Tag Archives: Horace Dodge

From the Dodge Bros. to the Hellcat Durango

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An interesting historical path. . . .

By Gary S. Vasilash

What do Aretha Franklin, Edsel Ford, Rosa Parks, and John and Horace Dodge all have in common?

They’re buried in the same cemetery, Woodlawn, in Detroit.

The Dodge brothers had some other interesting connections while still on the upper side of the ground.

In 1901, the bros moved from Niles, Michigan to Detroit to open a machine shop (it is surprising they didn’t move to someplace like South Bend, Indiana, because there was a non-trivial amount of machining going on there back then; in 1906 two other brothers, John and Miles O’Brien, established South Bend Lathes, which became the world’s largest producer of lathes for a period,and numbered Henry Ford among its customers).

They were contacted by Ransom E. Olds, who had a fire in his factory and required some transmissions, which the Dodge brothers supplied.

Henry Ford put the Dodge brothers under contract in 1903. Henry had to pay the Dodges with stock when he was having some financial difficulties. That stock was then used by the brothers so that in 1914 Dodge Brothers was formed.

Remember when people talked about the COVID pandemic in relation to the so-called “Spanish flu” outbreak in 2018?

Both of the Dodge brothers contracted the flu (and pneumonia) in 1918. Both of the brothers died in 1920.

Their company was sold to an investment bank, which sold it to Chrysler in 1928. At that time, Chrysler Corporation, was just three years old.

The brothers were featured in a series of TV ads in 2014-15 for vehicles including the Dodge Charger, showing that they were non-conformists who were interested in performance.

Which, 104 years after they physically passed, is something that is part and parcel of the company.

2025 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat Hammerhead: presumably the thing that John and Horace Dodge might take out for a spin. (Image Dodge)

Which is exemplified by the 2025 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat Hammerhead special-edition introduced earlier this week.

Perhaps all that need be said about that SUV is that it is powered by a 710-hp HEMI.

And as we have taken a massive historical trail to get to that vehicle, it is notable that the Durango, which is in normal fitment essentially a three-row family-hauler, was first equipped with a HEMI in 2004, or 20 years ago.