Cadillac's History
Cadillac has an interesting history. The company that would become Cadillac was founded by Henry Ford and investors as the Henry Ford Company. When Ford was forced out of the Henry Ford Company by Henry Leland in 1902, the company was immediately remade as the Cadillac Automobile Company in honor of French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit. Ford would later have his revenge on Leland when Ford purchased Leland's faltering Lincoln company in 1922. In short, that is how the two Henry's became the fathers of the most prestigious American luxury brands surviving to this day. Cadillac was purchased by General Motors in 1909, making Cadillac one of the oldest surviving domestic automobile brands.
Over the decades, Cadillac has produced some of the most celebrated cars in the world, including the 1959 Cadillac models featuring astoundingly large tail fins with high-mounted bullet-shaped brake lights. The rear end of a 1959 Cadillac is one of the most recognizable automotive designs ever produced. Other Cadillac innovations include the first production V8 engine, which debuted in 1914, the utilization of a stylist instead of an engineer to design the body of a car in 1927, the introduction of safety glass in 1926 and the development of the automatic transmission.
Cadillac's Future
The future of Cadillac looks bright, with recent models such as the Cadillac CTS and the successful XLR Roadster getting positive reviews from the automotive press and, more importantly, consumers. Cadillac has also bolstered its image with the V-Series Cadillacs, which wrap XLR, STS, and CTS cars around high-performance engines much in the same way European in-house tuners have been doing for quite some time. The sport utility vehicles introduced by Cadillac in 2000 continue to be consistent sellers, and risky ventures such as the crossover SRX continue to pay off for the company.
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