Henry Leland, like Billy Durant, is one of the most prominent automobile pioneers whose name is virtually unknown. Unlike Henry Ford or Ransom Olds, Leland was never enamored with automobiles. He was a machine tool man, driven by his passion for precision.
Early Life
As a young man H.M., as he was often called, worked for Brown & Sharpe, a machine tool company of some repute. He worked his way up from a simple workman to supervisor of the largest department. His success derived from his talent for watching men work and coming up with smarter ways to achieve better results. On vacation, he would often visit shops in the town he happened to be and talk with the workers and foremen. When they mentioned a difficulty, he would casually mention how this or that Brown & Sharpe tool would eliminate the problem. Upon his return to work, unexpected orders for machines would arrive.
Finally, his bosses asked Leland if he knew who was placing those orders. It didn’t take long for him to move into sales. They gave him the territory he asked for: everything west of Pittsburgh. That’s where most industry, and most orders, would be found. Detroit brought him much business and in 1890, he opened his own machine shop, Leland & Falcauner, with funding from Robert Falcauner.
Leland & Falcauner
The bicycle craze was in full swing and L&F (as the company became known) became known for their precision gears. When Ransom Olds began making his Curved Dash Oldsmobile, he had one difficulty: the transmission made an intolerable racket. After several months, Olds asked Leland, the gear expert, for a solution.
The L&F transmissions were a success and soon Olds added an order for 2,000 engines (in addition to the engines Olds was getting from the Dodge Bothers). This was an enormous order for L&F.
Leland was a serious Bible student and lay preacher. In gratitude, he bought a Curved Dash for himself, then refined the engine with a few minor modifications, which took the engine’s horsepower from 3 to 10. Leland took the engine to the Olds Motor Works. Mr. Olds wasn’t there so he showed it to Fred Smith, Olds’ partner. Smith exploded at Leland’s impertinence. Who gave him permission to mess with the Olds design?
Cadillac
Surprised, the rebuffed Leland took the engine back with him. A while later, he received a call to appraise a shop being prepared for liquidation. If was the Henry Ford Company, from which Ford had just been fired. Comeback! tells the story of how Leland persuaded the investors to use his engine and create a new automobile, rather than liquidate.
They did, renaming the company Cadillac. Initially, the investors ran it and L&F supplied engines for both Olds and Cadillac. The Cadillac Model A with its redesigned Olds motor took off like a rocket. The growth overwhelmed Cadillac and the investors persuaded Leland to take over. On December 26, 1904, H.M., his son Wilfred and his engineer, who sported a patriarchal beard, pulled up in their Curved Dash. Quipped one of the men from the second floor: “Well, boys, our troubles are all over now. Here come the father, the son and the holy ghost.”
