One of the interesting things about the early days of the auto industry is learning how many of the famous names in the business were friends or did business with one another.
There were two Dodge brothers, John and Horace, from Niles, Michigan, almost 200 miles southwest of Detroit. The brothers opened a small machine shop in Detroit in 1900 to manufacture a bicycle with ball bearings.
Two years later, they received an order from Olds Motor Works for 3,000 automobile transmissions. They built parts for Henry and W. C. Leland, who founded the Cadillac and later Lincoln companies. Henry Ford was impressed and offered the Dodge Brothers 10% of the newly formed Ford Motor Co. if they met certain conditions, which they did. They became one of the largest manufacturers in the world.
But the Dodge Brothers wanted to build their own car, and their first one rolled off the assembly line in Hamtramck, Michigan, in November 1914. It sold for $785 or about $23,260 in 2022 dollars.
It was so popular that about 21,000 applications for dealerships were received, almost half of the number of the 45,000 cars they sold that year. In 1916, General “Black Jack” Pershing bought more than 150 Dodge vehicles for his Mexican Expedition to capture Pancho Villa, and Dodge later became a major military supplier of vehicles through World War I.
The Dodge Brothers were immensely successful with the products they brought to market, but in 1920 both brothers died, one from pneumonia and the other from influenza. In 1925, Walter Chrysler bought Maxwell Motor Co. to form Chrysler Corp. and then bought Dodge in 1928 for $170 million (about $2.94 billion in today’s dollars).
Dodge was a bigger company than Chrysler at that time, so it was sort of like the tail buying the dog. Walter Chrysler later stated that “buying Dodge was one of soundest acts of my life. I say sincerely that nothing we have done for the organization compares with that transaction.”
Another interesting bit of trivia is the Dodge Brothers emblem. It was a circle with “Dodge Brothers” across the top half and “Detroit-U-S-A” on the bottom. In the center were two interlocking triangles, one black and the other red, with the initials DB in the center. Many speculated it was the Star of David, which looks the same, but it wasn’t. The Dodge Brothers were not Jewish. The exact meaning still isn’t known, but one reasonable guess is that each triangle (which is also the symbol for Delta, D in the Greek alphabet) represented one brother and by interlocking them it showed their closeness. That logo was used from 1914 to 1927.
This issue’s featured vehicle is a 1938 Dodge Brothers business coupe owned by Pleasant Hill resident John Fornbacher. He has owned the car about 10 years and paid $21,000 for it.
In terms of current value, he said “I have these cars because I’m just into the style. I have no idea what the values are. To me they are like iron children. It would be like asking how much would you sell your daughter for?”
The car is almost completely original.
“It’s a businessman’s coupe. It’s still a six-volt, flat head six-cylinder, 218-cubic-inch engine rated at 87 horsepower,” Fornbacher said.
It has standard drum brakes and light bulbs in the headlights. This is not a show car, the owner says, although it certainly is an attention-getter. It’s almost a daily driver, and he has taken it recently to Madera and Los Banos for car shows with no problems.
“I bought it from a guy east of Los Angeles. He asked me where the trailer was. I looked at him and said, ‘Trailer? I’m driving this thing back.’ ”
He had no problems.
“There were a few minor things that needed correcting, like one of the headlights and a taillight, but I took care of those things when I got home.”
The spare tire for this business coupe is just behind the passenger seat. The flat trunk floor is very wide, close to 6 feet, and I’ve been told that back in those days, probably before expense accounts were common, traveling salesmen would sometimes sleep in the trunk of a business coupe when traveling their sales territory.
This car was repainted and reupholstered sometime before Fornbacher acquired it. He believes the interior and exterior are pretty close to the factory colors.
“It has the original gauges, and the radio was repaired, so it’s now a working AM radio. I just replace the running board mats,” Fornbacher said.
It has the factory heater and front windshield that opens for improved ventilation. The owner does much of the work himself.
“I replaced the U-joint, brakes, tuned it up and worked on front-end. I want to keep it as stock as possible,” he said.
There’s no plan to sell this beautiful coupe or his equally nice 1938 Dodge Brothers pickup. Fornbacher is a car collector, not a car trader.
Have an interesting vehicle? Contact David Krumboltz at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To view more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles or to read more of Dave’s columns, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz.
Source: www.mercurynews.com