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Today in Automotive History

1917 Liberty Leland

Henry Leland, the founder of the Cadillac Motor Car Company, resigned as company president on this date in 1917. Ever since William Durant had arranged for General Motors (GM) to purchase Cadillac, Leland and Durant had endured a strained relationship. But Leland's electric starter had made Cadillac so successful early on that Durant had avoided meddling with the autonomy of his company.

Leland's next great achievement at Cadillac was his supervision of his son's proposal that Cadillac should introduce a V-8 engine. Previously Cadillac, and most other American companies, had only offered four-cylinder engines. The in-line six- and eight-cylinder engines experimented with by other companies had proven troublesome and required constant maintenance. Henry's son, Wilfred Leland, suggested that Cadillac oppose two four-cylinder engines in a V-shaped formation. The idea was not unheard of, as the French automaker, DeDion-Bouton, had already used such a configuration. But Cadillac aimed to create a more powerful, higher quality V-8 engine.

In order to keep the project secret, Leland contracted the engine parts for his new engine to over half a dozen New England firms in such a way that the companies had no idea what the parts were for. They were then delivered to a dummy manufacturing firm called Ideal Manufacturing Company.

The new Cadillac car with its V-8 was put on the market in 1914. It was received with a good deal of skepticism, based on the claim that such a complicated engine would create problems for drivers. Nonetheless, the engine proved a great success and was standard in Cadillacs until 1927.

The success was followed, however, by the outbreak of war in Europe. Leland had visited the continent a few years earlier as part of a contingent of engineers. He had returned to America convinced that war in Europe was inevitable, and that it would decide the fate of Western Civilization. He was adamant that the United States would become involved sooner or later, and at the outbreak of the war he urged Durant to let Cadillac convert its facilities to the manufacture of aircraft engines, specifically the Liberty engine.

The two stubborn men butted heads. Durant refused to respond to Leland's urgings, and Leland resigned. Durant assistant Charles Mott suggested that Leland had not resigned but was fired for other reasons. Whatever the circumstances, Leland left and started the Lincoln Motor Car Company.

In 1917, he won the first contract to manufacture Liberty engines for the war effort. Leland worked closely with British, French, and American engineers to design a high-production, high-powered twelve-cylinder airplane engine for the war effort. By the war's end, Lincoln had manufactured more Liberty engines than any other single company. Two GM brands, Cadillac and Buick, also manufactured Liberty engines.