MCG takes a closer look at a handful of automobiles that played key parts in transforming Detroit into the Motor City. 

In truth, the Detroit auto industry wasn’t created by five cars, but by dozens or more. However, here are five that played a significant role in the early years. These five automobiles also happen to share a common thread, which will become evident soon enough.

By the spring of 1902, investors in the Henry Ford Company had grown impatient with their director, who seemed more interested in building race cars and tinkering with prototypes than in producing a marketable motor car. Shuffling Ford aside, they installed master machine builder Henry Leland in control of the company, who readied for production the car that would become known as the Cadillac.

Except for its 10 hp, single-cylinder engine, the Cadillac unveiled in October 1902 was very similar to the first Ford production car, the two-cylinder Model A, which appeared several months later. Renamed the Cadillac Motor Car Co. after Ford’s departure, the successful automaker was purchased by William C. Durant in 1908 to become a key component of General Motors.

Robert C. Hupp came to Detroit from Grand Rapids, Michigan and worked for Oldsmobile and Ford before he struck out on his own in 1909 with the beautifully engineered Hupmobile Model 20. Henry Ford would later say, “I recall looking at Bobby Hupp’s roadster at the first show where it was exhibited and wondered if we could ever build as good a small car for as little money.” The car (1911 model here) was an early hit for the industry, selling over 5,000 units in 1910 and 12,500 in 1913.

Hupmobile quickly outgrew its original Detroit factory on Bellevue Street and relocated to a big new plant on Milwaukee Avenue at Mt. Elliott, designed by Albert Khan and covering a million square feet. (The plant is long gone, but its former site is now the southeast corner of the mammoth GM Hamtramck facility where the Chevy Volt is built). However, by then Hupp had grown dissatisfied with company management and ventured out on his own again, founding another automobile make, RCH, and launching an electric car company, Hupp-Yeats. One of the largest employers in Detroit at one time, Hupmobile was forced out of the automobile business in 1940.

Unfazed by his beheading at the first car company that bore his name, Henry Ford rounded up a fresh batch of investors and formed the Ford Motor Company. From a rented plant on Mack Avenue, this outfit introduced the first Ford production car, the two-cylinder, 1240-lb. 1903 Model A.

Before Ford could put America on wheels, he had to learn how to produce automobiles at a profit, and this he shrewdly accomplished with the Model A. He contracted with the Dodge Brothers machine shop to supply complete chassis and drivelines at $250 each, the C.R. Wilson Co. to furnish the bodies and upholstery at $68 each, Hartford the tires at $40 per set, and so on. With a list price of $750, the first production run of 650 units netted Ford and his partners well over $100,000, the equivalent of $3.8 million today. Ford was now on his way.

By the time the Dodge Brothers, John and Horace, introduced their own car in late 1914, they were already among the largest and most experienced automotive manufacturers in America. Their company supplied not only hundreds of thousands of engines and chassis for the Ford Model T, but components for Cadillac, Oldsmobile, and others.

The original 1915 Dodge Model 30 has often been described as essentially a larger, upmarket version of the Ford Model T, with 35 hp instead of 20 hp and a three-speed sliding-gear transmission in place of the Model T’s two-speed planetary unit. The car was wildly successful, climbing to third in sales in 1920, trailing only Ford and Chevrolet. In its heyday, over 30,000 people worked at Dodge Main, the company’s giant factory (now occupied by the northeast corner of the GM Hamtramck plant.) The two brothers died in 1920 and their company was purchased by Chrysler in 1928.

History seems to paint a picture of Henry Ford as a young, struggling entrepreneur when he launched the Model T on October 1, 1908. Not really. He was 45 years old and a wealthy man by then, with a new mansion in the exclusive Boston Edison district. Ford had moved his company from Mack Avenue to a big new plant on Piquette Avenue (still in existence, read the story here) and was the largest automaker by volume in America.

Detroit ‘s auto industry was exploding in these years, minting millionaires overnight, much as Silicon Valley did in the late 20th century. And Ford was already the most successful of them all. In 1910, Ford production was moved again into the new Highland Park plant on Woodward Avenue, where the moving assembly line was developed—launching another revolution.