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Cadillac is a brand of luxury automobile, part of the General Motors corporation, produced and mostly sold in the United States; outside of North America, they have been less successful. more...

In the United States, the name became a synonym for "high quality", used in such phrases as "the Cadillac of clocks." This is less prevalent, though still known, in other English-speaking countries (who are more likely to use Rolls-Royce in such phrases).

History

Founding

Cadillac was formed from the Henry Ford Company upon Henry Ford's departure. With the intent of liquidating the firm's assets, Ford's financial backers, William Murphy and Lemuel Bowen called in engineer Henry M. Leland to appraise the plant and equipment prior to selling them. Instead, Leland persuaded them to continue in the automobile business. Henry Ford's departure required a new name, and on August 22, 1902, the company reformed as the Cadillac Automobile Company.

The Cadillac automobile was named after the 17th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan in 1701.

Early vehicles

Their first car was completed in October 1902, the 10 horsepower (7 kW) Cadillac, based on Henry Ford's design was practically identical to the 1903 Ford Model A. Many sources say the first car rolled out of the factory on October 17; in the book Henry Leland - Master of Precision, on p.69, that date is shown to be October 20; yet another reliable source shows car #3 to have been built on October 16. In any case, the new Cadillac was shown at the New York Auto Show the following January, where it impressed the crowds enough to gather over two thousand firm orders. The Cadillac's biggest selling point was precision manufacturing and, therefore, reliability; it was simply a better made vehicle than its competition.

In Feb to Mar 1908, three Model K Cadillacs (1907 production) were released from the stock of Frederick Bennett (UK agent for Cadillac) at the Heddon Street showroom in London to compete in the annual Royal Automobile Club's Standardization Test. They were driven 25 miles to the Brooklands race track at Weybridge where they completed another 25 miles (40 km) before being put under lock and key until Monday March 2, 1908 when they were released and disassembled completely. Their 721 component parts were scrambled in one heap; 89 parts requiring extreme accuracy were withdrawn from the heap,locked away at the Brooklands club house and replaced with new parts from the showroom stock. Using only wrenches and screwdrivers the 3 cars were re-assembled and on Friday March 13 they completed a mandatory 500 mile (800 km) run. On completion of the test, one of the cars was placed under lock and key where it remained until the start of the 2000 miles (3200 km) Reliability Trials, several months later. It came out the winner of the R.A.C. Trophy! Parts interchangeability could not have been proven in any other more appropriate way. As a result of these tests, the Cadillac Automobile Company was awarded the Dewar Trophy for 1908 (actual award date was Feb 1909). The Dewar Trophy was an annual award for the most important advancement of the year in the automobile industry.

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