William Durant and General Motors in 1917, accepting a contract from the U.S. government to produce Liberty aircraft engines by his newly formed Lincoln Motor Company. After the contract expired, the company was retooled to produce automobiles. Shortly thereafter, the company entered receivership due to lackluster styling and the postwar depression. The company was rescued from receivership by Henry Ford on February 4th of 1922 for $8 million and added as the prestige division of his Ford empire.

Cadillac produced single and four-cylinder models through 1908. In 1909, the four-cylinder Model 30 became the company's sole model through 1914, when it was replaced by the V-8-powered Type 51. The eight-cylinder engine would be the sole power plant offered by Cadillac through 1930, when the mighty Sixteen cylinder engine joined the lineup, soon followed by a V-12. In 1941, all Cadillac products used the same eight-cylinder engine.

Cadillac sold 2,497 vehicles in 1903, quickly gaining a reputation for its precision manufacturing, quality construction, durability, and interchangeable parts.
By Daniel Vaughan | Jan 2011