Horseless Carriages

This 1896 Duryea on display at the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Mich., was one of 13 built by Frank and Edward Duryea in Springfield, Mass. It was the first commercial production of automobiles in the United States and marked the beginning of the nation's largest industry.

The oldest known Buick in the country is this 1905 model, built in the second year of production of Buick cars. William Durant took over Buick in 1904 and used it as the bise for his creation in 1908 of General Motors.

This 1905 Cadillac was powered by the famed single-cylinder "one-lunger" designed by Henry Leland with the assistance of Alanson Brush. Brush left Cadillac in 1905 and began building his own Brush car in 1907. Leland then began to purge all traces of Brush's influence in the Cadillac. Brush's company ceased production in 1911. Brush assisted General Motors in the design of the Oakland car, which later became the Pontiac.

The 1906 Cadillac continued to offer the one-lunger, but increasingly offered models with larger, more powerful four-cylinder engines. For the first time, Cadillac produced more cars with fours than with the single-cylinder engine. In fact, the 393-cubic-inch four offered in its 1906 Model L was the largest engine Cadillac built until it began making V-16s in 1930.