General Introduction

From 1914 to 1927, the company was called by the name of Dodge Brothers Motor Vehicle Company. The company was then acquired by Chrysler in the year 1928 and then after a while, Dodge merged with Daimler-Benz.

Origin

In the year 1901, two partners by the name of John Francis Dodge and Horace Elgin Dodge shifted their business of manufacturing bicycles (the name of the company was Dodge Brothers Bicycle) to Detroit in Michigan. Both the partners were very active in manufacturing and selling motor parts for automobiles in that era. Henry Ford approached the brothers in 1902. Henry Ford was looking for a solution to finance his own company at that time. Hence the Dodge partners partnered with Henry Ford and financed his company by the name of Ford Motor Company. The finance was used for manufacturing the parts of the company and the proceeds were used for the benefit of both the companies.

New Company

In the year 1914, the Dodge Brothers were successful in starting their own company which they named Dodge Brothers Motor Vehicle Limited. There were thousands of applications for dealership made to the company by different dealers out of which 50 dealers to distribute the cars of the company were chosen. Some of the dealers have still maintained their partnership with Dodge even today and they have been very successful in their respective careers. In the year 1917, the Dodge brothers also won a lawsuit against Ford Motor Company which boosted their fortunes considerably. In the same year, the Dodge brothers also ventured in the manufacturing of trucks which were used first by the US army during World War I and then they were also commercially used.


Further Progress Of Dodge

Iin the year 1925, Dillon, Read & Company purchased the Dodge Brothers Company. The deal was worth $148 million, which was also regarded as the largest cash transaction in history at that time. Afterwards Dillon Read sold the company to Chrysler Corporation in the year 1928. The Chrysler Corporation soon took over Rootes Group in Britain as well as Simca group of France and Barreiros Group of Spain. In the 1960s, the Chrysler Group started manufacturing light commercial vehicle in the name of Dodge. Some of the models introduced were Karrier and Ciommer. There were pick up vans introduced under the Dodge brand like Simca 1100 and heavy duty trucks were also introduced in Spain. The Dodge 50 series were the most common types sold at that time. These vehicles were used on a large scale by the military services as well as utility companies.

Downturn

The Chrysler Group faced a downturn in Europe in the year 1977. The company had to sell off its assets to Italian automaker Peugeot and factories of Dodge in Britain and Spain were sold off to Renault. Renault used these factories to make its own vehicles like vans and trucks. However it eventually stopped producing these vehicles. Dodge returned to UK with the introduction of the Dodge Neon SRT-4. It was branded as Chrysler Neon in the mid 2000s.

Present

The Dodge Company is now a part of DaimlerChrysler Group and it is based in Stuttgart. In the year 2005, the Dodge brand became famous for its trucks as 78% of the vehicles produced and marketed are trucks. Dodge will soon come out with the latest Dodge Charger and the Dodge Challenger models. The Dodge vehicles were introduced in the continent of Europe in the year 2006. The current selling models are Dodge Viper SRT-10, Dodge Ram and the Dodge Caliber. Plans are open for introducing the new Dodge Nitro in the year 2007. Dodge also entered in the Australian market in the year 2006. Plans are there to introduce a new model of Dodge every six months in the Australian continent for the next three years. The first model introduced was Dodge Caliber. Dodge vehicles are now sold in many different parts of the world.