Henry Ford was hired as an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in 1891 and later became chief engineer after his promotion in 1893. He then had a lot of time to dedicate to his personal experiments on gasoline engines. These experiments ended up in 1896 when he completed his self propelled vehicle and named it Ford Quadricycle. On June 4, he test drove the vehicle several times and came out with various methods to improve the vehicle. Ford was introduced to Thomas Edison in 1896’s meeting. The latter agreed of Ford’s automobile experimentation, which encouraged him to further experiment. Thus in 1898, Ford designed his second vehicle. With the support of the capital of Detroit lumber baron William H. Murphy, he resigned from Edison and established at Detroit Automobile Company on August 5, 1899. But the automobiles produced in this company were of poor quality and expensive. For the same reason, the company got dissolved in 1901.
In 1901, C. Harold Wills supported Ford to design and built a 26-horsepower automobile. With the ultra success of this automobile, Murphy and other stockholders in the Detroit Automobile Company came together to form the Henry Ford Company on November 30, 1901. Ford worked as a chief engineer. But when Murphy brought Henry M. Leland as a consultant in the company, Ford left it bearing his name in 1902. Afterwards, Murphy renamed the company as Cadillac Automobile Company. Ford then teamed up with the former racing cyclist Tom Cooper and produced the awesome 80+ horsepower racer "999" which was driven to victory in a race by Barney Oldfield in the late 1902.
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