1930 Cadillac V16 Roadster

The Cadillac Automobile Company was founded in 1902 by Henry Leland who had a successful background in the manufacture of firearms and precision machine tools. His initial foray into the nascent motor industry was as the manufacturer of engines and gearbox parts for the successful Oldsmobile curved-dash runabout.

When he decided to make motor cars in his own right he named his company – appropriately, as it happened – after de la Mothe Cadillac, the Frenchman who founded the settlement which became Detroit.

Although General Motors took Cadillac over in 1909, Leland continued to control the firm until 1917 and his insistence upon engineering excellence survived.

The 1914 Cadillac became the American pioneer of the V8 motor car engine using a design by an Englishman, McCall White, whom Leland had recruited from Napier. Cadillac also gave the industry one of its quantum leaps in technology in 1929 when constant mesh between top and second speeds...