Dodge, Horace Elgin (1865-1920)

US automobile manufacturer. In 1914 he expanded the car parts manufacturing business he had started with his brother, John Francis Dodge, to produce their own vehicles. Their factory made the first car with an all-steel body.

He was born in Niles, Michigan. With his brother, he began a bicycle manufacturing business in Ontario, Canada, then moved to Detroit (1901) to open a machine shop for car parts manufacture. Their innovations included the use of conveyor belts in manufacturing, and the technique for baking enamel on steel bodies. During World War I they made their factory available to the war effort and designed the machinery to build the French recoil gun. This technology was later used for making car cylinders. Horace more mechanically inclined than his business-orientated brother.