Today all American-made cars bear the name of either Ford, General Motors, or Chrysler. Years ago many more automobile manufacturers existed in the United States. At least two of them called Belleville their home, but it is doubtful if one of these, Kent Motors Corporation, built even a single car.

Kent Motors was the creation of a New York automobile dealer named Frederick H.  Clarke. He created the company in September 1916. A month later Kent Motors announced its plan to build a huge factory covering fourteen acres in Belleville. The company's advertisement contained a picture of a Kent car. In May 1917, before the firm produced a single automobile, Kent Motors went bankrupt. Six months later, Clarke and other company officers were convicted of misusing the mails; they had sold shares of stock in what was a company without any assets (no factory and no product). By 1920, the Kent Motors Corporation was legally dissolved for not having paid any taxes during the years of its brief existence.

Another Belleville firm, the Kelsey Motor Car Company, was a bit more successful. Cadwallader W. Kelsey, born in Switzerland in 1880, came to the United States, received an education in Pennsylvania, and went to work in the growing American automobile industry. By 1925 Kelsey developed his own automobile and began building a factory in Belleville. The company made some cars, but competition from larger firms soon brought Kelsey's venture to an end. Today cars are sold and serviced in Belleville; none are made here. Belleville has contributed to the automotive industry through firms that have made tires for cars, buses, and trucks.

Source: Belleville: 150th-Anniversary Historical Highlights 1839-1989 by Robert B. Burnett and the Belleville 150th-Anniversary Committee Belleville, New Jersey. 1991.