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1929 Chevrolet

Manufacturer 

Chevrolet Motor Company - founded in 1911

The Man  

Louis Chevrolet
  b. Dec. 25, 1878
      La Chaux de Fonds, Neuchâtel, Switz.
 d.  June 6, 1941, Detroit
 

Louis Chevrolet emigrated to the United States from France in 1900. Five years later, in his first automobile race, he defeats the great American driver Barney Oldfield, and thereafter set records on every important track in the United States. 
 

Chevrolet played an active role in the formation of the Chevrolet Motor Company, which later becomes a division of General Motors. After selling William Durant his interest in the company in 1915, Chevrolet subsequently became active in motorboat racing; worked for the Stutz Automobile Company of  Indianapolis, Ind.; and established an unsuccessful aircraft factory in that city. In 1936 he returned to the General Motors division named for him.
 

The Car

In 1909, William Durant, a successful buggy manufacturer from Flint Michigan, asked Louis Chevrolet to help design a car for introduction to the public. He had not yet formed a company to manufacture it.
 

In 1911, the Chevrolet Motor Car Company enters the turbulent automobile market on November 3. Durant envisions his new company as an inexpensive competitor to the Ford Model-T. He chose to name the company after its designer Louis Chevrolet because he liked the sound of the name and because Chevrolet was a prominent name in motor sports.
 

In 1912, Chevrolet hits the streets of Detroit with the "Classic Six" -- a large, 5-passenger touring sedan with a long list of standard features, including four doors, electric lights and a folding top, plus a windshield and its own tool box. Its 299-cubic-inch, 6-cylinder engine could reach a top speed of 65 miles per hour.
 

Production for 1912, the first full year operations, totaled 2,999 units. When Durant merged the Little Company and Chevrolet in 1913, he gave the Chevrolet name to the Little car and moved manufacturing from the Detroit plant to Flint. This same year Henry Leland put Charles F. Kettering's electric self starter on his Cadillac's. One year later, this dramatic innovation of the electric self starter was installed on the Chevrolet.