The Dodge Story (Part 2)

Join Scott and Ben as they continue their discussion of the Dodge Brothers and the fascinating history behind the Dodge brand.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. All right,
then we are back with part two of the Dodge
Store here on car stuff. Yes, and Scott, we are
excited to do this because there are some major twists
that happened at this boy. Yeah, that's right. Remember we

(00:22):
left off it was what nineteen right, and their workforce
had just blown up, just didn't enormous, right, coming like
seven thousand workers. Right. Car production numbers were way way up. Yeah,
forty five thousand plush at their single plant in this
and this rapid expansion you know this, This happened for

(00:43):
fourteen years from from that tiny little shop where they
were building bicycles and parents from then. All right, so
this is a company that is just huge, just growing exponentially, right,
and they they're at Hampti at the Hamptraming plants building
their their own Dodge brand vehicles at this point. So
they they're building the Dodge Model thirty en and um,

(01:05):
Henry Ford decided at some point in nineteen sixteen that um,
well he just knew that you know, his profit, the
profits from his company, uh, you know how well the
Ford brand was doing was bank rolling the Dodge brothers
because remember they had they still had a ten percent
share of the Ford Motor Company, right, And up to

(01:26):
that point, they also had contracts to supply Forward with parts.
That's right. And so the the you know, the dividends,
the parts all, that's all that combined. We're paying in
the millions to the Dodge brothers at this time. And
you know that's that's allowing them to continue their production, right,
And they're just gaining contract after contract, right, And you
mentioned a very interesting contract to me that I really

(01:49):
hadn't heard of until just now. Yes, there is a
interesting thing here, and um, I want to get to that.
But let's also sew up the part where the Dodge
brothers take Henry Ford to court. Oh, yes, you know,
I skipped over. I'm sorry because I think we mentioned
it earlier. It seems like we're jumping a couple of
years in advance. And you know what, there's here's another
little tiny side note here. And I don't know if

(02:11):
this listener is listening or not. Hopefully, years ago, Ben,
we had a request, I mean talking like two or
three years ago. We had a request via email from
somebody who wanted to hear about the court case that
we're just about to mention here, and I think they
wanted an entire podcast on it, of course, but this
is kind of like a mention. I guess we're not
gonna really get deep into it here. However, Um, and

(02:33):
I don't remember that listener's name. I apologize because again
it was years ago. I couldn't even find the email
in my my Again, I'm sorry for that. But this
is the court case. Henry Ford decided in nineteen sixteen
that he was going to stop paying dividends to all shareholders.
He decided that, you know, I'm just not going to
do it because that that benefits the Dodger brothers. However,

(02:54):
it hurt him the most because he owns some of
the stock of his own his own company. Right, so
the money he would he would get back on his
own he's he's losing a lot of money, millions and
millions and millions of dollars in nineteen sixteen. And so
the dad's brothers decided that's not going to really fly,
because you can't just decide that, you know, after we've
had this contract. And they did take him the court, right,

(03:18):
and they brought a suit Eventually he was forced by
the courts to pay a dividend of slightly over Are
you ready for this slightly over nineteen million dollars nineteen
million dollars in nineteen eighteen. Okay, so um, because it
was in court for a while, I have done the

(03:38):
I have done the calculation here, and I actually did
it for nineteen nineteen because I think that was when
the final ruling came down. So nineteen point three million dollars,
which is the amount that they were rewarded in nineteen nineteen,
is equivalent ben two hundred and seventy two million, five
hundred ninety six thousand, seven hundred nine dollars and nine cents.

(03:59):
That is in enormous. I mean, think about that. In
nineteen sixteen, you suddenly have this windfall of of you know,
nearly three hundred million dollars in n I am. I
am rendered speechless by that just amount of money. And
that's just the one judgment. Now, Remember they had been

(04:19):
profiting on this all along, so they're they're getting huge,
huge checks. These are just back dividends that they were owed.
This is what was this is what the contract was
was owing them. So it's not like you know, they're
they're extorting money out of Ford or anything like that,
and all along they've been getting checks like this. So
these guys are extremely, extremely wealthy. The company is extremely profitable,

(04:39):
and it's all stems from that ten thousand dollar loan
that they gave Henry Ford back in nineteen oh three. Yeah,
it's almost picking up the quality of a fable or something.
Because that's not the last, uh, the last that Ford
has to pay them. He buys out the remaining shareholders. Yes,
we tried to try, and he was successful. He he uh,

(05:01):
he is. This is kind of funny. This is a
this is classic entry classic right, this it really is.
He uh. There's this whole scheme that he gets involved
with that he's to avoid paying back uh future dividends. Right,
So he sees like, all right, I've lost this nineteen
point three million dollars. It's a little skin off my back,
but I'm gonna avoid paying any future dividends to the

(05:23):
Dadger brothers by by retiring. So he decides to retire
in nine. This is a grand scheme, right. He decides
to retire in uh I think it was in late eighteen, sorry,
nineteen eighteen and he's going to turn over the control
of the company to his son, Edsel, right, which he
actually did. And then Ford goes on a an extended vacation,

(05:44):
you know, like I don't know how long, months long
or whatever, just kind of he goes away. You know.
After this point, Edsel's running the company. Well in nineteen
nineteen and I guess early nineteen nineteen. Uh, there's a
story that comes out of the Los Angeles Examiner that
says that Ford is organizing another company to build a cheaper,
mass produced car on a great scale that will sell

(06:06):
for just two hundred and fifty dollars. Now two fifty dollars,
Come on, I mean, I believe it. Now, his first
car was selling, you know, the Model A was selling
for eight hundred and fifty dollars back in nineteen o three.
Now we jump ahead to nineteen nineteen, and he's gonna
build a car that sells for two hundred and fifty dollars.
People would be all over that. I mean, if you

(06:26):
do the calculation that's in in two thousand fourteen, that
would be like a manufacturer saying that we're gonna sell
a brand new car to you for three thousand, five
that's extremely cheap. And so the idea was to put
the Dodge Brothers out of business. Right. Yeah, it's definitely
got the air of vendetta. Yeah, it definitely does. So

(06:47):
just after this announcement in nineteen nineteen, you know this
this this um article that comes out in the l
A Examiner. Um, the Dodge Brothers, along with the other
minority shareholders which you mentioned, you the other small shareholders,
found themselves mysteriously approached by somebody who wanted to purchase
their forward shares, right, their forward stock. And of course

(07:08):
they see right through this whole thing. You know, they
know exactly what's going on that you know they're there.
They know that Ford is behind this whole thing, right,
it's it's a scam. So what they do is they
decided that they're going to open bidding on their forward stock.
They're gonna get rid of it anyways, right, and so
they say, we've got ten percent of the Ford Motor Company.
Let the bidding begin. And the bidding began um somewhere

(07:30):
around seven thousand, five hundred dollars per share, right, But
they held out until they received twelve thousand, five hundred
dollars per share and get this pen that equals twenty
five million dollars is what they sold that ten percent
stake in the company for. So they sold their ten
percent stock and Ford for million dollars. I mean, this

(07:54):
is almost impossible to believe that that amount of money
and played the game so well, you know, and here's
how well they played it been. You know, this whole thing.
I mean when you when you think about this twenty
five million dollars that they got from their forward stock,
and then you know the ten million dollars in dividends
that Ford paid them from nineteen o three to nineteen

(08:16):
o nine, and then that windfall again in uh in
nineteen ye for the additional nineteen point three million. All
of this combined it comes out to something like, you know,
a two hundred million dollar venture for them out of
that ten thousand dollar investment. Now, looking back on this,
the Dodge but they say that the Dodge Brothers made

(08:36):
so much money from their dealings with Ford that business
historians now refer to this whole thing, this this whole
transaction as probably the most profitable investment in our his
in the history of American commerce. Ever. I mean that's today.
I mean even to date. You know, as far as
you know, when you extrapolate what it would be worth
now versus what it was worth then, and the dollar

(08:59):
amounts that we're talking about, it's just it's it was
that big of a deal even then. It still is,
isn't it. I mean, even in comparison to start up
success stories. I mean, I guess so yeah, And you
know this is where it takes a little bit of
a dark turn I guess, Ben, the whole Dodge story
takes a dark turn out. They're very, very successful. The
company has done exactly what they wanted to, but it's

(09:19):
been a relatively short run for them. Uh that's true.
And uh just I'm sorry, Scott, and I'm sorry listeners.
We've been I know we've been jumping around in time.
But there are a couple of cool side things that
I have to tell you about before we get to
this moment. Okay, So, uh, just some other amazing cool
things that happened. Uh. Dodge got a reputation uh as

(09:43):
a military vehicle of sorts in nineteen sixteen, when the
US government launched an expedition against Mexican bandit named Pancho Villa.
A war correspondent named A. H. G. Beckett. UH published
several ports in a motor age talking about how Dodge

(10:03):
cars were being used in the campaign. So after there
have been some surprise raids UH, in particular one led
by a Lieutenant Patent UH. The Brigadier General Pershing, who
was commanding the force there, ordered his staff to use
Dodge cars exclusively, and then he requested two d fifty

(10:24):
more Dodges for this Mexican campaign. And then during the
war years he took these cars with him to France. Interesting,
so they got a reputation as being a military vehicle
at some point, right, right, and that's one of the
things that really also drove their popularity. Yeah. Yeah, and
you know what, it wasn't the only military vehicle that

(10:45):
they've built, because this is another side note. I'm gonna
piggyback on your side note. Another side note. Um, this
happened concurrently, ben so, So I mean it happened in
nineteen eighteen, so you know, we're in the middle of
World War One, and this is when the Dodds brothers
built their first truck. Now, when I say the first truck,

(11:05):
and you're gonna have to go back and listen to
our podcast on trucks and the history of trucks, and
you know, the first truck and all that, but it
wasn't really a truck. It was a panel van. Yeah, alright,
So nineteen eighteen, the Dodge Brothers build this panel van
and it's I guess, unlike other vehicles at the time,
it's a it's a half ton capacity thirty five horse power,

(11:25):
four cylinder truck. And this was a half ton capacity
thirty five horsepower four cylinder truck. And you know this
is we call it a truck. We keep saying that
it had a lot of different purposes, a lot of
uses on the battlefield. So during World War One, um,
you know, it could be used for many different things.
It was a utility vehicle. It could transport troops, it
could be an ambulance. There was not really much of

(11:48):
a limit to what it could do exactly right. And
you know, around nineteen eighteen, that's still pretty early on
in uh in I guess pickup truck history really because
around nineteen one the Graham brothers were building trucks. Now,
the grand brothers will tie in at the end here,
I promise that we'll tell you how they get into
the fold but um, the grand Brothers were already building

(12:09):
actual pickup trucks, I think at this point. And it
wasn't until nineteen nine that the Dadge Brothers Merchant Express
half ton pickup was built. And this was actually the
first Dodge pickup truck, um that was built by Chrysler Corporation.
And again that will tie in as we go go
along here. And you know, I've got so many notes

(12:31):
on top of notes here, I'll just go ahead and
mention it. And I know we'll get to the the
historical part of this whole thing, ben, but I want
to point out that that Dodge Brothers Merchant Express was
actually the last truck that was designed by the old
Dodge Brothers company. And here we go a little foreshadowing.
So there's there's a tie into other three three other
things here that I want to get to, but we

(12:51):
will in just a minute, because again I mentioned we're
taking a dark turn here. So here we are in
nineteen early nineteen twenty and well attended the nineteen New
York Auto Show Horace fell ill with pneumonia, and you
gotta put yourself back at that time, right, Pneumonia is
a is it practically fatal disease. And I mean it
clearly is a fatal disease at that time. Right. It's

(13:14):
dangerous sometimes it still is, but even more so back then.
It seems like if anybody got a scratch back then,
it was it was a fatal mistake. Right. So, um,
you know, medicine wasn't exactly what it what it is now.
So pneumonia is a really really serious deal. Back then,
John of course rushed to his brother's bedside, where he
sat for several days, I guess, you know, vigil almost
really but not knowing what's going to happen. John catches

(13:37):
pneumonia himself and then dies just ten days later of it.
So Horace hangs on for several more months. I mean,
I think Horace eventually died, um in December of nineteen twenty. So,
well he had that for a long long time, like,
you know, eleven months he's battling this. Okay, so December tenth, right,
so this is what it is again. It's it's like

(13:59):
eleven months later, Um, John died, you know, ten days
after he caught pneumonious. So you know, the two brothers
passed away the same year, a few months apart. But
but what a tragic end of this whole thing. Uh yeah,
well it's it's the end of the brothers perhaps, but
not the company. That's exactly right, because you know who
was left behind their wives, you know, Scott, that's a

(14:20):
really good point. We haven't mentioned either of their spouses. Yeah.
John's wife her name was Matilda, so Matilda Dodge. And
Horace's wife, her name was Anna Thompson Dodge. So um,
you know, these women are now finding themselves, you know,
sole owners of this enormous corporation, right, I mean, this

(14:41):
is this well several hundred a company were several hundred
million dollars. They just inherited this within one year, the
fourth largest automaker in the United States. That that it's incredible. Yeah,
I mean and now, okay, at the time of their deaths,
you know, the company had an actual worth of sixty
million dollars. But the two brothers they had a net
worth and I'm sorry, yeah, net worth of about roughly

(15:05):
one million dollars each. And again this is in the twenties.
So what do you what what what's a good way
for us to think about this today? I'll tell you,
I mean, a hundred million dollars. The way that we
should think about this is that back then, when you
had a hundred million dollars, they actually broke it down
this way. They broke it down that, uh, this is
actually a fairly decent percentage of the entire US gross

(15:28):
national product. That's how big. So they each had a
percentage of the entire gross national product for the United
States at that time. I mean, it's a it's that's
how big this company was at that time. Can't take
it with you though, huge, huge, That's exactly right. You can't.
So the wives decided to hold onto the company. So
they're running they're running the Dodge Brothers Company at this time, right,

(15:48):
And finally they decided to sell about four years later, right, Yeah,
in nineteen they sell the Dodge Brothers Company to an
investment bank. That's right. So they sold it to um
a firm called Dylan Read and Company, and they sold
it for one hundred and forty six million dollars. Been
one hundred forty six million dollars. Now, oh my god,

(16:11):
and I said it was worth about sixty million in
nineteen twenty. Right, They sold it for one hundred and
forty six million in nineteen twenty five. That is equivalent. Ben,
this is huge. Are you ready for this number? I
don't know if I'm even ready to read this number.
This is amazing. One billion, nine hundred and sixty six million,

(16:31):
seven hundred seventy one thousand, nine hundred seven dollars in
two thousand, fourteen dollars, So the equivalent of a nearly
two billion dollar deal is going down in nineteen twenty five,
now two billion dollars. And again, this is this is
just before the depression, right, so you know, this is
the company or the country is still prospering, they're doing

(16:52):
well and everything, but this is excessive. This is amazing.
At the time, Ben, you gotta remember this, this was
the largest financial transaction and ever, Yeah, there's not really
a qualifier for it. Something like this ever happened before.
You know. We should also mention that the Dodge families
did have children or heirs, so the inheritance carried on

(17:16):
from this, but they were they were not able to
manage the firm after their father's deaths, so that's why
it kind of fell to the widows. That's a question
that some people might have, you know, because we know
that Ford, for instance, passed the company onto his son,
and that usually happens, but in this case it did
not happen. But the legacy here Ben is something else.

(17:38):
There's a there's real estate involved, and I'll tell you
about that as we go along here. And there's there's
some tie into the Detroit area that that we can
talk about in just a minute, because there's a critical
piece of property there that I think we should talk about.
That's true. We should also, uh, we should also say
that the the bankers, Dylan Read and Company held the

(17:59):
Dodge property, the Dodge name for three years and then
they sold it to another cameo made a nice little
handsome profit I guess on this time. Right, that's right, Yeah,
pretty big, I would say, Um, so they held onto
it until night. Right in nineteen twenty eight, Dylan Read
and Company sold Dodge to Walter P. Chrysler. Right, and uh,

(18:20):
let's get our first number. A hundred forty six million,
that's what they bought it for. And they sold it
for one hundred and seventy million dollars. And again that's
in nineteen eight, So if we want to do the
the inflation calculation again, in two thousand, fourteen dollars that
would be two billion, two nine million, seventy six thousand,
eight hundred seventy dollars and sixty one cents. Wow, that's

(18:43):
a big number and your calculation is on fire today,
my friend, I did that all in my head. Yeah.
I could tell you. Guys, Scott and I talk about
notes because we don't want to freak you out. But
Scott just has all of this, uh at the tip
of your tongue right now, there's no notes. I mean,
it's like the greatest filing system ever in my head
right yeah. It uh, it makes me think just a

(19:06):
little bit of Hannibal Lecter's Memory Palace. Are you a
fan of those books? I am? Yes, So okay, sorry,
that's that's derailing. Let's talk about someone who is not
a serial killer. Walter Pete Chrysler is, in fact, a
serial saver of businesses. I can't believe you just put
that together. That was well done. Oh thanks man. Third take,

(19:27):
I don't know that I ever heard the words serial
killer Walter P. Chrysler in the same sentence when you're
not really calling him that. Yeah. Yeah, because most of
the time people are apparently called no, no, that's not
what I meant, I meant, I don't think those two
phrases are firms have ever been together? Yeah? Likely. Well
that's just all right, we gotta move on, we have
to so alright. So so he rescues business. So here's

(19:51):
the thing. He buys this, he spends you know, two
point two billion dollars you know, equivalent I guess a
hundred and seventy million dollars in in in just before
the Great Depression, right, and you would think that, go on, now,
this is bad news for Dodge at the end of
the story. Right, Well we know better, of course, because
they're still around. But you know, of course, Walter p

(20:11):
he held strong and uh, I mean, I can't believe it.
How do you hold onto an investment that you you
just unloaded, like you know, that much money for and
then the crash happens, And I mean that says something.
You know, he believed in the brand, he held onto it.
I'm sure there were cuts and other parts of the company,
and I'm sure if you dug into the history of
Chrysler you'd find out what exactly those were, because things
did go away during the depression, of course, but but

(20:34):
Dodge was not one it It held strong. So if
you want to follow the quick and dirty progression of
this whole thing, you know, the wives held the company.
They had the you know, the Dodge Brothers company. H
then they sold it to you know, the bank, the
bank company. Bank held onto it for three years and
then sold it to Chrysler. So you know, by Chrysler
is holding dodged the Dodge brand and they still have

(20:56):
it today. And it's a lot of work for him
to do this because uh, let's see that will explore
this in in a couple of different ways, might jump
around in time real quick. But during those three years
that the bankers Dylan Read and Company owned it, they
had some major missteps. Yeah, because uh, you know, Dodges

(21:18):
are thought of as vehicles using expeditions. You know, they've
been down to Mexico there in the Museum of Natural
History Central Asiatic expedition and stuff. Um. But the people
who are running it during the banking years and again
there was only three years, they wanted to make it
a luxury line with appropriate prices. Um. So the fact

(21:43):
I have here is in night for example, Fords Model
A was selling for four and the lowest price Dodge
was selling for eight, and the more expensive versions would
sell for as much as two grand. So so the
sales the climbed, of course, because people aren't just on
the market at that point is not big enough, uh

(22:06):
for people who buy two thousand dollar car from Dodge.
So Walter has his work set out for him. There's
a neat observation here in UM. One of the one
of the accounts I found mentioned an observer describing Chrysler's
purchase of Dodge as the minnows swallowing the whale, which

(22:26):
I thought was interesting because you know, again, Dodge is
so huge at this time. Well, but you know, Walter
he had, as you mentioned, Ben, we talked about this,
he had saved a couple of companies already, right he well,
he's overland right. Uh. But at the same time, you know,
when the Dads Brothers were owned by UM, I guess
would be the bank at this point nine twenty six,
the Dadge brothers bought Graham Brothers out, so so they

(22:47):
owned that and then Chrysler also bought another company, right
what was that one? Oh, h Maxwell Motor Car Company. Okay,
so there's all this buying and selling going on. That's
not something that's just happened, you know, recently, because you know,
we've seen a lot of turnover in the auto industry recently,
but this has been going on from the very beginning.
And you remember the attrition rate of of the the
US car companies back then. You remember their hundreds of

(23:09):
car companies that that came and went. Some were overnight,
some didn't even produce a car, some produced one, some
produced ten, some produced a thousand. Most didn't make it, obviously. Yeah,
the success stories are rare. Yeah, well it's Ford, Chrysler GM. Yeah,
I mean really, that's the ones that came out big
out of this whole thing. And uh and we're seeing

(23:29):
a couple of these played together right now. And one
little I guess interesting side note, ben, I guess that
when Chrysler required Dodge, he now had access to three
different truck lines. And this is kind of interesting, right,
So what would he do with these three different truck lines?
And there's one here that maybe a lot of our
listeners haven't even heard of. All Right, So he's got
the Dodge Brothers Company right now, which is making light

(23:51):
trucks right at the time. He's got the Grand Brothers,
which we just mentioned that Dodge had purchased right, and
the Grand Brothers were building, Um, I guess they're building
kind of medium and heavy duty trucks, and so they
were being built and marketed by Dodge since about nine,
these these Grand Brothers trucks. And then he also had
another one that I don't think a lot of people

(24:12):
have heard of. This is a commercial truck line that
Chrysler owned back in the early nineteen twenties and I'm sorry,
in the late nineteen twenties, and it was um Fargo Trucks.
There's a Fargo truck brand that Chrysler owned and they
did commercial vehicles again. Oh wait, yeah, you're right. So
he's got access. Now Chrysler has access to three different

(24:35):
brands of trucks, of of lines of trucks. So you know,
I mean, I guess there's a chance and he loved
what you know, the Dodge brothers were doing with their vehicle,
and you know I had done with the Grand brothers.
I guess. But I suppose if you want to look
at it this way, you know, people could be driving
around in a a Fargo Ram truck. No, not a
Fargo Ram. I guess it would be a well maybe
it would be maybe a Fargo Ram truck be kind

(24:57):
of weird. That would be that would be a little
it weird. But maybe it just sounds weird to us
right now, I guess. And you know they were the
commercial ends, so you know, it makes sense that he
stuck with the Dodge Brothers and the Grand It could
be a Graham Graham Ram Graham Ram. I think that's
a little more fun, especially to try to say it
three times fast. UH. Chrysler overnight becomes one of the

(25:20):
top car companies in the United States and therefore the
world in terms of supply, in terms of reach, in
terms of visibility, and UH. When we look at the
Chrysler years, we see some of UH Walter Chrysler's trusted
associates coming back into work with him. UM. The new

(25:42):
management team that happens the day after this sale is
headed by Kat Keller, who was the master mechanic for
Buick under Chrysler, and he also was vice president in
charge of manufacturing for Time UH, and he moved up
and he was very very good at his job, so effective.

(26:06):
In fact, there's a little neat little factoid about him,
UH that he streamlined production at the Dodge main plant. Uh,
to the point where there was enough floor space after
he spent three months just cleaning, there was enough floor
space to put the DeSoto division in there. WHOA, Yeah,
that's that's a guy. I need to have come over
to my garage and organized things, because I've got a

(26:27):
problem going on in my garage. It's way too much,
you know, lost space. Is it? Is it junk or
is it stuff? You can't throw away one giant car
that's for one thing, and it's also a bunch of
junk too. Yeah, it's stuff that I gotta organized. But
enough to fit the entire DeSoto division into the factory
after he just organized it. Yeah, that's incredible. That's a
that's a cool fact. Yeah that is. But what we

(26:49):
see with this, of course, is you know, later later
he uh, the management is taken over by L. L. Colbert,
who was the vice president of Dodge in nineteen thirty five,
president ten years later, and then later he moves up
to be the corporate the Chrysler Corporation president in nineteen fifties.

(27:10):
So again, although the brothers themselves uh may have passed away.
And if you think about it, and you alluded to this, earlier, Scott.
One of the most astonishing things about the Dodge brothers
is the short amount of time that they were active
and the tremendous amount of innovation and influence they welded.

(27:32):
These guys only lived to you know, mid fifties I
guess you know, uh yeah, and fifty two I think
for Horace, So they were relatively young, I mean too
young to die obviously, but but they did an unfortunate
circumstances and um, but the the legacy that these guys
are left behind, I mean, everybody knows the Dodge brand, yeah,
oh yes, And there's more to it than just that, Ben,

(27:53):
I mean, there's also Meadowbrook Hall, which is left behind
in uh in Rochester Hills, Michigan. And uh, if you
don't know about Meadowbrook Hall, I would suggest take a
look at a few photos of this. And and this
was a home or an estate I guess that was
built by one of the widows of the Dodge brothers.
This was John Francis Dodges widow who built this along

(28:14):
with her her new lumber broker husband, Alfred Wilson. So
it's kind of the uh, the Dodge Wilson home. I
guess we want to call it that, but it's called
Meadowbrook Hall. It was built on Meadowbrook Farms. So there
was this huge estate. I think it's like UM fourteen
thousand acres as this a state, it has a you know,
well now it houses a university, which they donated it

(28:35):
to UH. I think in the nineteen fifty seven they
donated it to UM Oakland University and Oakland University is
housed on this estate, as is a huge golf course.
This of course the mansion, the original farmhouse that was there,
this white farmhouse that you can still see from the
road there that was on the property to begin with.
And it's called one of America's Castles. This is how
impressive this and it is on the U S Register

(28:57):
of Historic Places. It was placed on their around nineteen
seventy nine and then recently in two thousand twelve, it
was actually named as a U S National Historic Landmark.
So this is a significant home, I guess as far
as U S history goes, UM hundred and ten rooms,
eighty eight thou square feet and the only reason that
I'm really kind of focused on this bend and it's

(29:18):
impressive place, and of course it has a tie into
the Dodge history as well. But this is where I
would go to see those concourse events when I would go,
and the concourse shows were the ones that they're no
longer there. They stopped holding them in two thousand ten
at this at this venue. But this was the Concourse
Delegance of America and it was held for thirty two
years on the historic Meadowbrook Hall grounds, so out on

(29:41):
the golf course. This is where this would happen. And
you know, you could take tours of the building and
everything else that went along with it. But it was
a perfect setting for something like that. And again this
Matilda Dodge Wilson home was like the perfect backdrop for
this whole thing to go down. I mean, the the
carriage house style garages that they had, you know, it
looked like to me, it looked like they had hundred
gardge spaces you know for vehicles there, but it wasn't

(30:02):
that many. I don't remember, maybe thirty something like that.
And just everything that goes along with that, you know,
the the high walls and the green golf course and
the beautiful vehicles and everything. It was just a perfect,
perfect place to go. And they've They've changed the venue
now it's held in Plymouth, Michigan, which is I'm sure
an equally nice setting and everything else, but you know,
I just have a familiarity with the Meadowbrook Hall and

(30:23):
the Meadowbrook Farms property. That's all right, So we are
going to wrap this up with Scott if if I
can just one one more note on my end, The
Dodge company has expanded from a bicycle shop to something
that outlived its creators and now has spread around the world.

(30:43):
Ladies and gentlemen from Argentina to Asia to Australia and
Europe you can find Dodge vehicle and I think it
is one of the most amazing success stories. Uh, not
just in the automotive world, but maybe in American history. Yeah.
And you know, we we say this often as we
do these these history pieces. I guess you know, these

(31:05):
deep dives into brands and and makes and models. Is
that you know, we we try to give you as
much as we can, but there is so much more
out there. There are so many more interesting little facts
that are buried in these stories that we just didn't
have time to get to. You know, stories that involved
the family, stories involved um property, ownership and contracts and
and youthful misbehavior. I can't believe. I'll kind of do

(31:27):
that one just real quick. Why not throw it into
That's a good thing to end on. How about that?
All right? So apparently John and Horace were both pretty
big fans of the sauce in their uh wilder days,
and they both had a bit of a temper. I'm
not gonna say the stereotype about redheads is true, but
they did have red hair and uh. According to this anecdote,

(31:51):
one day apparently John, who was hanging out at a bar,
forced the bartender to dance on top of the bar
counter by threatening him with a gun at gunpoint. At gunpoint,
he forced up someone to dance. So I wonder when
this was in his career, because you know, at some
point you have a lot to lose, right, Yeah, I

(32:12):
think this was early on this, maybe before they actually
ran into Henry Force. Well what is he acting like
that for? I can't figure it out, because you know,
you think that that would and almost as like such
a show of power would be like somebody like um,
you know, just being a bully, you know, just just
bullying somebody, feeling like you're on top of the world.
You got all the money to throw at a problem
or whatever. But again, if he was at that point,

(32:35):
I would think that, you know, he would again have
too much to lose, you know that he would. He
would his reputation would precede him, and he wouldn't be
a successful in the business. I guess Ontario is just
a crazy place, man. You know what, It's still is
a crazy place. I've been there recently and it still
isn't you know what. I love it. So we just
wanted to to give you that one last story. And
I'm sorry I said one last thing three times exactly

(32:56):
and I mentioned you know, you mentioned crazy. Remember I
lived in Detroit, that's right, and that's where you would
go on the weekends to party. You would go over
into Ontario. Ye, winds I had no idea. So I
wonder if all this is going down on Windsor, because
I'm not sure exactly where it happened, but that can
be a wild place, you know what, if you live
a Windsor, let us know where the cool kids go.

(33:18):
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(33:41):
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