Henry Leland, daddy of the Caddy, proved the importance of precision
Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Automotive News Canada
  • Automotive News Europe
  • Automotive News Mexico
  • Automotive News China
AN-LOGO-BLUE
Subscribe
  • Subscribe
  • Account
  • login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • Dealers
    • Automakers & Suppliers
    • News by Brand
    • Cars & Concepts
    • Shift
    • Mobility Report
    • Special Reports
    • Digital Edition Archive
    • Q&A with Chris Bangle
      A penny for your thoughts
      Helping two cultures connect
      SEAT FEAT
    • GM will launch electric bike sales in Europe
      VW seeks to tap potentially lucrative ride-sharing market
      Apple stepped up AV testing to 80,000 miles in 2018
      Self-driving truck startup TuSimple raises nearly $100 million
    • Dealerships owned by ex-NFL stars face collapse, litigation
      Want a luxury car? Try a Kia
      Costly lesson of tortuous legal battle: Get it in writing
      Denny Hecker: A changed man?
    • Access F&I
    • Fixed Ops Journal
    • Marketing
    • Used Cars
    • Sales
    • Best Practices
    • Dealership Buy/Sell
    • NADA
    • NADA Show
    • Automakers
    • Manufacturing
    • Suppliers
    • Regulations & Safety
    • Executives
    • Leading Woman Network
    • PACE Awards
    • CES
    • Management Briefing Seminars
    • World Congress
    • Aston Martin
    • BMW
      • Mini
      • Rolls Royce
    • Daimler
      • Mercedes Benz
      • Smart
    • Fiat Chrysler
      • Alfa Romeo
      • Chrysler
      • Dodge
      • Ferrari
      • Fiat
      • Jeep
      • Maserati
      • Ram
    • Ford
      • Lincoln
    • General Motors
      • Buick
      • Cadillac
      • Chevrolet
      • GMC
      • Holden
    • Honda
      • Acura
    • Hyundai
      • Genesis
      • Kia
    • Mazda
    • Mitsubishi
    • Nissan
      • Infiniti
    • PSA
      • Citroen
      • Opel
      • Peugeot
      • Vauxhall
    • Renault
    • Subaru
    • Suzuki
    • Tata
      • Jaguar
      • Land Rover
    • Tesla
    • Toyota
      • Lexus
    • Volkswagen
      • Audi
      • Bentley
      • Bugatti
      • Lamborghini
      • Porsche
      • Seat
      • Skoda
    • Volvo
    • (Discontinued Brands)
    • Auto Shows
      • Detroit Auto Show
      • New York Auto Show
      • Los Angeles Auto Show
      • Chicago Auto Show
      • Geneva Auto Show
      • Paris Auto Show
      • Frankfurt Auto Show
      • Toronto Auto Show
      • Tokyo Auto Show
      • Shanghai Auto Show
      • Beijing Auto Show
    • Future Product Pipeline
    • Photo Galleries
    • Car Cutaways
    • Design
  • OPINION
    • Blogs
    • Cartoons
    • Keith Crain
    • Automotive Views with Jason Stein
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Send us a Letter
    • Will Jaguar replace XE, XF sedans with a single EV?
      Could auto tariff threat be a turning point?
      Ram Chassis Cab goes high-tech
      Chevy's 2019 Blazer: More Camaro, less Equinox
    • EVs will come with economic cost
      Spend money on sales, not stores
      Put it on your bucket list
      GM stepped on a land mine
    • Could auto tariff threat be a turning point?
      EVs will come with economic cost
      Spend money on sales, not stores
      Put it on your bucket list
    • Let dealers invest in innovation, not renovations
      Hackett's vision for Ford is still a blur
      The last temptation of Elon Musk
      Path to trade deal didn't have to be so treacherous
    • Deeper issues in tech shortage
      A boycott is not the answer
      Odds poor for Cadillac rebirth
      GM falls short with Cadillac interior
  • DATA CENTER
  • VIDEO
    • AutoNews Now
    • First Shift
    • Special Video Reports
    • Weekend Drive
  • EVENTS & AWARDS
    • Events
    • Awards
    • World Congress
    • Retail Forum: NADA
    • Canada Congress
    • Marketing 360: L.A.
    • Europe Congress
    • Fixed Ops Journal Forum
    • Retail Forum: Chicago
    • Leading Women Conference Detroit
    • 100 Leading Woman
    • 40 Under 40 Retail
    • All-Stars
    • Best Dealership To Work For
    • PACE Awards
    • Rising Stars
    • Europe Rising Stars
  • JOBS
  • +MORE
    • Webinars
    • Leading Women Network
    • Custom Features
    • Classifieds
    • People on the Move
    • Newsletters
    • Contact Us
    • Media Kit
    • Ally: Do It Right
    • Guide To Economic Development
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. Executives
September 14, 2008 01:00 AM

Henry Leland, daddy of the Caddy, proved the importance of precision

Marti Benedetti
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Print
    Henry Leland, right, and son Wilfred: Key players in two luxury brands
    The Lelands

    1902: Founded Cadillac

    1909: Sold Cadillac to GM

    1917: Left to start Lincoln, a producer of Liberty aircraft engines

    1920: Began car production at Lincoln

    1922: Sold Lincoln to Henry Ford then were forced out of the company

    Henry Martyn Leland was the father of the mass-produced luxury car in the United States. And his son, Wilfred, might well be called the luxury car's favorite uncle.

    In 1902 they founded Cadillac, which they sold in 1909 to Billy Durant and his brand-new General Motors. The Lelands stayed at GM until 1917, then hit the road because, they said, Cadillac refused to build the Liberty aircraft engine —which Cadillac did build after the Lelands left.

    Henry and Wilfred Leland formed Lincoln Motor Co. in 1917 and received a contract to produce 6,000 Liberty engines. Lincoln switched to cars after World War I. Its first car went on sale in September 1920.

    The Lelands sold Lincoln to Henry and Edsel Ford for $8 million in February 1922. They left four months later.

    You could argue that much of Henry Leland's success could be credited to his mother, Zilpha, who gave him this advice early on: There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything. Hunt for the right way, and then go ahead.

    The advice took root. Long before it became vital to automaking, Leland was a devotee of precision.

    One of the people who noticed was Alfred Sloan. In the pre-General Motors days when Sloan ran the family business, Hyatt Roller Bearing Co., he had trouble winning Leland as a customer. In his 1963 book, My Years with General Motors, Sloan wrote: "I had trouble at first, in the early 1900s, in selling Mr. Leland our roller bearings. He then taught me the need for greater accuracy in our products to meet the exacting standards of interchangeable parts."

    Cadillac parts were so precisely machined that in 1906 Henry Leland took three of his cars to England, disassembled them, scrambled the parts and reassembled three operating vehicles. Given the level of auto manufacturing at the time, it was an impressive feat.

    Born poor

    Henry Leland was born poor in 1843 in Danville, Vt. He became a machinist. For 20 years he was an engineer with Brown & Sharpe Co., which built machine tools.

    Leland moved to Detroit in 1890 and started Leland, Faulconer and Norton, which made machine tools, gears and internal combustion engines. The company, which became Leland & Faulconer when Norton left in 1894, supplied the transmission for the Curved Dash Oldsmobile.

    When the precursor of Ford Motor Co. was disbanding, Henry Ford's financial backers hired Leland to appraise some of their assets. The money men were impressed with Leland's advanced engine design and decided to build a car. From that, Cadillac Motor Car Co. was born in 1902.

    'An overnight success'

    Three years later, Leland merged Leland & Faulconer with Cadillac. "The Cadillac car was an overnight success, being cheap ($750), economical, efficient and reliable to an unprecedented degree," Motor Trend magazine said.

    Durant bought the company in 1909 for $4.5 million and retained the Lelands as managers.

    One of the reasons for Cadillac's success was Henry Leland's insistence that his high standards of precision and quality would spread throughout the organization. To that end, in 1907 he started the Cadillac School of Applied Mechanics, the industry's first school to train machinists, technicians and toolmakers.

    When GM went through financial hard times in 1910, Cadillac kept the company solvent.

    Leland also was president of the Society of Automotive Engineers. In June 1914, he gave a moving speech to engineers in Detroit that showed his belief in the importance of business. He said, in part:

    "The businessman or manufacturer who thus produces materials for human needs, who is honest and square in all his dealings and who is fair, just and true to every need and requirement of society, is the most important person and really does the most for society and the world of any human being."

    Henry Leland's great-grandson Bill Hope, 62, of Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., says he heard from his mother, Gertrude Woodbridge, and aunt Miriam Leland Woodbridge that Henry was a doting and generous grandfather.

    "He gave his (1905 Cadillac) Osceola to my Aunt Miriam in the late 1920s or early 1930s," Hope recalls. "They had a lot of fun with it, taking turns seeing how many classmates they could fit in it, like people have done with the Volkswagen."

    Father-son team

    Wilfred shared his father's love of cars and engineering. He was educated at Brown University and worked for Leland & Faulconer before joining Cadillac.

    Leland gave Wilfred the credit for the first eight-cylinder V-type high-speed, high-efficiency engine. Cadillac refined the V-8 into an engine that would become its signature for years to come.

    The Lelands' time at Lincoln ended on a sour note. The company had financial problems after World War I. After much bargaining and cajoling, Henry Ford bought Lincoln at a bankruptcy sale in 1922 for $8 million — a fraction of its value. Ford retained the Lelands as managers but pushed them out within four months.

    Henry Leland died at age 89 in 1932; son Wilfred died at 88 in 1958. Both men left the world with a peerless reputation for doing things the right way. Zilpha Leland would have been proud.

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Send us a letter

    Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.

    Recommended for You
    Digital Edition
    THIS WEEK'S EDITION
    See our archive
    Fixed Ops Journal
    Thumbnail
    Read the issue
    See our archive
    Sign up for free newsletters
    EMAIL ADDRESS

    Please enter a valid email address.

    Please enter your email address.

    Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe.

    You can unsubscribe at any time through links in these emails. For more information, see our Privacy Policy.

    Get Free Newsletters

    Sign up and get the best of Automotive News delivered straight to your email inbox, free of charge. Choose your news – we will deliver.

    Subscribe Now

    Get access to in-depth, authoritative coverage of the auto industry from a global team of reporters and editors covering the news that's vital to your business.

    Subscribe
    Connect With Us
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter

    Our Mission

    The Automotive News mission is to be the primary source of industry news, data and understanding for the industry's decision-makers interested in North America.

    AN-LOGO-BLUE
    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit, Michigan
    48207-2997

    (877) 812-1584

    Email us

    Resources
    • About us
    • Contact Us
    • Media Kit
    • Subscribe
    • Manage your account
    • Reprints
    • Ad Choices Ad Choices
    • Sitemap
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    Copyright © 1996-2019. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • HOME
    • NEWS
      • Dealers
        • Access F&I
        • Fixed Ops Journal
        • Marketing
        • Used Cars
        • Sales
        • Best Practices
        • Dealership Buy/Sell
        • NADA
        • NADA Show
      • Automakers & Suppliers
        • Automakers
        • Manufacturing
        • Suppliers
        • Regulations & Safety
        • Executives
        • Leading Woman Network
        • PACE Awards
        • CES
        • Management Briefing Seminars
        • World Congress
      • News by Brand
        • Aston Martin
        • BMW
          • Mini
          • Rolls Royce
        • Daimler
          • Mercedes Benz
          • Smart
        • Fiat Chrysler
          • Alfa Romeo
          • Chrysler
          • Dodge
          • Ferrari
          • Fiat
          • Jeep
          • Maserati
          • Ram
        • Ford
          • Lincoln
        • General Motors
          • Buick
          • Cadillac
          • Chevrolet
          • GMC
          • Holden
        • Honda
          • Acura
        • Hyundai
          • Genesis
          • Kia
        • Mazda
        • Mitsubishi
        • Nissan
          • Infiniti
        • PSA
          • Citroen
          • Opel
          • Peugeot
          • Vauxhall
        • Renault
        • Subaru
        • Suzuki
        • Tata
          • Jaguar
          • Land Rover
        • Tesla
        • Toyota
          • Lexus
        • Volkswagen
          • Audi
          • Bentley
          • Bugatti
          • Lamborghini
          • Porsche
          • Seat
          • Skoda
        • Volvo
        • (Discontinued Brands)
      • Cars & Concepts
        • Auto Shows
          • Detroit Auto Show
          • New York Auto Show
          • Los Angeles Auto Show
          • Chicago Auto Show
          • Geneva Auto Show
          • Paris Auto Show
          • Frankfurt Auto Show
          • Toronto Auto Show
          • Tokyo Auto Show
          • Shanghai Auto Show
          • Beijing Auto Show
        • Future Product Pipeline
        • Photo Galleries
        • Car Cutaways
        • Design
      • Shift
      • Mobility Report
      • Special Reports
      • Digital Edition Archive
    • OPINION
      • Blogs
      • Cartoons
      • Keith Crain
      • Automotive Views with Jason Stein
      • Columnists
      • Editorials
      • Letters to the Editor
      • Send us a Letter
    • DATA CENTER
    • VIDEO
      • AutoNews Now
      • First Shift
      • Special Video Reports
      • Weekend Drive
    • EVENTS & AWARDS
      • Events
        • World Congress
        • Retail Forum: NADA
        • Canada Congress
        • Marketing 360: L.A.
        • Europe Congress
        • Fixed Ops Journal Forum
        • Retail Forum: Chicago
        • Leading Women Conference Detroit
      • Awards
        • 100 Leading Woman
        • 40 Under 40 Retail
        • All-Stars
        • Best Dealership To Work For
        • PACE Awards
        • Rising Stars
        • Europe Rising Stars
    • JOBS
    • +MORE
      • Webinars
      • Leading Women Network
      • Custom Features
        • Ally: Do It Right
        • Guide To Economic Development
      • Classifieds
      • People on the Move
      • Newsletters
      • Contact Us
      • Media Kit