Dearborn

Dearborn is an North-American car company.

History

If you are from the USA and haven’t heard of Dearborn, ‘you’re not an American’, which was part of the slogan from 1910 to 1918. Dearborn Motor Company was created by Adam Bradley Burns, in Dearborn, Michigan in 1903. Adam was a bit of a designer and a lot of a dreamer, so after seeing the Weiss-Grüber Motorwagen, he was inspired to make his own.

Initially created as the Bradley Burns Company in 1899, Adam and his team created the very first affordable car in the USA, the ‘Aquatica’ in 1908. While the name was very odd, Adam and his team were sure that it would be a success with the public, and it was, being sold until 1927. Considered one of the most innovative pieces of technology of the 20th century, the Aquatica sold over 15 million units in its lifetime, a feat that is still unmatched by several newer cars, including from Dearborn itself.

By 1955, Dearborn was one of the premier brands in the world, with factories all over, and multiple models as well. In 1969, Dearborn created another incredibly popular segment with a single vehicle: The pony car with the Dearborn Dominator. Its name wasn’t kidding, as it was incredibly popular in the USA and led the creation of several similar models from other car companies in the USA and other places, including the Mahogany Magnum, the Orchid Forcemaker and the Itashi Horizon 150R.

A small stint was made in 1963 when Dearborn tried to buy Marcolini as they had their own racing ambitions. Franco laughed his way out of the room when it was proposed, saying in italian, quoted: “Come back to me when you have a car that is worth more the rubber that carries it.” After that, Dearborn decided to create many cars to try to topple Marcolini’s dominance and eventually managed to win at the 24h GrinVits of 1966 with the Dearborn Touring Mark 2. Franco was forced to admit defeat but Dearborn didn’t want to make any more deals with Marcolini. Since then, the name ‘Dearborn’ has been synonymous with competition and racing, as they are still competing in Touring classes and even in Rally races. This led Dearborn to create the (awfully named) motorsport pre-factory tuned label called ‘Super Racing Performance’ in 1991.

During 1974 and 2015, Dearborn had a large stake in Fuchu, first being 24.5% in 1979 and upped to a 33.4% in 1995. However in 2015, the company sold all of its shares to streamline their assets.

In 1990 and 1993, they also purchased Whitley and Orchid respectively but during a restructuring, they sold the two companies in 2007.

In 1999, Dearborn introduced the hatchback Mythos, which became incredibly popular within its own country and all over the world, being one incredible vehicle that could tackle any terrain, making several other types of cars seem pale by comparison.

In 2005, Dearborn revived the Dominator muscle car as a sports RWD monster and the revival proved to be popular enough to get more generations.

In recent years, the company had focused on making crossover SUVs but the uptick in the market for sedans and coupes caused them to revive old cars from previous years’ line up.

SRP

Short for ‘Super Racing Performance’, Dearborn SRP is their current solution for factory tuned cars.

SRP started its life in 1903 as ‘Dearborn Racing’ at the same time the company was made, because Adam Bradley Burns was always pushing the envelope on what cars could do. Over the years, Dearborn kept improving in racing, and that tipped over in 1963, with the aforementioned win against Marcolini. That led to the creation of a new Dearborn Racing, a sub-brand focused on racing exclusively.

The 1963 version of Dearborn Racing, called DBR, was completely european-led, which caused a rift inside the company, and left the American side with essentially nothing. With that in mind, Dearborn USA created the Super Racing Performance in 1991, after several false starts. The big difference between them, besides physical locations, was that DBR was more focused on commonly sold cars and racing, while SRP was about custom versions of a few cars they sold in American soil.

In 2015, Dearborn leadership merged both into one entity, keeping the SRP name globally, keeping both the focus in racing and selling factory-tuned versions of their own cars.