4. On November 3, 1911, Swiss race car
driver and automotive engineer Louis
Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet
Motor Company in Detroit with William
C. Durant and investment partners
William Little (maker of the Little
automobile) and Dr. Edwin R.
Campbell (son-in-law of Durant) and
in 1912 R. S. McLaughlin GEO of
General Motors in Canada.
5. Durant was ousted from the
management of General Motors in
1910 for five years. He took over the
Flint Wagon Works, incorporating
the Mason and Little companies. As
head of Buick Motor Company prior
to founding GM, Durant had hired
Louis Chevrolet to drive Buicks in
promotional races. Durant planned
to use Chevrolet's reputation as a
racer as the foundation for his new
automobile company.
15. From a young age, Honda's
founder, Soichiro Honda (17
November 1906 – 5 August 1991)
had an interest in automobiles. He
worked as a mechanic at the Art
Shokai garage, where he tuned cars
and entered them in races. In 1937,
with financing from an acquaintance,
Kato Shichirō, Honda
founded Tōkai Seiki (Eastern Sea
Precision Machine Company) to
make piston rings working out of the
Art Shokai garage.
16. After initial failures, Tōkai Seiki won a
contract to supply piston rings
to Toyota, but lost the contract due to
the poor quality of their
products. After attending engineering
school, without graduating, and
visiting factories around Japan to
better understand Toyota's quality
control processes, Honda was able, by
1941, to mass-produce piston rings
acceptable to Toyota, using an
automated process that could employ
even unskilled wartime laborers.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26. Henry Ford's first attempt at a
car company under his own name
was the Henry Ford Company on
November 3, 1901, which became
the Cadillac Motor Company on
August 22, 1902, after Ford left
with the rights to his name. The
Ford Motor Company was
launched in a converted factory in
1903 with $28,000 in cash from
twelve investors,
27. most notably john and Horace
Dodge (who would later found their
own car company). During its early
years, the company produced just a
few cars a day at its factory on
Mack Avenue in Detroit, Michigan.
Groups of two or three men worked
on each car, assembling it from
parts made mostly by supplier
companies contracting for Ford.
28. Within a decade the company
would lead the world in the
expansion and refinement of
the assembly line concept; and
Ford soon brought much of the
part production in-house in
a vertical integration that seemed
a better path for the era.
38. The Ferrari automobile
company has produced sports
cars since 1947.
Unlike many similar yet independent
companies, Fiat Group-owned
Ferrari continued to thrive after the
death of its charismatic founder and
is today one of the most successful
sports car companies in the world.
39. The first Ferrari road car was the
1947 125 Sport, powered by a 1.5 L
V12 engine. In 1950, Ferrari fielded
racing cars in at the Monaco Grand
Prix, the first Formula 1 event held
there. Froilán González won the first
Grand Prix for Ferrari in 1951,
and Alberto Ascari secured Ferrari's
first World title in 1952, a task he
would repeat the following season.
World title in 1952, a task he would
repeat the following season.
