Convinced from his tests of sample sets that the electric self-starter was practical, Leland announced that the new device would go on his 1912 car. It was now late in 1910. Time again was of the essence for work in the barn, and time was beginning to run out. As with ignition, trouble came. When the new Cadillac car arrived at the barn it was discovered that the engineers at Detroit had not left sufficient room for the self-starter. This meant new drawings and new designs. With this obstacle hurdled, disaster broke. While driving on a stretch of bad road between Dayton and Xenia, Kettering’s car slid into a ditch. The impact not only smashed the car but broke one of his ankles. The foot was put into a cast and Kettering was ordered to remain in bed for two weeks.
On the morning after the accident a telegram from Detroit brought the news that the only Cadillac car equipped with one of the electric self-starters had caught fire in Leland’s garage. The starter was badly damaged. Within twenty-four hours Kettering was under that car, his crutches on the ground alongside, and his cast-bound leg sticking out from beneath the chassis. He brought the bruised and blackened starter back to life and action.
Now developed a new source of anxiety. Battery manufacturers, cautious and skeptical, maintained that no electric storage battery could be produced that would meet the requirements imposed. Delco needed thousands of batteries. In their dilemma a new ally came to their aid. He was O. Lee Harrison, salesman for the Electric Storage and Battery Company of Philadelphia, one of the largest concerns of its kind in the country.
He worked out of the Cleveland branch and while at Steubenville, Ohio he received this wire from the manager:
“We have a letter from the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company signed by a man named Kettering who wants to buy 5,000 storage batteries. Go down and see what he looks like.”
Harrison went to the little Delco office in the United Brethren Building. Wearing an old golf cap, Kettering was seated in a swivel chair with his feet propped up on the top of a desk. To him Harrison said:
“I am looking for a man named Kettering who wants to buy 5,000 storage batteries. I don’t expect to sell him but I want to see what he looks like.”
The man at the desk dropped his feet to the floor and said:
“I am Kettering.”
Kettering took Harrison to the barn and showed him the self-starter. In its original form it had sprockets and wheels and looked like a McCormick binder. When Harrison said it reminded him of the farm, Kettering remarked that he, too, was a farm boy. From that moment the two men clicked. Harrison went to Philadelphia and urged the sale of 5,000 batteries. When the President of the company asked about Delco credit Harrison responded that they had no rating at all but that “they had something.”