USA Cadillacs 1902 through 2008

USA Cadillacs -

The marque started in 1902, when Henry Ford's latest auto venture went bust. Ford's shareholders called in master machinist Henry M. Leland to catalogue and sell the defunct company's assets. Leland came in, looked things over, and a light bulb flashed on. Why not combine Ford's latest chassis with a single-cylinder engine developed by Oldsmobile? So in August 1902, Leland and Ford's former backers founded the Cadillac Automobile Co.

And in January 1930, Cadillac launched one of the most powerful, smoothest, gorgeous and quietest engines in America: the V16. The V16 marked Cadillac's serious bid to join the upper-crust makes of the day: Packard, Rolls-Royce, Duesenberg and Pierce-Arrow.

Cadillac helped pioneer another trend with the introduction of the 1949 Coupe de Ville. Cadillac didn't invent the pillarless "hardtop" coupe, but it and other GM divisions led in popularizing it.

Despite Cadillac's attempt to create attractive smaller cars through the Art & Science model, sales of coupes had been sluggish and the make's flagship models, such as the Eldorado, continued their perception as large and unwieldy sedans that were the province only of the older buyer.