Dodge Repair and Service PDF Manuals

Dodge automobile brand begins with a small automobile parts store owned by brothers John and Horace Dodge.

Then in 1914, they founded their own company, on which they were one of the first to start manufacturing cars with all-metal bodies, developed, however, by Budd. Also, their product range consisted of transmission parts, engines, gearboxes and drive axles supplied by Ford and Olds Motors.

A small company, absorbed all the technological innovations of that time, including Ford technology in standardization and stream assembly (Henry Ford even sued the brothers, however, without success).

Gradually came up with the idea of organizing their own car manufacturer Dodge Brothers.

The first Dodge Brothers car, which was later jokingly nicknamed "Old Betsy," left the factory on November 14, 1914 - and after that, until the end of the year, Dodge produced another 249 exactly the same cars. Each of them had a company emblem on the top tank of the radiator - a globe placed in the center of the Jewish star of David: the brothers remembered their roots.

By 1920, Dodge was the second-largest car manufacturer after Ford, but in the same 1920 both brothers died - one from pneumonia, the other from cirrhosis. The new head of the company was Frederick Hines, who became both vice president and general manager.

In 1925, the annual production level was 200 thousand cars.

The condition of the Dodge brothers was decent - over 20 million each. In addition, the heirs of the brothers (and apart from the widows they had no one left) received 50% of the share capital. But both widows did not possess entrepreneurial talents, and the company began to suffer losses.

For $ 145 million, Dodge bought a consortium of American banks, which slightly improved its financial situation. In 1927, Dodge offered its first six-cylinder hydraulic drive brand, Six, replacing all 4-cylinder models from next year. In 1928, the cheaper and more economical Victory Six car was added to it.

In anticipation of the economic crisis, Dodge was again on the verge of bankruptcy, and its management decided to sell the company to the rising star of that time - Walter Chrysler, who at that time had put together his own auto empire, buying up all the car factories indiscriminately. In 1928, Dodge became part of the Chrysler Corporation and the Dodge car became a trademark of Chrysler.

Since then, Dodge cars began to unify with the products of other members of the concern. This unification began in 1929, when a new Dodge DA1 series car appeared, which became a copy of the Chrysler brand. Immediately followed by an 8-cylinder Dodge DC series with a Chrysler engine. In 1935 and 1939, Dodge cars received new streamlined bodies. During the war, Dodge became famous for its lungs; cargo-passenger army off-road vehicles.

In the early post-war years, the company continued to let in slightly modified models developed before 1942. In 1949, the first new Wayfarer, Meadowbrook, and Coronet cars appeared with a 102-cylinder 6-cylinder engine. and semi-automatic transmission.