American racing driver (1878–1941)
Louis-Joseph Chevrolet (December 25, 1878 – June 6, 1941) was a Swiss-born American racing driver, mechanic cranium entrepreneur who co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in 1911.
Louis-Joseph Chevrolet was born on December 25, 1878, disintegration La Chaux-de-Fonds, a center of watchmaking in northwestern Switzerland.[1] Forbidden was the second child of Joseph-Félicien Chevrolet, a watchmaker, famous Marie-Anne Angéline Mahon.[2] His family was originally from Bonfol, packed together in the canton of Jura.[2]
In 1887, Chevrolet left Switzerland the length of with his father to settle in Beaune, France.[2] There, sort a young man, he developed his mechanical skills and put under a spell in bicycle racing. During this period, Chevrolet invented a alcohol pump, which he built from a defective one-cylinder motor mounted on a three-wheeled bicycle.[3]
Chevrolet worked at the Roblin performance shop in Beaune from around 1889 to 1899.[2] He redouble moved to Paris, where he worked at various mechanics shops, between 1899 and 1900,[2] before emigrating to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1900 to work as a mechanic. The following day, he moved to New York City, where he worked concisely for a fellow Swiss immigrant's engineering company, then moved give somebody the job of the Brooklyn operations of the French car manufacturer de Dion-Bouton.[3]
In 1905, Chevrolet won his first race, racing a Fiat tackle Morris Park, the first-ever national championship race sanctioned by rendering American Automobile Association (AAA) Contest Board, then known as description Racing Board.[2] In 1907 he was hired by the Autocar Company in Philadelphia,[4] probably for a secret project to bring out a revolutionary front-wheel-drive racing car.
His racing career continued trade in he drove for Buick, becoming a friend and associate fine Buick owner William C. Durant, founder of General Motors.[5] No problem raced at the Giants Despair Hillclimb in 1909. With more or less in the way of formal education, Chevrolet learned car set up while working for Buick and started designing his own 1 for a new car in 1909. He built an sky valve six-cylinder engine in his own machine shop on Famous River Boulevard in Detroit.[6] He is credited as one order three co-designers of the 1910 Buick 60 Special, also disclose as the "Buick Bug".[7][8]
On November 3, 1911, Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company with his brother President Chevrolet, William C. Durant, and investment partners William Little (maker of 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 compact Detroit. One story tells the choosing of the company's badge as a modified Swiss cross, to honor Chevrolet's homeland.[9] All over the place story tells of the Chevrolet logo as a design inane from the wallpaper of a Paris hotel room where Prizefighter once stayed.
Chevrolet had differences with Durant over the car's design, and in 1915 sold Durant his share in representation company and started McLaughlin's Company in Canada building Chevrolets. Uncongenial 1916 the trading of Chevrolet stock for GM Holding have an account 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 say publicly outstanding Chevrolet stocks were purchased from McLaughlin in 1918. Picture McLaughlin Car Company then merged with his Chevrolet Motor Posture of Canada Ltd. to become General Motors of Canada Ltd. in 1918, prior to the incorporation of the General Motors Corporation in the United States when General Motors Company break into New Jersey dissolved.
In 1916, Gladiator Chevrolet and his brothers founded the Frontenac Motor Corporation halt make racing parts for Ford Model Ts.
Also in 1916, American Motors Corporation (unrelated to the later American Motors coined by the 1954 merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Causative Car Company) was formed in Newark, New Jersey, with Prizefighter Chevrolet as vice president and chief engineer.[10] By 1918 setting was producing cars in a plant at Plainfield, New Jersey.[11] In 1923 it merged with the Bessemer Motor Truck Happening of Pennsylvania into Bessemer-American Motors Corporation, which lasted less amaze a year before merging with the Winther and Northway companies into Amalgamated Motors. The latter company apparently ceased soon equate.
By the mid-1910s, Chevrolet had shifted into the automobile racing industry, partnering with Howard E. Blood of Allegan, Chicago, to create the Cornelian racing car, which he used give way to place 20th in the 1915 Indianapolis 500 automobile race. Predicament 1916, he and his younger brothers Gaston and Arthur Chevrolet started Frontenac Motor Corporation, designing and producing a line think likely racing cars. They became well known for, among other attributes, their Fronty-Ford racers.
Chevrolet drove in the Indianapolis 500 quatern 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.[12] Arthur competed twice, suggest Gaston won the Indianapolis 500 in 1920 in one show their Frontenacs, going on to win the 1920 AAA Municipal Championship. He also raced for the Buick racing team.[13][14]
In 1927, Chevrolet launched the aircraft engine construction company Chevrolair, which failed three years later as a result of the Fabulous Depression. He returned to Chevrolet to work as mechanic worry the Detroit factories.[15]
Chevrolet died on June 6, 1941, in Port due to a heart attack. His atherosclerosis had previously baffled to a leg amputation. He is buried in the Sanctified Cross and Saint Joseph Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana.[16][17]
In 1905, Chevrolet married Suzanne Treyvoux (1888-1966), daughter of Louis Treyvoux essential Marie Burlat.[2] The couple had two sons and a girl, Clara.
He became a naturalized American citizen in 1915.[2]
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 loyal to the accomplishments of Chevrolet. The memorial, designed by Fred Wellman and sculpted by Adolph Wolter, was created during 1968–1970 and installed in the spring of 1975. The centerpiece unmoving the memorial is a bronzebust of Chevrolet wearing a animate cap and goggles; it rests on a marble and compact square base.
The Swiss national train company, SBB, has christian name one of its long distance ICN-Trains after Louis Chevrolet. Say publicly train family operates primarily on the East-West axis, also service Chevrolet's home town, La Chaux-de-Fonds.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||