Seems every day there will be an Ebay ad offering the ultimate automotive collectable..a genuine Ford Auto-lite item from the 1930's, 1940's or 1950's. Problem is there was NEVER a Ford Auto-lite item. Auto-lite was the trademark of the Electric Auto-lite Equipment Co. of Toledo. From the 1930's throught 1961 Auto-lite was a major supplier of automotive electrical equipment to companies like Chrysler, Packard, Nash, Studebaker, and Hudson..as well as a host of marine, industrial and truck builders. They were so big that a strike at Auto-lite in the 1930's was considered one of the 3 most important strikes of the American labor movement. What they did not do was associate with Ford Motor Company. In 40 years of dealing antique automobile parts I have never seen a Ford part in an Auto-lite box..excepting general line tune-up items like spark plugs. I have a 1961 Auto-lite master catalog that is  8" thick and not one Auto-lite page has mention of Ford either as a company or a parts application.

In 1961 Ford decided to expand into the spark plug business and purchased the Electric Auto-lite Co. and changed the name to Autolite. Every catalog page from 1962 up I ever saw will say Autolite...a Division of Ford Motor Company. It is not possible to have a genuine Ford Autolite collectable older than 1961. Some may argue that no Jeep collection is complete that does not have Maxwell or Chalmers items as they were part of the Chrysler heritage..but at some level everything is related.

Point is Auto-lite and Autolite were two totally different companies and there are no genuine Ford Auto-lite items.