Being sold with title.
Older restoration still shows well
Brass in terrific condition
Possibly once owned by the mayor of Rochester, NY
Runs and drives
1964 National Prize Winner at Vintage Motor Car Club of
America
This 1906Model K defines what so many customers liked about the
Cadillac Roadsters. Sure, they still had the 10 horsepower engine,
but they were reliable. The new styling of the tulip design and the
flat boattail along with the brass accents made it much more
appealing to the eye than some of the others on the road. This car
is a two-tone red with a darker red adorning the body and a more
vibrant red on the chassis and wheels. The paint shows well as does
the Dietz and Rushmore brass work.
It is unknown when the restoration was performed on this car but it
appears to have held up very well. Andit runs and drives. The
leather seats are in very good condition and although the engine is
hidden beneath it, it also shows in good condition. While
researching the car, we looked up Mayor Hiram Edgerton (the brass
plate on the radiator) and found he was the mayor of Rochester, New
York, from 1908 to 1922. We don't know who put the plate on there,
but assume it was owned by the good mayor, who must have looked
mighty posh driving down the street in his brand new Cadillac upon
taking the oath of office!
Four years after the founding of the company, Cadillac wasn't yet
the world-beater it became just a few years down the line, but
General Manager Henry M. Leland and company certainly had designs
on the throne. Leland was already well established as a machine
tool maker in Detroit when in 1901, R.E. Olds awarded the Leland,
Faulconer and Norton company the contract to produce his Oldsmobile
engines. Leland soon pitched Olds an improved version of this
engine, but Oldsmobile, still recovering from a major fire in 1901,
couldn't shoulder the additional investment. Leland held onto the
prototype engine and was running it in his personal Oldsmobile when
representatives of the troubled Henry Ford Company, then without
their eponymous leader, approached him. According to Tim Pawl, past
president and a director of the Cadillac & La Salle Club Museum:
"Henry Ford was long gone when the company backers hired Henry
Leland to appraise the assets of that company in August 1902 for
liquidation.... Henry instead persuaded them to back his new, more
powerful engine...and the company was renamed the Cadillac
Automobile Company on August 27, 1902."
The single-cylinder market peaked for Cadillac in 1906--the company
claimed that 14,000 of the 10hp cars were in use worldwide. Still
priced at $750, a Model M and Model K single were available, and an
"H" and "L" represented the fours. While there were varieties of
body styles, the new "tulip" style made the light cars a sensation.
A lovely, upswept line seems to support the seat, with the edge
making a petal design. Four-seat, side-entrance cars, runabouts and
even Henry Leland's personal doctor's-style coupe all sported this
style, which on two-seaters was capped off with a flat boattail.
