• Complain

Lawrence R. Gustin - Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors

Here you can read online Lawrence R. Gustin - Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2012, publisher: University of Michigan Press, genre: Detective and thriller. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Lawrence R. Gustin Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors

Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

A new edition of the classic book on the flamboyant genius who helped lead America into the automobile age|

Praise for the first edition:

A fascinating book [and] a sympathetic look at the man who glued General Motors together and in the process made Flint one of the great industrial centers of America.
-Detroit Free Press

It is refreshing to report that Billy Durant is one of the best researched books dealing with an automotive giant.
-Antique Automobile

Billy Durant fills in a masterly way the only important void remaining concerning the work of the motorcar pioneers.
-Richard Crabb, author of Birth of a Giant: The Men and Incidents That Gave America the Motorcar

What explains Billy Durants powerful influence on the auto industry during its early days? And why, given Durants impact, has he been nearly forgotten for decades?

In search of answers to these questions, Lawrence Gustin interviewed Durants widow, who provided a wealth of previously unpublished autobiographical notes, letters, and personal papers. Gustin also interviewed two of Durants personal secretaries and others who had known and worked with the man who created General Motors. The result is the amazing account of the mastermind behind what would become, as the twentieth century progressed, the worlds largest company.

Lawrence R. Gustin: author's other books


Who wrote Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make
For Rose Mary Bob and Wendy Dave and Jen For the grandchildren Grant - photo 1

For Rose Mary, Bob and Wendy, Dave and Jen

For the grandchildren: Grant, Olivia, Zachary, Drew, Ava

Copyright by Lawrence R. Gustin 1973, 1984, 2008
Published by the University of Michigan Press 2008
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by
The University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
Picture 2 Printed on acid-free paper

2011 2010 2009 2008 4 3 2 1

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-472-03302-7
ISBN-10: 0-472-03302-6

Illustrations on pages 13, 5, 6, and 9 by Steve Clack.

ISBN-13 978-0-472-02936-5 (electronic)

Update

A line in this book says the importance of William C. Durant's career will undoubtedly be appreciated more fully some day. And in the decades since Billy Durant was first published in 1973, that certainly has happenedparticularly in Flint, Michigan, where his accomplishments were most obvious.

Six weeks after the first edition was published, Flint Mayor Paul C. Visser proclaimed the week of Durant's birthdate, December 8, as William Crapo Durant Week in Flint. Durant's widow, Catherine, was thrilled to receive the proclamation, which came just in time. She died in New York January 19, 1974.

Some Durant-inspired initiatives were temporary. Billy's Pub in downtown Flint, decorated with pictures of Durant and his wife Catherine, opened in 1984 but closed a few years later. A downtown Billy Durant Festival came and went.

Some were permanent. The decrepit Durant-Dort Carriage Company office buildingscheduled to be razed before a newspaper campaign helped save itis today restored and a National Historic Landmark. This was where Durant had his Flint office before Buick came to town: It's considered virtually the birthplace of General Motors. The three-story brick building is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and also adorned with a Michigan historical marker. Nearby, state historical markers in Flint's Carriage Town point out the restored Flint Road Cart Company factory and the home of Charles W. Nash when he was superintendent of Durant-Dort, before he became president of GM and then Nash Motors.

When Michigan sculptor Derek Wernher created a life-size bronze statue of Durant (later to be joined by one of his partner, Dallas Dort) and officials had it erected on his 127th birthday (December 8, 1988) within sight of the Durant-Dort headquarters, its unveiling was witnessed by a GM vice president, two Durant grandchildren, four Durant great-grandchildren, and the New York Times. Also, banker Robert J. Whaley's home near downtown Flint has been restored and holds the original Flint Road Cart Company bank book showing the 1886 deposits of $1,000 each by Durant and Dortthe earliest document in GM's prehistory. Flint's Sloan Museum displays a mannequin of Durant; holds many of his papers and photos; and, in partnership with Buick, has opened a Buick Gallery and Research Center nearby. Across town, Durant papers used for the earlier editions of this book are housed at Kettering University. A horse barn that stood behind the Durants' Flint home (and was for years owned by the parents of the author's childhood friend Janet Gardner) has been saved and moved to nearby Historical Crossroads Village.

But much has been lost. By GM's centennial year, the best monuments toDurant in Flint, as listed in the main text, were mostly gone. No more Fisher Body. AC Spark Plug became a fading Delphi East. The huge Buick home complexthe foundation of GM's creation in 1908was closed in 1999 and most of its vast collection of factories virtually scraped away early in the new millennium. The last remaining significant activity at the site is final production of Buick 3800 V-6 engines (Buick engine production in Flint has surpassed 100 years). A complex of Chevrolet plants disappeared as well, though Chevy trucks still rolled off one local assembly line.

An attempt to tell Flints automobile story with a 1980s theme park named - photo 3

An attempt to tell Flint's automobile story with a 1980s theme park named AutoWorld was artistically creative but financially a disaster and was soon ridiculed, imploded, and bulldozed. In 1978, about 78,000 people were employed by Flint-area GM plants. In 2008, it was under 9,000 and dropping.

But what Durant created or saved had legs on the larger stage. Buick and Cadillac have celebrated their centennials (and Oldsmobile did too before its poorly handled execution). Chevrolet is a dominant brand. GMC trucks live, as do the Pontiac cars that grew from Oakland Motor Car Company. General Motors is still at the top in salesbarelyof all the world automakers. It's fitting that Durant's name as GM's founder is cast in bronze on a Michigan historical marker in front of the corporation's new headquarters in downtown Detroit, because neither GM nor its most famous American marques would likely exist today had he not either created or saved them. No wonder the Society of Automotive Historians ranked William C. Durant No. 2, behind only Henry Ford, on its list of the 30 most significant auto pioneers.

Billy Durant appears here almost exactly as in the first and second editions, which means some references are dated. GM no longer occupies the GM Building mentioned in the Prologue, but has moved to Renaissance Center on the Detroit River downtown. General Motors Institute, or GMI, is now Kettering University. No Buicks are built in Flint; indeed more are built in China than in the entire United States. And one other change is worth noting: Billy Durant, as a historical figure, is no longer the forgotten man.

Foreword This account of the career of William Crapo Durant is based in part on - photo 4

Foreword

This account of the career of William Crapo Durant is based in part on unpublished manuscripts and documents and on interviews with his widow, two of his personal secretaries and others who knew him well.

Among the manuscripts used extensively are Durant's own autobiographical notes. This manuscript of seven short typewritten chapters, plus scattered notes, is not always accurate-much of it was written in the 1930s and 1940s, decades after the events describedbut it contains valuable information and some insights into Durant's motives. These notes, and numerous letters and other personal papers, were made available to the writer by Durant's widow, Mrs. Catherine Durant, with the cooperation of his last personal secretary, Aristo Scrobogna, who is the legal custodian of Durant's papers.

Durant is best remembered in Flint, Michigan, a city which owes practically all of its large industrial baseand its historical distinction of being the birthplace of General Motorsto his accomplishments. And the manuscript which really provided the basis for this account is a 600-page Industrial History of Flint which was compiled by Frank M. Rodolf in the early 1940s when he was a reporter and librarian for The Flint Journal. It is surely one of the best and most complete accounts of Durant's career ever compiled. Rodolf, who left The Journal shortly after the manuscript was completed, was located by the writer in New York City. With his permission, and that of

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors»

Look at similar books to Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors»

Discussion, reviews of the book Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.