What was Ram thinking

Atlee wrote:
The current Dodge ad is very misleading. Listening to it, one would get the impression the Dodge brothers were on the Ford payroll and then quit to form their own company.

Not true. The Dodge brothers had their own company which supplied components to many of the other car manufacturers in Detroit. All the Dodge brothers did was stop supplying components to the other manufacturers, including Ford, and began producing their own complete automobiles.

ROBERTSUNRUS wrote:


Oh, and don't you forget that the Dodge Brothers also worked for Henry Ford. :S

Yes and no John Dodge was Fords Vice President. Here some reading.

"Fearing their total dependence on one customer, particularly because it was Ford, the Dodges gave Ford the required year's notice that they would terminate their contract effective August 1914. John Dodge simultaneously resigned as director and vice president of the Ford Motor Company, but he and his brother retained the Ford stock they had since 1903. Their connection with Ford was extremely profitable. Through 1914, they collected $3.8 million in dividends from their stock and earned another $1.7 million in profits on the Ford contracts. When Ford sharply reduced dividends to the stockholders In 1916, the Dodges brought a suit which eventually forced him to pay a dividend of slightly over $19 million in early 1918, with ten percent of this going to them. In July 1919, Ford bought out the remaining stockholders in the Ford Motor Company and the Dodge brothers accepted $25 million for their ten percent interest in the firm. When they finally severed their relationship with Ford, they had earned $5,4 million in dividends and $1.7 million in profits, which combined with the sale of the stock produced a return of about $32 million on their 1903. investment of $10,000. Ford provided them with both the reason and the means to build the plant in Hamtramck." LINK
http://www.dodgemotorcar.com/

As far as what would they think, not much since their hires sold their company five years after Horace's death in 1920.

Don