Private company

Dragon Automobile Company

Logo: The Dragon Automobile Company, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

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.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1906Founded1
  • Industryautomotive industry1
  • HeadquartersDetroit1

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.2

The story

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.

From Wikipedia’s article on Dragon Automobile Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

  • car

Listed on Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 1908Dissolved Dissolved1
  2. 1906Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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