The Biography Of Durant - Father Of General Motors

Durant’s Goals and His Strategy to achieve

Durant (also known as Father of General Motors) was born in Boston United States, His father name was William Clark Durant and mother name was Rebecca Folger Crapo. He belongs to a wealthy Massachusetts family of French. William dropped out of the school to work with his grandfather in lumberyard. Durant started with 2000$ capital with partnership with Josiah Dallas Dort to start Flint Road Cart Company and later it went to $2 million sale all around the world in 1886 gradually they became the leading producer of horse drawn vehicles in 1900 which was the largest in US. Durant thought that the cars were dangerous as they produce a huge loud noise so he not let his daughter to ride in it. But later he thought of building a successful company of inventing the cars with improving safety of the cars so to achieve this dream he purchased a local car company named Buick.

When Durant married Catherine in 1908 the company has build near about 8500 cars and net worth of Durant was $3.5million and has the largest automobile share in the world

Durant’s Goals and His Strategy to achieve

While with the changing time the choice of people started shifting from horse carts to cars so Durant thought of building a huge company and have a great success in this field also so he has taken several steps.

GENERAL MOTORS

After buying Buick Durant thought of developing a huge automobile industry so with this aim Durant started General Motors in September 16, 1908 in 1909 GM motors buys Cadillacand olds mobileand Oakland motor cars and many other small part producer collaborated with GM. Durant created envisioned a system in which GM owned and controlled every part and product needed to manufacture Chevrolet automobiles. Durant created a less laudable free will among the other companies he owned. He had too many automakers producing too many similar models at too near the same price with no central control FORD.

The biggest rival of General Motors was FORD. Durant once makes a deal with Henry Ford to buy his Company of in 8 Million $ in 1909 But later the bankers turned him down and the boards of directors of General Motors dismissed him. At good times GM and Ford competed with one another but in recession times the ford motors bring General motor to the second place as money tightened, Durant had no small, basic, cheap car to sell, as ford did. Durant soon had no corporate income CHEVROLET.

IN 1910 General motors face the shortage of money and Durant was forced out of the company by bankers while after sometime He immediately set out to create another GM to compete the Ford model T. Then later he went with partnership with Louis Chevrolet in 1911 after obtaining a loan of $53000 approximately so later he have enough share he was able to regain his share in GM and get the control back in his hand and became its president in 1916 but later after 4 years he loss his position and while working in Chevrolet he buys other companies like Republic motors.

VERTICAL INTIGRATION

Due to the experience of 20 years in carriage making business Durant started assembling and collecting the parts and components of United Motor Company making Alfred p sloan president of the hyatt roller bearing company.

DURANT MOTORS

In 1921 Durant started a new company named Durant motors, initially with one brand during its initial 2 years its various logos have been changed like logo of its Durant, Star, Flint and Eagle(refer Fig.2). The parts of New Empire included in a factory in Ontario, Canada While the Durant motors cars were marked mid-market still it competes with the Packard, Cadillac and the ultra-luxurious car brand named Locomobile, which was as the top at that time. While Durant was unable to achieve success like he achieved earlier with his companies GM and Chevrolet as during the great depression time in 1933 the company was unable to survive in the market at last it failed.

End of Durant periodIn 1920’s Durant became a major player on wallstreet and on Black Tuesday joined with Financial giants along with Rockefeller family to buy large quantities of stocks, by going against the advice of friends, to demonstrate public confidence in stock market while this step taken by him proves costly and failed to stop the market slide due to this Durant was announced bankrupt in 1936 when he was 75 years old so his company Durant motors also failed as Durant motors, Durant and his second wife only way to survive was the pension provided to them by R. S. McLaughlin, and Messrs .

In 1920 Durant’s son Russell cliff and his third wife started building a castle and a private airstrip in Roscommon, Michigan on the branch of Au sable river but that castle consisting of 54 rooms burned on 6 feb1931 under serious circumstances after cliffs death and disappearance of his wife his 4 wife sold the castle to George w mason.

As arranged by Alfred P. Sloan at $10000 on behalf of general motor than a heart stroke in 1942 left Durant “a semi-invalid” and later he died in 1947 in New York it was believed that he spent his last days there. He was interred in a private mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City. He was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business hall of fame in 1996. So one could say that MR. William Crapo Durant was the leading pioneer of Automobile industry of US and the one and only person who created the system of multi-brand holding companies.