STORY LINE:  DETROIT-THE ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY  

Everything comes from something … the universe supposedly evolved from the ‘big bang’ theory. I say ‘Ralph’ did it. The MAN does have a name. Babies, so my mom tells me came from, well, mom. Eggs come from chickens and I know the proverbial question … which one came first, the egg or the chicken. And technology comes from invention … and necessity IS the mother of invention. So now to earthly things.  

Horse drawn carriages begat horseless carriages and, great men built dynamos that belched fire and smoke to power these horseless carriages. And little men did great things with feats of engineering wizardry to further the technology of putting America on wheels to advance the interest in personal transportation we call the automobile. Some of this technology ran amok and caused peoples and nations to go to war over it, and this caused the technology to advance ever faster as war materials needed to be quickly developed, produced and put into use.  

DETROIT. Most Americans do not even know that the Dodge Brothers engineered, developed and helped manufacture a delicate recoil mechanism for the 155-millimeter French type Howitzers used in WWI … that was 1917. The French could not build them fast enough with the precision required, the Dodge Brothers did … at six times the daily rate of what the French could do. They also supplied Dodge vehicles to the military without any changes from typical production cars, having been proven in the Mexico Expedition under General Pershing. Cadillac also was a vehicle of choice for military usage as well as Packard.  

Peace and then 20 years later on December 7, 1941 another great war that today’s generation cannot even begin to comprehend. And again the automotive companies of Detroit were swung into action to produce the needed armaments to protect the bastion of freedom we know as the U.S.A.  

Ford Motor Company built the longest plant in the United States and manufactured bombers for the war effort, at Willow Run. General Motors built tanks and supplied Cadillac flathead V8 engines with Hydramatic transmissions to power them. Chrysler Corporation played a heavy part in the development of  the atomic bomb that virtually put an end to the war with Japan … hidden away and working in second and third floor buildings on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit.  

Technology. WWII fighter planes with piston driven engines employed nitrous oxide as a power adder for that hard dive or climb to get the enemy. Today that power adder, NOX … it isn’t so new anymore. But it was 50 years ago-and I am sure the ‘bottle’-it helped a few sky fighters win a race that no doubt saved their lives. And I was not, nor were you, in the desert where Rommel was … but I would bet a kings ransom those Cadillac engines used to propel tanks against the ‘Desert Fox’ … in turn returned trainloads of useful technology information to the people that built those engines, in Detroit.  

Things are different today. Its smart bombs and jets that fly by wire and talk to you. Four years ago I experienced flight in an F16-D, two-seat full military combat jet. Max power with full afterburner coming in, in stages, lift off at 180 knots, and steady climb to just over 400 feet and 450 knots, went vertical and accelerating-we began to level off 18-seconds later at just over 17,000 feet.  Lets see now, throwing 35,000lbs. straight up for over three miles …that IS called acceleration.  

It is different today …. we are at war from way far away and a whole new kind of technology that surpasses what the automobile is, but lends to it, somewhere. I am sure. And I am glad to be an American, just like you are. I am sure.  

Oh … and in regards to that earlier posed question about the egg and chicken, or the chicken and the egg. No, I don’t have any idea of which came first … the egg or the chicken. If  it ain’t got wheels or an engine … I’m kinda lost.  

TOP HAT JOHN can be contacted for story leads, vehicle appraisals, or questions at: P.O. Box 46024, Mt. Clemens, MI., 48046-6024; or call 586-465-1933