What is not disclosed in ‘Sidetracked’ is that in amongst my father-in-law’s papers we found a hand-written letter from none other than Robert Faulconer himself – and written on Leland & Faulconer headed paper to boot. With its hand-engraved picture of factory and offices in Detroit on top left and its turn-of-the-century products on top right, the letter details previously unrealised information on the Cadillac co-founder.
     Interestingly, when comparing the picture depicting the factory and its surroundings with another in a number of Cadillac books relating to an advert at the time, there are some subtle differences.  In the advert, the sketches of people are all smaller, thereby making the factory and buildings look larger, and the factory surroundings have conveniently been cleaned up and ‘prettyfied’ – a bit of marketing spin, then as now!
    Handling such a document, with its extraordinary co-incidental links produced the eeriest of feelings imaginable. I know that many a person finds it almost impossible to believe that we could have known nothing of this all along, but the fact is we did not.
    I suppose, looking back at that early twentieth century era, to Robert Faulconer’s wife and daughters the Leland & Faulconer operation was a somewhat un-ladylike enterprise, and therefore as the years progressed was conveniently swept aside – especially as the family had sold out to the Cadillac Motor Company just before Robert’s untimely death. As far as any relations in England were concerned, Leland & Faulconer would mean nothing more than a late eighteen-hundred’s Detroit company – there was never any obvious indication at the time of it being linked to Cadillac. Anyway, even if there had been, who was to know that Cadillac was to become America’s premier marque. Even I, as a reasonable all-time lover of Cadillacs, had never heard of Leland & Faulconer until being given that book by Jack.
    As for the present-day American side of the family, Robert Faulconer’s great-grandson has yet to find any mention of Cadillac in amongst what family papers he possesses. Still, he offered a rather different Trans-Atlantic view from that given several years earlier by the co-founder of the Cadillac-LaSalle Club. Robert’s friendly look-alike, having been taken for a ride in the Roadster, was quick to declare: “Although I had no past knowledge until now of my great-grandfather’s involvement with Cadillac, I am sure he would have liked what you have done to a car that bears the name that he helped set up all those years ago.”
    That was a compliment well received and, at our next meeting, while he produced letters and photographs for us to copy or peruse, the gesture was returned. The cousin from across the pond was presented with a framed copy of my father-in-law’s unexpected find.
    In the end, I guess it is just an oddity of a co-incidence, and something that we will never fully be able to explain. All the same, we must be forever grateful to the Rev Jim Faulconer for his work on American Faulconer Genealogy, without which we would never have discovered the Cadillac connection. I must also thank The National Automotive History Collection for supplying a negative of the only known photograph of Robert Faulconer as seen above and as depicted in the book ‘Master of Precision’, the story of Henry Leland by his daughter-in-law, Mrs Wilfred Leland, published by Wayne State University Press.