A superb and rare photo of the Dodge
KC Truck.
Dodge is a US car brand
marketed by Chrysler LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories
worldwide. Founded as the Dodge Brothers Company in 1900 to supply parts and
assemblies for Detroit’s
growing auto industry, Dodge began making its own complete vehicles in 1914.
The brand was sold to Chrysler Corporation in 1928, passed through the
short-lived DaimlerChrysler merger of 1998–2007 as part of the Chrysler Group,
and is now a part of Chrysler. Dodge has a very interesting history. After the
founding of the Dodge Brothers Company by Horace and John Dodge in 1900, the
Detroit-based company quickly found work producing precision engine and chassis
components for the city’s burgeoning number of automobile firms. Chief among
these customers were the established Olds Motor Vehicle Company and the
then-new Ford Motor Company. Dodge Brothers enjoyed much success in this field,
but the brothers' growing wish to build complete vehicles was exemplified by
John Dodge's 1913 exclamation that he was "tired of being carried around
in Henry Ford's vest pocket." By 1914, he and Horace had fixed that by creating
the new four-cylinder Dodge Model 30. Pitched as a slightly more upscale
competitor to the ubiquitous Ford Model T, it pioneered or made standard many
features later taken for granted: all-steel body construction (when the vast
majority of cars worldwide still used wood framing under steel panels, though
Stoneleigh and BSA had used steel bodies as early as 1911), 12-volt electrical
system (6-volt systems would remain the norm up until the 1950s), and
sliding-gear transmission (the best-selling Model T would retain an antiquated
planetary design all the way until its demise in 1927). As a result of all
this, as well as the brothers' well-earned reputation for quality through the
parts they had made for other successful vehicles, Dodge cars were ranked at
second place for U.S.
sales as early as 1916. The same year, Henry Ford decided to stop paying
dividends, leading to the Dodge brothers filing suit to protect approximately a
million dollars a year they were earning; this led Ford to buy out his
shareholders, and the Dodges were paid some US$25 million. In the same year,
Dodge vehicles won wide acclaim for durability while in service with the US
Army's Pancho Villa Expedition into Mexico. One notable instance was in
May when the 6th Infantry received a reported sighting of Julio Cardenas, one
of Villa's most trusted subordinates. Lt. George S. Patton led ten soldiers and
two civilian guides in three Dodge Model 30 touring cars to conduct a raid at a
ranch house in San Miguelito,
Sonora. During the ensuing
firefight the party killed three men, of whom one was identified as Cardenas. Patton's men
tied the bodies to the hoods of the Dodges, returning to headquarters in Dublán
and an excited reception from US newspapermen. Dodge cars continued to rank
second place in American sales in 1920. But that year, tragedy struck as John
Dodge was felled by pneumonia in January. His brother Horace then died of
cirrhosis in December of the same year (reportedly out of grief at the loss of
his brother, with whom he was very close).