Little Motor Car Company was an automobile manufacturing company founded primarily by William H. Little and William C. Durant that operated from 1911 to 1913. Built in Flint, Michigan , the company was eventually incorporated into the current Chevrolet Motor Company .
22-605: Frontenac Motor Corporation was a joint venture of Louis Chevrolet , Indy 500 winner Joseph Boyer Jr. , Indianapolis car dealer William Small, and Zenith Carburetor president Victor Heftler. Per articles of Incorporation on file in the Michigan State Archives, it was founded in Detroit in December 1915. The company focused on building high-performance automobiles that would be used in major AAA events, including
44-579: A daughter, Clara. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1915. Chevrolet has been inducted into the following halls of fame: In addition, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in Speedway, Indiana , features a memorial at the entrance to the building dedicated to the accomplishments of Chevrolet. The memorial, designed by Fred Wellman and sculpted by Adolph Wolter , was created during 1968–1970 and installed in
66-494: A duplicate of Chevrolet with a less marketable name. Chevrolet bought the Little Company at the end of 1913. The Little first was available as a two-seater with a four-cylinder 20-hp engine, and had a wheelbase of 7 ft 7 in (2,310 mm). Engines for the two automobiles were built by Sterling Motor Company, a Durant-owned company. William H. "Big Bill" Little was an early automotive manager and namesake of
88-628: A mechanic. The following year, he moved to New York City , where he worked briefly for a fellow Swiss immigrant's engineering company, then moved to the Brooklyn operations of the French car manufacturer de Dion-Bouton . In 1905, Chevrolet won his first race, racing a Fiat at Morris Park , the first-ever national championship race sanctioned by the American Automobile Association (AAA) Contest Board , then known as
110-559: A new car in 1909. He built an overhead valve six-cylinder engine in his own machine shop on Grand River Boulevard in Detroit . He is credited as one of three co-designers of the 1910 Buick 60 Special , also known as the "Buick Bug". On November 3, 1911, Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company with his brother Arthur Chevrolet, William C. Durant, and investment partners William Little (maker of
132-573: A young man, he developed his mechanical skills and interest in bicycle racing. During this period, Chevrolet invented a wine pump, which he built from a defective one-cylinder motor mounted on a three-wheeled bicycle. Chevrolet worked at the Roblin mechanics shop in Beaune from around 1889 to 1899. He then moved to Paris , where he worked at various mechanics shops, between 1899 and 1900, before emigrating to Montreal , Quebec , Canada in 1900 to work as
154-570: The Chevrolet Motor Car Company in 1911. Louis-Joseph Chevrolet was born on December 25, 1878, in La Chaux-de-Fonds , a center of watchmaking in northwestern Switzerland. He was the second child of Joseph-Félicien Chevrolet, a watchmaker , and Marie-Anne Angéline Mahon. His family was originally from Bonfol , now in the canton of Jura . In 1887, Chevrolet left Switzerland along with his father to settle in Beaune , France. There, as
176-665: The Indianapolis 500 . Gaston Chevrolet won the 1920 Indianapolis 500 in a Frontenac, but died a few months later in a late-season race in Los Angeles in November 1920; he had already accumulated enough points to posthumously win the championship. In 1921, Frontenac won the Indy 500 again, this time at the hands of Tommy Milton , and the company entered into a deal with Stutz Motor Company to build passenger cars. However,
198-660: The Little automobile ) and Dr. Edwin R. Campbell, son-in-law of Durant and friend of Samuel McLaughlin of the McLaughlin Car Company of Canada Ltd. The company was established in Detroit. One story tells the choosing of the company's logo as a modified Swiss cross , to honor Chevrolet's homeland. Another story tells of the Chevrolet logo as a design taken from the wallpaper of a Paris hotel room where Louis once stayed. Chevrolet had differences with Durant over
220-605: The Panic of 1910–11 and lack of cash from over expansion that led to General Motors ' board to oust Durant, Durant began forming other car companies including Chevrolet and Mason Motors . Durant purchased the failing Flint Wagon Works and used the assets to set up the Little Motor Car Company and Mason. The Little Motor Car Company was incorporated on October 19, 1911, by Charles Begole, William Ballenger, William H. Little, and Durant. A.B.C. Hardy (1869-1948)
242-669: The aircraft engine construction company Chevrolair, which failed three years later as a result of the Great Depression . He returned to Chevrolet to work as mechanic in the Detroit factories. Chevrolet died on June 6, 1941, in Detroit due to a heart attack. His atherosclerosis had previously led to a leg amputation. He is buried in the Holy Cross and Saint Joseph Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana . In 1905, Chevrolet married Suzanne Treyvoux (1888-1966), daughter of Louis Treyvoux and Marie Burlat. The couple had two sons and
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#1732790885426264-515: The Indianapolis 500 four times, with a best finish of 7th in 1919. Both Louis and Gaston competed successfully with racing Sunbeams , achieving a number of third places in 1916. Arthur competed twice, and Gaston won the Indianapolis 500 in 1920 in one of their Frontenacs, going on to win the 1920 AAA National Championship . He also raced for the Buick racing team. In 1927, Chevrolet launched
286-777: The Racing Board. In 1907 he was hired by the Autocar Company in Philadelphia , probably for a secret project to develop a revolutionary front-wheel-drive racing car. His racing career continued as he drove for Buick , becoming a friend and associate of Buick owner William C. Durant , founder of General Motors . He raced at the Giants Despair Hillclimb in 1909. With little in the way of formal education, Chevrolet learned car design while working for Buick and started designing his own engine for
308-766: The car's design, and in 1915 sold Durant his share in the company and started McLaughlin's Company in Canada building Chevrolets. By 1916 the trading of Chevrolet stock for GM Holding stock enabled Durant to repurchase a controlling stake in General Motors , and by 1917 the Chevrolet company that Louis had co-founded was merged as a company into General Motors after the outstanding Chevrolet stocks were purchased from McLaughlin in 1918. The McLaughlin Car Company then merged with his Chevrolet Motor Company of Canada Ltd. to become General Motors of Canada Ltd. in 1918, prior to
330-574: The company and automobiles. He was born in 1876 in Westboro, Massachusetts . Before 1906, he was a manager at Locomobile Company of America in Bridgeport, Connecticut . Little moved to Flint, Michigan, in 1906 to become general manager and plant supervisor for Buick Motor Company under David Dunbar Buick . With Durant's ousting in 1911, Little joined Durant in his new auto businesses, Chevrolet Motor Company and Little Motor Car Company. Little
352-509: The deal fell through soon after, and Frontenac Motors filed bankruptcy protection in 1923. There is a private organization of collectors of early automobiles called the Frontenac Motor Corporation which appears to have no connection to the 1915 company. Louis Chevrolet Louis-Joseph Chevrolet (December 25, 1878 – June 6, 1941) was a Swiss-born American racing driver , mechanic and entrepreneur who co-founded
374-654: The incorporation of the General Motors Corporation in the United States when General Motors Company of New Jersey dissolved. In 1916, Louis Chevrolet and his brothers founded the Frontenac Motor Corporation to make racing parts for Ford Model Ts . Also in 1916, American Motors Corporation (unrelated to the later American Motors created by the 1954 merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company )
396-542: The mid-1910s, Chevrolet had shifted into the car racing industry, partnering with Howard E. Blood of Allegan, Michigan , to create the Cornelian racing car, which he used to place 20th in the 1915 Indianapolis 500 automobile race. In 1916, he and his younger brothers Gaston and Arthur Chevrolet started Frontenac Motor Corporation , designing and producing a line of racing cars. They became well known for, among other things, their Fronty-Ford racers. Chevrolet drove in
418-497: The spring of 1975. The centerpiece of the memorial is a bronze bust of Chevrolet wearing a racing cap and goggles; it rests on a marble and granite square base. The Swiss national train company, SBB , has named one of its long distance ICN-Trains after Louis Chevrolet. The train family operates primarily on the East-West axis, also serving Chevrolet's home town, La Chaux-de-Fonds. Little (automobile) After
440-452: The vehicle. In July 1912, Republic was incorporated and became the holding corporation for Little, Chevrolet, and Mason companies. Little also worked at Chevrolet and recommended that Chevrolet construction be moved to Flint to solve pricing issues with the first Chevrolet and keep quality high. The Little plant thus started to build Chevrolets in 1913. However, this made the Little somewhat
462-826: Was appointed to manage the Little plant. The Little company was charged with building a small car to fill the void left by Buick Motor's discontinuing the Model 10 and compete with the Ford Motor Company . The first Little was a four-cylinder released in 1911, and was considered a better auto than Chevrolet. Durant ordered another model, the Little Six, to be produced by the company. The company purchased engines from Sterling, another Durant company. In 1912, Durant set up Republic Motors to distribute and market both Little and Chevrolet autos. To help Republic, Durant had Littles rebadged as Chevrolets, which increased sales for
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#1732790885426484-636: Was formed in Newark, New Jersey , with Louis Chevrolet as vice president and chief engineer. By 1918 it was producing cars in a plant at Plainfield, New Jersey . In 1923 it merged with the Bessemer Motor Truck Company of Pennsylvania into Bessemer-American Motors Corporation, which lasted less than a year before merging with the Winther and Northway companies into Amalgamated Motors. The latter company apparently ceased soon after. By
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