10 things you probably didn’t know about Cadillac! | Landers Chevrolet Cadillac of Joplin

January 07, 2019

Cadillac is as American as blue jeans and jazz, and given the brand’s long and innovative history, we’re always learning something new about them. Seen below are ten things you probably didn’t know about Cadillac! Read on for where the Cadillacs of the 1950s got their fins, how the company contributed to the war effort during WWII, and the surprising Cadillac connection between President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone. Once you’re done, stop by Landers Chevrolet Cadillac of Joplin to check out one of the incredible new Cadillacs we have in stock. From the elegance and poise of the Cadillac Escalade to the refined power of the Cadillac V-series cars, we have the Cadillac that’s right for you. Come see us today, or check out our big selection online right now!

1) Cadillac was founded on August 22, 1902, making the brand America’s second-oldest surviving automaker, after Buick.

2) Cadillac is named in honor of the French explorer Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac, who founded the city of Detroit, Michigan on July 24, 1701.

3) Cadillac co-founder Henry Leland got his start working in the shop of legendary firearms maker Samuel Colt, where he learned the close-tolerance machining and production techniques he would later bring to the construction of new Cadillacs. The commitment to cutting-edge machining and interchangeable parts Leland learned at Colt would quickly earn Cadillac a reputation as one of the best and most reliable cars on the planet, immortalized in the brand’s early slogan “The Standard of the World.”

4) With concerns for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s safety at an all-time high after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Secret Service pulled an armored 1928 Cadillac sedan once owned by notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone from storage and used it to transport Roosevelt from the White House to the U.S. Capitol building to deliver his famous “Day of Infamy” speech the day after the bombing. One of dozens of Cadillacs once owned by the mob boss, who favored Cadillacs for their speed and reliability, the bulletproof Caddy had been seized by the U.S. Treasury after Capone went to jail on tax evasion charges in 1931.

5) The list of Cadillac firsts is long and impressive, including the introduction of the first curved glass windshield, the first mass-produced automatic transmission (the Hydramatic, introduced in 1939), the first electric headlights and taillights, the first self-dimming headlights (the Autronic Eye system, introduced in 1953), the first passenger compartment fully sealed from the elements (the Model K runabout in 1906), the first mass-produced V8 engine (the 5.1-liter L-head, producing 70 horsepower, introduced in 1914), and the first production car to offer air conditioning, way back in 1953.

6) U.S. Presidents have been exclusively driven in Cadillacs since the 1980s. The current presidential limousine, nicknamed “The Beast” and “Cadillac One,” weighs between 15,000 and 20,000 pounds and was custom built on a GM heavy-duty truck platform. Extensively armored to resist explosive and rocket attacks, with an interior that features its own atmosphere to guard against chemical and gas attacks, most details of presidential limo tech are closely guarded secrets. Other than a handful displayed at presidential libraries, most retired presidential limos are destroyed in secret under the supervision of the Secret Service to keep details of their construction, armor and attack countermeasures hush-hush.

7) Among the brand’s dozens of innovations, Cadillac was the first production car to offer an electric starter, an invention born of tragedy in 1912 after Henry Leland’s friend Byron T. Carter died when the hand-crank he was using to start his Cadillac spun around and struck him in the head after the engine backfired. After Carter’s death, Leland set his engineers to work designing a solution, telling them in an emotional speech: “I won’t have Cadillacs hurting people that way.” The result was a flywheel-mounted electric starter much like those still used by most automakers today.

8) In 1937, Cadillac was the first car company to use the then-new Phillips cross-head screws in the construction of their automobiles. Invented in 1934, Phillips head screws and screwdrivers sped up Cadillac production so much that the rest of the industry had followed suit by 1940.

9) During World War II, Cadillac joined the war effort, with Cadillac transmissions and V8 engines — long renowned for their reliability and horsepower — powering several armored personnel carriers and tanks, including the M24 Chaffee light tank and the M5 Stuart tank, which both utilized twin Cadillac engines. During the war, Cadillac engineers were also crucial to the effort to design innovative, high-horsepower aircraft engines that powered several iconic fighters, including the Lockheed P-38. And speaking of the P-38…

10) The iconic “fins” that epitomized automotive styling in the 1950s first appeared on the luxurious 1949 Cadillac Coupe Deville, which featured tail lights set into two small “bumps” at the rear of each fender. The design was inspired by the “twin-boom” tail of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane from World War II. By 1959, fins on Cadillac models had reached their high water mark, towering nearly two feet above the rear bumper.

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