How Chevrolet Started, Grew & Became $11.5 Billion Company
The name Chevrolet originated from a Swiss-born American racer Louis-Joseph Chevrolet, who
founded his company with William Durant in 1911, stayed for four years and then left
his own company to Durant in 1915.
The Chevrolet Company previously called the Chevrolet Division of General Motors Company
and simply called the Chevy is the automobile department of General Motors, a manufacturing
company in the United States.
How Chevrolet Began
Twenty years before Chevrolet, Durant was the founder of a successful Durant-Dort Carriage
Company which manufactured horse-drawn vehicles.
And so Durant wouldn't even touch a car with a ten-foot pole, let alone allow his daughter
to ride in what he called, "loud and dangerous horseless carriages."
But as time passed he realized that there were more cars than carriages on the American
streets; an experience that did not settle well with the relatively tentative public.
As the government regulated cars for their safety, Durant had other ideas.
Why not improve the security of these cars instead?
In 1904, Durant approached a struggling Buick Motor Company and became its controlling investor.
Within a span of four years, Durant demonstrated his salesman attitude and transformed Buick
into a leading automobile name amongst the likes of Ford, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac.
For Durant, however, it was only the start.
Durant figured he could further improve his odds in the industry if he built a holding
company that would control several automobile divisions, with each division manufacturing
their own car.
With the Buick's outstanding profits, Durant had sufficient capital to found the General
Motors Company in 1908.
A year later, General Motors acquired several car brands like Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac,
Elmore, and others.
Unfortunately,Durant got so carried away in his "automobile acquisition crusade" that
GM suffered cash shortage with their sales losing to Ford's.
And so, in 1910, General Motors showed Durant the exit door.
But Durant did not give up.
Having regained his bearings, he reunited with an old colleague from the days of the
Buick motor company, Louis-Joseph Chevrolet.
Durant knew the Swiss-born American as a man whose competency for car mechanics matched
his passion for racing.
In 1909, Louis had participated in the Giant Despair Hillclimb.
An oddly apt name, considering the Hillclimb race was less about the racers themselves
and more about test-driving the competing car brands they drove.
Therefore, when Durant offered a chance to build more automobiles, Louis couldn't resist
signing his name on the dotted line alongside Durant's.
In 1911, Louis co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company with Durant.
Durant used Louis' racing status as a means of building a motor company, and his way of
getting back at General Motors.
The first Chevrolet car, the Series C Classic Six was designed by Etienne Planche with directions
by Louis.
The prototype was ready before the company was incorporated even though the production
didn't happen until 1913 where it was introduced at an auto show in New York.
In 1914, Chevrolet redesigned its logo.
And so a "bowtie emblem" logo was used on Chevrolet's first produced cars in 1914:
the Chevrolet H series and L series models.
That same year, Durant and Louis argued about their differing intentions for Chevrolet's
future car designs.
Durant wanted simple and affordable cars that would surpass those of Fords.
On the other hand, Louis preferred playing it fast and loose, with luxury or racing cars.
These differences split these two associates and Louis sold his shares of the company to
Durant.
Now alone at the helm, Durant was able to focus on his next winning car design.
He achieved this in 1916 when the cheaper Chevrolet Series 490 finally outpaced Ford
in sales and cemented Chevrolet's place among the big automobile names.
To say Chevrolet made huge profits during this period would be a severe understatement.
Durant revisited General Motors as a controlling investor, purchasing their stocks, which gave
him the leverage to launching himself into leading General Motors once more.
By 1917, Durant had become the president of General Motors.
All was right, now that Durant's "big automobile" dream was back on track.
And of course, his first directive was merging the highly successful Chevrolet into the parent
company General Motors as a separate division.
How Chevrolet Grew
In 1918, Chevrolet launched a new V8 powered model, the Series D for open two-seat cars
and the touring cars that could seat 5 passengers.
These models didn't sell well though and they were scrapped by the next year.
Given Chevrolet's successful track record in the market, General Motors rebranded and
sold their commercial grade cars and trucks as Chevrolet with similar appearances with
the Chevrolet's vehicles in 1919 from Chevrolet factories located in Flint, Michigan.
The automobile company built several branch assembly plants in New York, Ohio, Missouri,
California, Texas, and Canada.
Somewhere between the 1920s and 1940s, Chevrolet would see Durant's vision for "producing simple
and affordable cars" come true.
In fact, Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth were known to Americans as "the low priced three".
During this period, one of Chevrolet's most notable cars was the Stovebolt introduced
in 1929, which was tag-lined "a six for the price of four".
This and several generations of the car model blew away the competition of Ford and Plymouth.
In 1953, the Chevy Corvette, a sport's car with two seats and a fiberglass body debuted
to become the first mass-produced sports car in the United States, championing the "America's
Sports Car" appeal.
The appeal of the Corvette and other Chevrolet passenger cars would be enhanced with the
first-time introduction of Rochester Ramjet fuel-injection engine as a high-performance
option for the price of $484.
The Chevrolet small block V8 car design made its debut in 1955 and remained in circulation
longer than other mass produced engines around the world.
Modifications to the V8 engine including the aluminum block and heads, the electronic engine
management and the port fuel injection gave birth to the designs in production today.
In 1958, Chevrolet introduced the Impala series, which went on to become one of the best-selling
American cars in history experiencing popularity during the 60s and 70s.
The parent company General Motors introduced Chevrolet to Europe in 2005.
With rebranded cars manufactured from the General Motors branch in Korea acquired Daewoo
Motors.
The economic depression between 2007 and 2010 hit Chevrolet hard.
But the road to recovery began in 2010 with the introduction of fuel-efficient cars and
trucks to compete with foreign automobile manufacturers.
Within the same year, Chevrolet introduced the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, Chevrolet
Volt in America, which was sold under the name Opel/Vauxhall Ampera throughout Europe
with a record 5,268 units soldand became the world's best-selling plug-in hybrid electric
vehicle (PHEV) car in 2012, winning the award for the North American Car of the Year, European
Car of the Year and World Green of the Year.
The series was then named the combined Volt/Ampera that was sold across the world.
It exceeded the 100,000 unit sales milestone in late 2005 and eleven years later the Volt
family of vehicles had become the world's best-selling plug-in hybrid as well as the
third best selling electric car after the Tesla Model S and the Nissan Leaf cars.
In 2011, Chevrolet set a global sales record of 4.76 million vehicles sold worldwide
In late 2013, the Chevy brand was withdrawn from Europe by General Motors leaving the
Corvette and Camero lines.
In 2016, Chevrolet unveiled the first affordable mass-produced all-electric car the Chevrolet
Bolt EV.
This car too has won several awards.
Where Chevrolet Is Today
Chevrolet now has its headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, and operates throughout 140 countries
in North and South America, Asia, Australia, South Africa, and Europe with over two million
vehicles sold annually in the US alone and a brand value of $11.5 billion.
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