The Dort Motor Car Company of Flint, Michigan, built automobiles from 1915–1924. Dort used Lycoming-built engines to power their vehicles.
Dort Motor Car Company grew from Durant-Dort Carriage Company founded in 1886 by William C. Durant and J. Dallas Dort. They remained business partners until about 1915. Durant-Dort Carriage Company was dissolved in 1924. It may have continued to own the buildings plant and machinery used by Dort Motor Car.
Dort and the remaining stockholders took over the carriage business. They incorporated Dort Motor Car Company and began to use some of the same plant to manufacture Dort cars[1] buying in engines from Lycoming. Carriage production ended in 1917.
Dort shipped 9,000 cars in its first year.[2]
By 1917, Dort was offering four models: a closed sedan at $1,065, a convertible sedan at $815, a five-place open tourer at $695, and a Fleur-de-Lys roadster at $695.[3] By contrast, Ford Model Ts were selling for $440 in 1915.[4]
By 1920 Dort was the country's 13th largest automobile producer.[5] The company built a large factory on the east end of Flint right at the time of the recession that followed WWI. The company started bleeding cash and attempted to seek capital (which was unavailable) or a merger partner (none were interested). Staff was cut and expenses were cut back. After several of the company executives left in 1923, the only choice left to Dort was to liquidate.[5] The new factory building was sold to AC Spark Plug to manufacture carburetor air filters and fuel pumps.[6][7]
J Dallas Dort died the following year.[6]
Josiah Dallas Dort (February 27, 1861 – May 17, 1925) was a pioneer of the United States automobile industry. He was born in Inkster, Michigan on February 27, 1861. His father was a well-to-do country squire and merchant, well connected politically, who died in 1871 when Josiah was 10. Dort left school at age 15 to help his mother in business and to work at a crockery firm. He moved to Flint, Michigan in 1879. In 1881, he began working at a Flint hardware store, and within a few years opened his own hardware store.[1]
1918 Dort Sedan and Sedanet (6113179245).jpg
Location of Flint Institute of Music
He made a $1,000 investment in 1886 (equivalent to $26,000 in 2019[2]) to become a partner with William C. Durant in a new carriage business called the Flint Road-Cart Company. Durant was the salesman and Dort the partnership's administrator, running the factories. Together they made Durant-Dort one of the world's largest carriage producers. Dort and Durant invested in a controlling interest in Buick in 1904 when the new owner ran short of capital. Durant's marketing ability was an overwhelming success, and they formed General Motors in 1908. Durant lost control of GM to bankers in 1911 and they re-established themselves by creating a new brand of automobile, Chevrolet. Dort was president of Chevrolet but the following year, in 1915, he left and founded Dort Motor Car Company. By 1920 Dort was the country's 13th largest automobile producer[3] but in 1924 Dort decided to retire and liquidated Dort Motor Car Company. He sold the factory building to AC Spark Plug.[4]
Dort had many involvements outside his business interests. Music institutions (Flint Institute of Music is built on the site of his home and its main offices are in the Dort Music Centre), a mutual benefit association for his employees which paid their medical bills, the local Shakespeare club, Knights Templar of the Masonic Order, Flint YMCA, Flint's first hospital—now Hurley Medical Center.[3]
Flint area trunkline Dort Highway (M-54) is named in his honor.[1]