Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors

Five. “I Must Have a Consolidation"

Chapter Five HI Must Have a Consolidation" As he dined one evening in Flint with his daughter Margery, Durant was called to the telephone. It was Benjamin Briscoe, Jr., in Chicago. Briscoe: "Hello, Billy, I have a most important matter to discuss with you and want you to take the first train to Chicago." Durant: "What's the big idea, Ben?" Briscoe: "Don't ask me to explain; it's the biggest thing in the country. There's millions in it. Can you come? Durant: "Impossible, too busy, sorry. But I can see you here. Why don't you take the 10 o'clock Grand Trunk arriving at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning. I will meet you at the station and we will have breakfast together."* Briscoe agreed. The two met ·the following morning in Flint, breakfasted at the Dresden Hotel, then went to Durant's office at Buick. Briscoe-who had sold Buick to Whiting in 1903 and * Durant's recollections of the phone call and ensuing events are recorded in his autobiographical notes in a chapter titled "The True Story of General Motors." He recorded the date of Briscoe's call as May 15, 1908, which is incorrect. The initial discussions may have taken place as early as 1907. By January, 1908, the talks were at a serious stage. George S. May gathered this sequence of meeting dates for consolidation talks from the diary of Ransom E. Olds: Detroit on January 17, 1908; New York on January 24-25; again in New York on May 11, and apparently still again at the end of May. The details of the consolidation talks in this chapter are given largely as Durant remembered them.. though I have in some cases changed his sequence of events to conform with other evidence. 97 Billy Durant who had since become president of Maxwell-Briscoe Company -confided that George W. Perkins, a partner in J. P. Morgan and Company and a financial backer of Maxwell-Briscoe, was exploring the idea of a large automobile merger. Would Durant be interested? "Briscoe had no well-considered plan but he wanted to get my ideas," Durant wrote. "He suggested calling a meeting of about 20 of the leading concerns, naming Packard, Peerless, Pierce-Arrow, Stoddard-Dayton, Thomas, etc. What did I think of it? "I told him frankly that I did not believe the plan was workable. The proposition in my opinion was too big, too many concerns involved, too many conflicting interests to be reconciled ." Durant felt that Briscoe should modify his plans and try for a merger of a few auto companies who were trying to produce in volume in the medium-priced field. He proposed the Ford Motor Company of Detroit, the Reo Motor Car Company of Lansing, Buick, and Maxwell-Briscoe. "I suggested he first see Henry Ford, who was in the limelight, liked publicity and unless he could lead the procession would not play," Durant continued . In 1908 Henry Ford was gearing up for production that nearly equalled Buick's-and would soon surpass it. The Reo Motor Car Company was headed by Ransom E. Olds, who had driven steam horseless carriages around Lansing as early as 1887, when Durant, fifty miles away in Flint, was just getting started in the Flint Road Cart Company. R. E. Oids had walked out of the Olds Motor Works in 1904 in a management dispute, and by 1908 was in charge of Reo (the name derived from his initials). Briscoe met with Olds in Lansing, and found him receptive to the consolidation idea. He talked to Ford, who was at least willing to discuss it. Several weeks later, Durant, Olds, and Ford were invited to meet with Briscoe in the old Penobscot Building in Detroit. Durant wrote: "In the public reception room were gathered the principals, their close associates and advisers. The room was small, no place to discuss business. I sensed, unless we ran to cover, plenty of undesirable publicity in the offing. As I had commodious quar98 III Must Have a Consolidation" ters in the [old] Pontchartrain Hotel, and as the luncheon hour was approaching, I suggested that we separate and meet in my room as soon as convenient. I had the unexpected pleasure of entertaining the entire party until mid-afternoon." Once the group was assembled in Durant's room, Briscoe urged that a consolidation plan be developed that could be...