1906 Cadillac Model M Osceola Coupe

1906 Cadillac Model M Osceola Coupe

Founded by Henry Leland and Robert Faulconer, the Cadillac Automobile Company of Detroit, Michigan completed its first car in October 1902, and the firm's superior manufacturing technology - precision gear cutting was Leland and Faulconer's first specialty - soon established it as the foremost builder of quality cars in the USA. Cadillac's first automobile was a simple runabout powered by a single-cylinder engine - known as 'Little Hercules' - that was an exemplary performer by the standards of its day. The example offered here is a very accurate recreation based on the 'Osceola', Leland's prototype built to test the feasibility of a closed model, which would result in the virtually identical coupé coachwork first seen on the four-cylinder Model H in 1906 and available on the single-cylinder Model M from 1907. Leland's original 'Osceola' served as his favorite transportation for years to follow and is supposedly also the last car he ever drove. The car was named after a famous Seminole-Indian chief of whom Leland was an admirer. The original 'Osceola' was exhibited at the 1933 & 1934 Chicago World Fair and was put on display in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry for no less than 20 years. It now survives in the Cadillac Historical Collection in Warren, Michigan and counts as Cadillac's first ever 'concept car'.

Descriptions & pictures by bonhams