With the family's massive internal order of 450 cars settled, Michael had achieved the necessary inventory clearance and secured the capital for his next, far more ambitious move. He wasted no time. Michael launched the most ambitious, aggressive public advertising campaign the burgeoning American automotive industry had ever witnessed.
He started a massive advertising campaign for the car, featuring full-page advertisements in every Kingston-owned newspaper and in the publications of major competitors across the country, all backed by a single, concentrated budget of $150,000.
Because the car industry was still in its infant stage, no other manufacturer possessed the corporate infrastructure, the media leverage, or the sheer disposable capital to compete with the Kingston family's outlay. Where competitors offered small, technical notices buried in trade journals, Michael presented the new car, the Kingston M-1, as a fait accompli—a magnificent, fully realized necessity of modern life.
The advertisements, crisp and featuring professional illustrations, focused on core benefits rather than engineering specifications, centering on the vehicle's unique value proposition.
The headlines screamed: "The Car Built for America's Roads—A Price Built for America's Family."
The copy hammered home the car's revolutionary design: it was "a sleek touring vehicle, not a carriage in disguise," ensuring it was both handsome and sturdy. Michael emphasized the car's patented electric starter and robust construction, claiming the M-1 could "triumphantly travel in different terrains." The car was positioned as the essential vehicle for the middle class, comfortably seating a family of four or five, and even more if passengers were willing to adjust.
The message was clear: no other car offered such quality, features, and versatility at its price point. Within the $650 range, the Kingston M-1 Touring Car was simply the best car on the market.
The effect of the campaign was immediate, overwhelming, and utterly transformative. Newspapers were deluged with inquiries, and within days, the Kingston Motors name, factory, and price point were not just known, but ingrained in the public consciousness.
The flood of public attention proved that the American public was ready to trade in the horse and buggy, but they needed a reliable, affordable, and well-advertised option. The overwhelming success of Michael's aggressive campaign was evident in the balance sheets: the $150,000 investment paid for itself almost instantly.
In the three weeks following the public launch, Kingston Motors sold five hundred Touring Cars.
To put that number in perspective, the industry giant, Oldsmobile, the nation's leading and most respected car manufacturer, had sold 5,508 cars in the entire year of 1904. In just twenty-one days, Michael had moved one-tenth of Oldsmobile's previous annual volume.
The news ripped through the fledgling automotive world like a shockwave. Competitors who relied on small, custom builds and expensive marketing tactics suddenly realized they were playing a completely different game. The era of the mass-produced, affordable, and heavily advertised automobile had begun, and Kingston Motors was setting the pace.
To address the rapidly growing order backlog and meet demand Michael immediately increased the official daily output to 100 cars.
Michael knew this scaling was only a temporary measure. The current factory was already operating at maximum capacity, and to fulfill the immense volume of orders now pouring in, he would need to start planning an even bigger, more specialized plant.
Furthermore, Michael had no illusions about the competition. He predicted that within the next year, other manufacturers would successfully replicate the core principles of the Kingston M-1 design and the moving assembly line process. Michael's advantage was purely one of speed.
His counter-move was already in motion: he had started building not just one, but two new assembly plants—one to maintain Detroit as the primary hub, and a second strategic plant in Chicago to dominate the Midwest distribution network.
By the time September arrived and Michael was due to attend Harvard, the scale of his achievement was staggering. Kingston Motors had sold 2,500 cars to the public (not counting the 450 units sold to his family), placing the Kingston M-1 on track to become the best-selling car of the year.
******
Michael drove his sleek, open-top Kingston M-1 to Cambridge, parking the vehicle outside the campus gates as cars were strictly prohibited inside the campus. He pulled a simple bicycle from the back of the car—the most efficient and necessary tool for navigating the sprawling campus—and rode it quietly into the campus and directly to the admissions office.
Michael stood patiently in the line to see the registrar, dressed in a plain, perfectly tailored suit that offered no obvious clue to his identity. The students around him were mostly from middle-class or poor families, waiting to finalize their entry; the wealthiest students had already completed their registration weeks earlier, settling into their off-campus apartments and flats.
In 1905, Harvard life was divided sharply by two housing categories: The Yard and The Street. The Yard, with its ancient brick dormitories and communal atmosphere, was the traditional, less expensive option, housing the majority of students from middle and lower-class backgrounds. The Street refers to nearby Mount Auburn Street, which offered private apartments and flats. This off-campus housing was expensive, served as a clear marker of wealth, and was preferred by the most affluent students seeking privacy and greater freedom.
Michael chose neither. A traditional dorm room was unsuitable for the ongoing demands of a rapidly expanding national corporation; he couldn't have his own dedicated telephone line or a private telegraph machine transmitting updates. Instead of Mount Auburn Street, Michael secured a five-year lease on a large, private house on Brattle Street, an area of established wealth and stately homes a similar distance from the Yard. This residence provided the space, discretion, and, crucially, the dedicated infrastructure necessary to conduct his daily busines.
Michael stood patiently in the line to see the registrar, dressed in a plain, perfectly tailored suit that offered no obvious clue to his identity. The students around him were mostly from middle-class or poor families, waiting to finalize their entry, as the most wealthy students usually had their complex housing and admissions needs settled long before the semester began.
As he waited, Michael overheard the quiet, resentful murmurs nearby.
"I heard the Kingston boy is finally showing up," one student muttered to another, folding a document tightly in his hands. "Another rich kid, probably late because his secretary forgot to file the papers."
"Oh, you mean the Crown Prince of Kingston?" a second student chipped in. "He'll be the same—pompous, arrogant, expecting everyone to move out of his way."
"Well, you can't blame him, they say the Kingston family is one of the top ten wealthiest in the entire country," the first student continued. "They're easily worth a hundred million dollars."
Michael, who was intently studying a wall calendar, couldn't help the slight, almost imperceptible smile that touched his lips. He turned his head and addressed the group quietly.
"You're wrong about that figure," Michael said simply.
The group, startled to be addressed by a stranger, went silent. The first student asked. "Wrong? That they're worth a hundred million?"
"Yes," Michael confirmed, fixing the student with a polite, even-toned gaze. "They are worth more. As of the last financial report, the family's assets, concentrated in coal, steel, and now motors, totaled exactly one hundred and thirty-one million dollars."
"H-how do you know that?" the student stammered already knowing the answer.
Michael offered a single, slight nod of acknowledgement to the room. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. I'm Michael Kingston, the rich, arrogant, and pompous young man you were just talking about."
Michael then stepped smoothly past them, the gap widening as the students registered the shock.
The Rich were always the topic of both intense dislike and intense interest, Michael reflected, his amusement fading as he processed the class divide. He couldn't blame them. In his previous life as Dean—he had also been poor and struggling. The drive to achieve wealth had been born not out of greed, but out of a visceral, deep-seated fear of being hungry again.
Michael left the registrar's office and walked toward the gates, pausing under the shade of a century-old elm tree to look over his admission papers one last time. His course selections were highly practical and intensely focused, designed to fill the specific knowledge gaps in his business and engineering background.
Organic Chemistry. This fundamental course was critical for understanding the composition and synthesis of the carbon compounds essential to his industry—everything from the oils and lubricants that kept engines running, to plastics and polymers, and even the complex synthesis processes involved in drugs and pharmaceuticals
Advanced Applied Calculus and Statistical Methods in Engineering. This would arm him with the complex modeling tools necessary to predict physical behaviors and, crucially, the statistical methods required for optimizing quality control and efficiency in mass production.
Applied Mechanics and Thermo-Dynamics. This heavy-lifting engineering course focused on the mathematical and physical principles governing how engines work, covering everything from the physics of heat transfer to the structural knowledge needed to design and construct reliable, efficient internal combustion machines.
Theory and Application of Alternating and Direct Current Circuits. This course was the bedrock of all modern electrical technology, providing the knowledge to design reliable ignition systems, lighting components, and charging generators for automobiles, while also laying the theoretical foundation for all future automated and computational devices.
The two core technical courses, Applied Mechanics and Thermo-Dynamics and Theory and Application of Alternating and Direct Current Circuits, represented the fundamental divide between theory and implementation at Harvard.
The two disciplines were symbiotic. Michael couldn't design a powerful engine without understanding the thermal dynamics of compression, but that engine was useless without a precisely timed, robust electrical system to ignite the fuel. One course covered the raw, brute-force power of the machine, while the other covered the elegant, invisible control mechanism that made that power useful and predictable.
From his previous life as Dean in another world, Michael possessed an immense amount of knowledge—he knew of the existence of inventions like advanced polymers, highly efficient turbo engines, and more. However, he lacked the fundamental, scientific foundation to recreate them himself. He knew the result, but not the process. These Harvard courses were the essential knowledge base for his journey, offering him the deep scientific understanding required to actively pursue and implement the inventions he already knew must exist.
Michael was excited, finally ready to be a student, eager to gain the deep, systematic knowledge required to master the architecture of the modern age he was trying to build.