Automotive News - September 15, 2008 - (Page 10)

General Motors Story 1/100 Pivot Point: A supersalesman creates GM Billy Durant: From critic to car czar They spewed fumes and spooked the horses — but he knew a sure thing when he saw one Leslie J. Allen et a horse!” the crowd taunted. The year was 1902. Two teenage girls, frightened and caked with dust, were taking their first ride in an automobile. Author William Pelfrey recalls the moment in Billy, Alfred, and General Motors. The car was a long-forgotten French brand: Panhard. It was loud, and it sputtered as it chugged along a dirt road in Flint, Mich. One of the girls taking that joy ride was Margery Durant, whose millionaire father was the nation’s most successful seller of carriages — and no fan of the horseless variety. William Crapo Durant scolded his daughter, who had taken the ride without his knowledge. In his view, automobiles “were noisy, dangerous contraptions that disturbed tranquility and frightened horses,” wrote biographer Lawrence R. Gustin. Yet, six years later, in 1908, Durant founded what would become the world’s largest automaker. What happened? Durant’s journey from pessimist to industry patriarch boils down to one thing, said Gustin, author of Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors. “He wasn’t a car guy, but the self-seller — something that can sell itself — was a big thing to him. He saw this as something that he could sell,” said Gustin. That self-seller was a vehicle that hit the roads in 1904. Its name: Buick. G Buick gets a champion Durant was a brilliant salesman, but he was easily bored. With his company at the top of the carriage business, he left Flint to play the stock market in New York. He agreed to come back to Flint after a rival cart company, Flint Wagon Works, enlisted him to manage its latest acquisition: the debt- ridden Buick Motor Co., which started building engines in 1903 and branched into automobiles the next year. Re-energized, Durant went to work in late 1904. He negotiated relief from Buick’s creditors; moved vehicle assembly from a one-story building in Flint to a more spacious site in Jackson, Mich.; and in January 1905 went to an auto show in New York and took orders for 1,108 vehicles. At that point, the factory had produced only 37, Gustin said. Durant later set his mind to building the world’s largest automobile assembly plant, and he did so in Flint. He persuaded suppliers, notably axle maker Charles Stewart Mott, to build near the massive Buick complex. By the end of 1907, Buick had become the na© GM Corp. Road carts Durant had a talent for finding hit products. The first was in 1886. The Flint, Mich., resident was late for work one day and accepted a ride in a Coldwater road cart, a two-wheel horse cart with an innovative suspension system. Durant was so impressed with the cart’s performance that he borrowed $2,000 from a bank, went into partnership with his friend Josiah Dallas Dort and bought the Coldwater operation for $1,500. Using his new Flint Road Cart Co. — later renamed Durant-Dort Carriage Co. — as a base, Durant built his carriage business into the GM of its day. He did so by acquiring key suppliers and snapping up other cart companies, Gustin said. “They didn’t just have one road cart; they had carriages for different levels of the market,” Gustin told Automotive News. “They always competed well on price, and they could do that because they had created their own consolidation of all these different industries. They bought their own axle company, their own wheel company and their own top company, linseed oil and varnish companies.” The incorporation Name: General Motors Co. Date: Sept. 16, 1908 Place: Jersey City, N.J. Interim directors: George E. Daniels, Benjamin Marcuse, Arthur Britton. A month later, new officers took over: William M. Eaton, president; William Crapo Durant, vice president; and Curtis R. Hatheway, secretary Source: GM, Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors by Lawrence R. Gustin Two great men in the General Motors saga: Billy Durant, left, and Dallas Dort. In 1886, they became partners and bought Flint Road Cart Co. Durant built the business by buying up suppliers and rivals, setting a pattern that would continue through his automotive days. 10 September 15, 2008 AUTOMOTIVE NEWS

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