Dragon Automobile Company

The Dragon Automobile Company manufactured automobiles from 1906 to 1908, first in Detroit, Michigan, and then in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was followed, briefly, by the Dragon Motor Company.

Beginnings in Detroit

They hired an excellent engineer to design its automobile: Leo Melanowski, who had apprenticed with the Otto Gas Engine Company in Vienna, worked for Panhard-Levassor and Clement-Bayard in France and Waltham in the United States and had been manufacturing foreman for Winton. Dragon also enlisted the services of famed racing driver Joe Tracy as an engineering consultant and test driver.

The result was a fine four-cylinder motorcar that featured sliding gear transmission and shaft drive, and price tags in the $2,000 range, which were quite reasonable considering the specification. The matter Dragon skimped upon, it would appear, was quality control in production. Melanowski left early on to design the Aerocar from Detroit, and Joe Tracy didn't hang around long either. The company had been incorporated in Maine in the summer of 1906 with Harold P. Knowlton as president, Albert E. Knowlton as treasurer.

Production began in Detroit in late fall, and the first models were ready for the New York Automobile Show at Grand Central Palace that December.

The move to Philadelphia

Meanwhile the plant of the J. G. Brill and Company...
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