Ford Motor Company was the fourth-largest car producer in the United States, behind Cadillac, Rambler, and Oldsmobile. In the company's early years, most major components in its cars were manufactured by outside companies, including the "running gear" (the chassis, engine, transmission, drive shaft, and axles), which was supplied by the Dodge Brothers Company. That began to change in early 1906, when the Ford Manufacturing Company, a new, separate company created by Henry Ford and some Ford Motor Company stockholders, started to make engines and transmissions for the upcoming Ford Model N. The Ford Manufacturing Company was located at the Bellevue Avenue Plant, a leased factory off of Bellevue Avenue in Detroit. The Bellevue Avenue Plant was used until 1908, by which time almost all manufacturing of major components for Ford Motor Company cars was taking place at the Piquette Avenue Plant. Model N production began at the Piquette Avenue Plant in July 1906. That same month, Henry Ford bought the Ford Motor Company shares owned by fellow company co-founder Alexander Malcomson. While Malcomson was with the company, he and Henry Ford disagreed over the type of car that the company should produce. Malcomson preferred expensive cars, like the Ford Model K; Henry Ford favored inexpensive cars, like the Model N. Once Malcomson was no longer part of the company, Henry Ford, now with uncontested control, focused the company's efforts towards making cheap cars exclusively. The success of the Model N made Ford Motor Company the largest automaker in the United States by the end of 1906, a distinction that it would hold for twenty years. In January 1907, in a room located on the Piquette Avenue Plant's third floor in the northeast corner, the design process began for the Ford Model T, the car credited with starting the mass use of cars in the United States. Much of the design and experimental work for the new car was done by Henry Ford, draftsman Joseph Galamb, engineer Childe Harold Wills, and machinist C.J. Smith. Vanadium steel, an alloy lighter and stronger than standard steel, which was first used sparingly with the Ford Model N, R, and S, was used extensively with the Model T. The company revealed the plans for the Model T to its dealers on March 19, 1908. During July 1908, a few months before the Model T's introduction, a group of Piquette Avenue Plant employees experimented with the