Posted by Todd in Kansas [108.92.100.136] on Friday, November 14, 2014 at 00:47:14 :
In Reply to: Re: New Dodge Bros commercial posted by Daryl in Oz [58.178.111.26] on Thursday, November 13, 2014 at 01:26:30 :
They made bicycles and carriages and had a machine shop. They built parts for RE Olds before they did anything with Ford. Ford was broke and they loaned him money and got stock in Ford and made lots of parts and stuff for Ford. They then started making their own cars. They did raise some hell in Detroit after they acquired some money but both of them were dead after a few years of the car portion of the company and their wife's continued running it for a short time before they sold out. I think they were even owned by a holding company in the 20's before Walter P got ahold of the company. The tv commercials make it seem like they both were wild and crazy guys for 60 years and that simply was not the case. A good portion of Dodge's legacy came after they were long gone.
What I had read they both were mechanical genius's and tried to talk Ford into making changes in parts and pieces to make them better and Ford wouldn't do it. When they started the Dodge cars they already had a lot of knowledge of how to build parts and pieces to work good as they had seen failures of Ford's designs.
They also did a lot of WWI vehicles.
Todd