Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac
Upon his arrival in America, La Mothe adopted his title after the town of Cadillac, Gironde in southwestern France. The city of Detroit became the world center of automobile production in the 20th century. William H. Murphy and Henry M. Leland founded the Cadillac auto company and paid homage to him by using his name for their company and his armorial bearings as its logo in 1902. Various places bear his name in America, in particular Cadillac Mountain in Maine and the town of Cadillac, Michigan.
Packard
The Ultramatic, the only automatic transmission developed by an independent car maker, was smoother than the GM Hydramatic. However, while the Ultramatic was competitive, Packard was not able to immediately respond to Cadillac's introduction of a powerful overhead valve V8 in 1949. Also, when a new body style was added in addition to standard sedans, coupes, and convertibles, Packard introduced a station wagon instead of a two-door hardtop in response to Cadillac's Coupe DeVille. The Station Sedan, a wagon-like body that was mostly steel, with good deal of decorative wood in the back; only 3,864 were sold over its three years of production. Although the Packards of the late 1940s and early 1950s were built in its old tradition with craftsmanship and the best materials, all was not well. The combination of the lower priced Packards leading sales and impacting the prestige of their higher end brethren and some questionable marketing decisions, Packard's crown as "king" of the luxury car market was at risk — and it would eventually be stolen by a rising Cadillac. In 1950, sales dropped to 42,000 cars for the model year. When Packard's president George T. Christopher set course for an evolutionary styling approach with a facelift for 1951, others wanted a radical new design. In the end, Christopher resigned and Packard treasurer Hugh Ferry became president - he demanded a new direction.