Motor Cities: Detroit

Detroit became the world’s most famous car city, and the obvious place to begin our new series, primarily through the efforts of just three men. All have famous car names.

The first, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, arrived in what would become Detroit 200 years before Henry Ford’s first car company went bankrupt. In 1701, the French explorer travelled south from New France – modern day Quebec – and built a small fort on the north bank of the strait linking two of the Great Lakes, St Clair and Erie.

The French word for strait is détroit, and that is what the river linking the two lakes would be called. Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit was for many years little more than a fur trading port. It would grow into a major northern US industrial hub long after its name was shortened, and just as two of Michigan’s most famous industrialists were growing up.