Been reading the July issue of Classic American magazine and there is a Cadillac theme running through it. One article details some of the features/inventions/innovations which were debuted on Cadillacs throughout the company. Some remarkable stuff (for the time), including things which decades later, are only just starting to become common on run of the mill cars.

1908, The 'Dewar trophy'. Cadillac founder Henry M Leyland started off making muskets during the American Civil War. He found that by machining every part to an identical standard, quality could be guaranteed and assembly would be quicker. He took this philosophy to car manufacture. So in 1908, three 10hp Cadillac's were shipped to England, and brought to the Brooklands circuit. There they were disassembled, the parts mixed up and the cars then rebuilt before setting off on (successful) a 500 mile trial. For this, the RAC awarded its Dewar trophy, an award given to 'Outstanding technical achievement'.

1912, Delco electric lighting and starting. The starting aspect of this has something of a tragic back story, as a friend of Leyland died through complications of a broken jaw caused by a kickback from a starting handle. This led to Leyland pushing for an alternative and safer means of starting a car.

1929, Syncromesh gears. Sometime in the mid 20's a man called Earl A Thompson turned up at Cadillac HQ in Detroit having driven from Oregon with his brother, a dealer, in a Cadillac which he had fitted with synchronised manual gears of his own design. Cadillac's chief engineer was sufficiently intrigued to take him on, and after 1.5 million test miles, the 1929 Cadillac's debuted with the system.

1930, First production V16 engine.

1941, Fully automatic transmission. Though this actually debuted on an Oldsmobile the year before, it was a Cadillac employee (Earl A Thompson, again) who developed it.

1952, The 'Autronic eye'. This was a device which detected the headlights of oncoming vehicles and dipped the headlights.

1957, Air suspension. Although it has to be said, this option was dropped after four years.

1959, Soft close trunk (boot). Similar to the technology Mercedes was crowing about more than three decades later on the then new W140 S-Class.

1960, 'Twilight sentinal'. This took the 'Autronic eye' to the next stage by detecting when it was starting to get dark and switching on the headlights.

1964, Climate control. Long before it started to become common on European luxury cars, Cadillac came up with the first system. Tested in use from -28F in northern Canada to +90F in Texas and Florida, it had to maintain the interior temperature to within three degrees of the thermostat setting.

It is very easy for us on this side of the pond to scoff at US cars, thinking them all to be too big, and about as sophisticated as a knife and fork. But back in the day, in terms of luxury, sophistication and innovation, Cadillac was easily as good as, and in some ways better, than anything European.

By way of an explanation, while i make no secret of my love of small cars, i also (slightly embarrassingly, because of why i love small cars) have a love of many big old American barges. Maybe this makes me a hypocrite?.

Hey ho!