Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors

Eleven. A Last Empire Created and Lost

Chapter Eleven A Last Empire Created and Lost Durant was fifty-nine years old and unemployed. For the second time he had lost control of the company he had founded, and this time the ties were severed. How much money he had left is questionable. Perhaps several million dollars, perhaps nothing. His mother, and probably his wife, still held considerable GM stock, however, and his settlement with the corporation was still outstanding. He also retained his great estate in Deal, New Jersey, the magnificent white palace "Raymere ," once owned by Joseph Rothschild, with its twelve bedrooms, seventeenth-century French and English furniture, rare oriental carpets, and rare books and art. Walter Chrysler had visited the place, and later declared, "I never experienced luxury to compare with Billy Durant's house." Durant wasted little time getting started again. Six weeks after resigning as GM president, he began one last fling in automobiles that started so sensationally the leaders of General Motors had genuine fears that he would take it all back again. Durant returned to New York from a short vacation and wrote to sixty-seven of his highly placed friends, explaining that he was about to form a new automobile manufacturing company to build "just a real good car," and inviting their participation through stock purchases. "I cannot go into details at this time," he wrote, "other than to say it will bear the name Durant Motors, Inc., with one kind of stock and every subscriber to the initial offering upon exactly the same basis as to price, 223 Billy Durant with no commission, bonuses or reservations to myself or associates issued for experience, ability or past performances." Durant Motors filed for a charter in Albany, New York, on January 12, 1921. Its capital stock was $5 million. Durant said that his letters brought an astounding response, with some $7 million worth of stock subscribed for almost immediately. He had to tum down $2 million in subscriptions. Durant's new plans raised a great deal of excitement, but nowhere was the reaction so great as in Flint. On the day Durant Motors was announced, the Flint Chamber of Commerce said that "strenuous efforts" were being made to induce Durant to locate his new manufacturing plants in the city. Community leaders sent "a flood of telegrams and letters" to Durant, and petitions were circulated through downtown stores and offices with the hope of sending on 30,000 names of local citizens. The Chamber of Commerce pointed out in its telegram to Durant that "no city in America has such an abiding faith in your business ability, integrity and results as Flint.... When you contemplate your new business undertaking please allow Flint to have first place in your mind and heart." And taking no chances that Durant might not get the message, the chamber also dispatched Dallas Dort to New York for a personal conference with his old carriage partner. Four days later, Flint had its answer. Durant's telegram to The Flint Journal on January 18 was reproduced on Page One: Flint Journal Flint Mich Dear Journal: You may say to the good people of the best little city in the country that one of the plants of Durant Motors will be located in Flint. Say to those who so thoughtfully remembered me that I am most appreciative and quite overcome by their kind messages of friendship, confidence and affection. Sincerely yours we Durant The newspaper and Dallas Dort arrived at a luncheon meeting of the Chamber of Commerce simultaneously, to a burst of applause. Dort strode to the podium in the Durant Hotel and announced: 224 Mr. and Mrs. Durant-a picture of elegance in the '20s. The Durants' summer home--Raymere-in Deal, New Jersey. w. C. Durant (left) and his old carriage partner, J. Dallas Dort, lunching at Thompson's 59th Street Restaurant in New York City in the early 1920s. Together they had founded the country's largest carriage company, and they worked together in the early days of Buick, Chevrolet, and General Motors. At this time, Durant was in charge of Durant Motors and Dort was president of the Dort Motor Car Company. Dort died in 1925. They say Billy is coming back home, back to Flint-he never left Flint. Just before lleft New York, I went up to the offices of Mr. Durant, two little rooms in a great big building. The...