The Dayton Engineering Laboratories Co — better known as Delco Electronics Corportation, or simply Delco — is an automotive electronics company that created the world’s first practical and reliable automobile starter and battery ignition system.

The company was founded by Edward A. Deeds and Charles Kettering. The two men were long-time friends and co-workers at the National Cash Register Company (NCR) and began working together on a kit-car for Deeds. For the project, Kettering created a high-energy spark ingition system to replace the weak system that came with the kit. I suppose this was the 1908 version of scratchbuilding and kitbashing.

Kettering furthered the development of this new ignition system and in 1909, sucessfully sold ignition sets to Cadillac which were introduced on the 1910 Cadillac. With that order, Deeds and Kettering formed the Dayton Engineering Laboratory Company. This battery-driven ignition was a marvel for its time.

Shortly after, Kettering invented the first electric starter, using technology he created for cash registers at NCR. Again, the starter was first introduced by Cadillac in 1912.

Kettering continued to create new innovative products though World War I and a series of changes that ultimately led to the company’s aquisition by General Motors. Under GM, Delco manufactured the first in-dash car radios in 1936.

Deleco Electronics is no longer in existence as a company, although GM still uses the Delco name for its ACDelco parts division. AC are the initials of Albert Champion, famous for his innovative development of the spark plug. He added his inititals to the Delco name while he was employed by GM, after GM purchased Delco.

About the Billboard

This billboard focuses on the Delco-brand battery with Delco’s “Replace with a Delco” slogan. Based on my research of vintage Delco magazine ads, it appears that this battery style would be appropriate from about 1935-1951. The billboard is made to match a prototype Delco billboard, both in design and size.

Save and Print the Sign

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