Ransom Eli OldsBorn 3 Jun 1864; died 26 Aug 1950 at age 86.American inventor and automobile manufacturer, designer of the three-horsepower, curved-dash Oldsmobile, the first commercially successful American-made automobile and the first to use a progressive assembly system, which foreshadowed modern mass-production methods. When young, he worked in his father's machine and repair shop, in Lansing, Mich., where he experimented with small steam engines. In 1887, for a distance of one block, Olds drove Lansing's first automobile, an experimental steam vehicle. He continued to work with steam, gasoline and electric power. Eventually he produced a gasoline-powered vehicle that seated four persons and could do 18 miles per hour on level ground. |
