An article in Autoweek refreshed many memories of Charles “Boss” Kettering, recognized as the Thomas A. Edison of the automobile industry.

Kettering, known by many of our readers as a co-founder of the Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York City, held 140 patents.

His most famous, of course, was the self-starter.

The automobile self-starter, that is. The self-starter, which replaced the hand crank, has to go down in history as the greatest improvement in automobiles. That is particularly true for women, who were averse to injuring themselves by twisting a crank.

Previously, female drivers had either not driven, or had overwhelmingly preferred cumbersome but safe electric cars. Now, they had a viable choice. In fact, most American cars would be supplied with a self-starter by 1920 —though they still included the crank as an emergency device.

Using the old crank caused many serious injuries as the engine “caught” and sometimes the crank kicked back in the user’s hand.

The Kettering self-starter and electric light system were introduced in the 1912 Model 30 Cadillac.

Kettering was an inspired inventor whose devices, including the electric ignition system, had changed the face of the auto industry. He was to go on to become GM’s preeminent technical engineer with such epochal inventions as tetraethyl gasoline, which would mean high performance for automobiles well into the 1960s.

In 1921 Kettering was named head of GM research. In 1937 diesel power became available on GM trucks, due to Kettering’s perfection of the two-stroke diesel engine. Kettering had a vision of a diesel engine that could be fitted to trucks and other vehicles, as well as marine engines.

That his vision expanded to railroad locomotives was evidenced by GM’s purchase of the Electro-Motive Company. When Ralph Budd approached him to build a power plant for the Zephyr train, Kettering came up with the Model 102-A in-line diesel engine, coupled with the Electro-Motive traction-motor.

It was such a success that the Union-Pacific Railroad contracted Electro-Motive for their own streamlined passenger train, the diesel-powered M-10001. With a GM two-cycle diesel, the M-10001 made a record run from Los Angeles to New York City in 1934, establishing a transcontinental record of 55 hours and 56 minutes.

Some 60 years ago I had the pleasure of meeting and hearing Boss Kett in a small group of Chevrolet dealers. One of his distinctive subjects was the development of railroad diesel engines. He explained that there was considerable opposition to diesels from many quarters — the largest objection was the fear that railroad diesels would short out when encountering snow drifts.

Kettering took some of the doubters to Wisconsin during a winter storm and he, himself, engineered a diesel-powered locomotive through countless snow drifts — with absolutely no problems. As a result, Electro-Motive diesel locomotives were favored by railroads for many years.

Boss Kett said many times, “I am interested in the future, because I’m going to live the rest of my life there.”

Charles “Boss” Kettering, General Motors’ engineering pioneer, retired in 1947 and devoted his many energies to the Sloane-Kettering Medical Center.

Dr. George G. Spaulding is a retired General Motors executive and distinguished executive-in-residence emeritus at the School of Business at the College of Charleston. He can be reached at 2 Wharfside St. 2A Charleston SC 29401.