Dort Auto Brochure, 1917

‘This is a brochure for the 1917 Dort line of cars.  I would guess that at some point my family considered buying one, and may have even owned one.  Anyway, the Dort Motor Car Company was started by Josiah Dallas Dort, a former Director and VP of Chevrolet and a business partner of William Durant (the founder of GM and Chevrolet – to name a few).  I found a May 3rd, 1922 NY Times article mentioning that the Dort company was growing impressively and reducing its debt, but its fate was sealed. The following year Mr. Dort died, add that to the growing and highly competitive automobile market of the 1920s, and the Dort Motor Company of Flint was forced to close its doors in 1924.

‘I know this may be a bit ahistorical in thought, but didn’t it occur to anyone that the name Dort just didn’t really make a great name for a car?  Cars have for the most part always been marketed as something new and cool, and the name Dort just doesn’t strike me as such.  The cars look nice, and the Roadster is pretty slick, but at the end of the day you would still think to yourself “I’m going home in a Dort.”

‘By the way, in case the name doesn’t scare you off, you can pick up a running and mostly restored Dort for around $7500.’

- They Kept Everything

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This capsule was curated by Frank Kownacki