Meadow Brook Hall celebrates the Dodge Brothers Centennial

Meadow Brook Hall presents “Dodge Days” on Thursday, June 26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., a free community event celebrating The Dodge Brothers Centennial. The afternoon at the Great Estate will include a vintage car show featuring 100 Dodge cars, lectures, rides in antique automobiles, kids’ activities, live music and more.

Dodge Days premiers the new exhibit, “The Dodge Brothers: Detroit’s Automotive Geniuses,” which celebrates both the founding of the Dodge Brothers Motor Car Company and the lives of the two extraordinary men who founded it, John and Horace Dodge.  The Dodge brothers' path into automotive history led them from the dirt roads of Niles, Michigan where they tinkered in their father's machine shop, to careers in the hard, heavy-fisted machine shops of Canada and Detroit where they produced the Evans & Dodge bicycle, became major automotive parts suppliers to Oldsmobile and Ford and ultimately manufactured their own automobile, achieving almost unparalleled mechanical and financial success.

 Guests will gain insight into the lives and work of the Dodge Brothers through various family heirlooms, original photographs, tool kits and dealer memorabilia. A Dodge Brothers promotional video will provide unique insight into factory life in 1917.  On loan from the Detroit Historical Society and on display for the first time at Meadow Brook, will be John and Horace Dodge’s last personal cars – a 1919 sedan and 1919 coupe.  A 1915 Dodge Brothers touring car, one of the first several hundred Dodge cars made (donated by Mary Ann Petz, widow of Robert Petz, the great-grandson of Horace Dodge), will also be showcased. The Dodge Brothers exhibit is sponsored by MotorCities National Heritage area and supported by The Detroit Historical Society, Dodge Brothers Club, EEI Global and Gilmore Car Museum.

The vintage Dodge car show will display100 vehicles on the grounds of The Hall - including 90  from the Dodge Brothers Club’s international Centennial Meet -  showcasing rare models such as:

·         1918 Dodge Brothers Army Staff Car, restored to its original condition

·         1929 Dodge Brothers Senior Six Roadster

·         1930 Dodge Brothers Taxi Cab

·         1931 Dodge Brothers DG8 eight cylinder sedan

Retired Wayne State University professor and noted automotive historian Dr. Charles “Charlie” Hyde will lecture on the legacy and accomplishments of the Dodge Brothers and sign copies of his new book published by the Meadow Brook Press, The Dodge Brothers. Free rides in Meadow Brook’s 1925 Dodge Depot hack and other vintage automobiles will be available throughout the day.

Guests will also enjoy concessions and live musical entertainment including the locally based barbershop quartet, Classic Fit, as well as local jazz favorite The Sheila Landis Trio. Children can test their navigation skills in the Road Rally Scavenger Hunt to find cars hidden along the trail to Danny’s Cabin, get creative with Arts and Scraps on the lawn at Knole Cottage, and compete against the clock through a course in the Dodge Challenge Kids’ Zone.

Admission to Dodge Days is free. Tours of The Hall are available at a discounted rate. Visit www.meadowbrookhall.org or call (248) 364 – 6252 for more information about Dodge Days.

A NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK, MEADOW BROOK HALL is the historic home built by one of the automotive aristocracy’s most remarkable women, Matilda Dodge Wilson, widow of auto pioneer John Dodge, and her second husband, Alfred Wilson. Constructed between 1926 and 1929, Meadow Brook Hall represents one of the finest examples of Tudor-revival architecture in America, and is especially renowned for its superb craftsmanship, architectural detailing and grand scale of 88,000 square-feet. It was the center of a country estate that included 1,500 acres, numerous farm buildings, recreational facilities, several residences and formal gardens.

MEADOW BROOK HALL strives to preserve and interpret its architecture, landscape, and fine and decorative art so that visitors may be entertained, educated and inspired by history.