Start her up!

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This year Cadillac celebrates 100 years of the electric starter. Indeed Cadillac fitted one on their 1912 models, but the story is a bit more complicated than that. As far as we know the first electric starter was fitted as an experiment on a Arnold-Benz car in 1896 and became a standard fitment on 1909 Standard G.E. built in Philadelphia. although this car never became a success. Thus Cadillac must be given credit for its further development, which started when in 1908 engineer Henry M. Leland -then working for Cadillac- saw his personal friend Byron Carter -of the Cartercar Automobile Company- die after the starting crank hit him on the jaw, the wound causing a fatal gangrene. This set Leland thinking and he instructed Charles Kettering to come up with a device that eliminated the crank start. The rest is history. Kettering's electric starter changed the way the automobile was used and within a few years, Cadillac featured women in their advertising showing them as drivers, instead of passengers or bystanders.

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