The Vultee Aircraft Corporation was very largely the brainchild
of Gerard Freebairn Vultee, formerly chief engineer at Lockheed
Aircraft Corporation during the period that Lockheed was owned
by the Detroit Aircraft holding company. When Detroit Aircraft
went into receivership, Vultee was out of work. He drifted from
job to job for a couple of years, but eventually he went off on
his own in pursuit of financial backing for some ideas that he
and Vance Breese had for a single-engine passenger monoplane
while they were at Detroit. Vultee's passenger aircraft proposal
attracted the attention of the "boy wonder" of Wall Street,
Errett Lobban Cord, who already owned or controlled several
airlines, automobile manufacturers, and aircraft companies. With
$50,000 in cash (sounds like small potatoes today :-) ), Cord
founded the Airplane Development Corporation (ADC) on January
26, 1932, as a subsidiary of the Cord Corporation. Vultee was
established as chief engineer of this new company, assisted by
Richard W. Palmer.