The History of Dodge

According to official information, the basis for the Dodge car brand was a bicycle company founded by the Dodge brothers John and Horace in 1899. Other sources date the founding of the company to 1900. Such a start was typical for many famous car brands.

Some sources claim that the Dodge brothers started their commercial activity with a small store, where they sold car parts, which were manufactured at the brothers' enterprise. The range included power units, transmissions and other components for cars. The main client of the Dodge company was Ford.

The Dodge company was actively developing and by 20 of the 20th century had taken the second position in terms of production volume. The leader was Ford brand. In the same year the brothers died. The Dodge brothers' widows became its actual owners, but they were inefficient in business, and as a result the company became unprofitable. At the same time the volume of production increased up to 200 thousand cars per year. After some time the automobile brand was bought out by several banks, which united into a consortium for this purpose.

With the beginning of the Great Depression, which began in the 1930s, the company's business deteriorated significantly. The automobile brand along with the production is bought by the North American industry magnate Walter Chrysler. This caused the further similarity of the products of the two brands.

With the beginning of World War II, production switched to the production of army vehicles. Trucks and SUVs were very successful and were popular. They were supplied to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program.

At the end of the war, the company produced modified models of the prewar years. In 1949, the Dodge lineup has been updated. Three new models were presented at once: Wayfarer, Meadowbrook and Coronet. They were equipped with a six-cylinder power unit with robotized transmission.

In the 90's Dodge began to actively market its pickups. Today, the company is one of the largest producers of pickup trucks in the U.S. and they are popular. The main competitors in this class are Ford and Chevrolet.

In 2000, the 'maximum' version of the Viper was released under the name GTS/R, with a 500 hp engine, which allows it to reach a top speed of 320 km/h. The only executive model was the Viper. The only executive class car was Dodge Intrepid, released in 1992. Also was developed its sports version with the designation FVT. Do not forget to use Dodge VIN decoder in order to avoid potential problems when buying a used car.