Starter Motor

A starter, self-starter, or starter motor is a device fitted to a motor vehicle to turn an internal combustion engine's crankshaft fast enough to begin its own combustion cycle, since such an engine cannot start running under its own power; starters may be electric, pneumatic, or hydraulic. H. J. Dowsing fitted an early electric starter to an Arnold automobile in England in 1896, and Clyde J. Coleman patented an American electric starter design in 1903, but the version that became standard was invented and patented in 1911 by Charles F. Kettering working with Henry M. Leland at the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, first installed on the Cadillac Model Thirty in 1912.