12 cars that made Chrysler

Brothers Horace and John Dodge, major shareholders in Ford Motor Company, supplied about 80 percent of the mechanical parts used in the Ford Model T between 1903 and 1912. (They became major shareholders because, in the early years, Ford Motor Co. was falling behind on payment and the brothers agreed to accept Ford stock, instead.)

Henry Ford was sure that, in the Model T, his company had created the perfect car, one that would sell, essentially unchanged, forever. He was also sure that Ford Motor Co. could, by itself, produce everything needed to make the Model T.

That left the Dodge brothers, now wealthy from their Ford holdings, to build their own car. It was a famously tough all-steel bodied touring car, and it made Dodge synonymous with "dependability" for forty years.

Horace and John died in 1920 from a flu contracted during the New York Auto Show that year. Their car company was acquired by Chrysler Corporation in 1928.

Sources: Walter P. Chrysler Museum; "Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius," by Vincent Curcio (Oxford University Press); "Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress," by Douglas Brinkley (Viking)