Louis Chevrolet

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Louis Chevrolet
Louis Chevrolet in a Buick racing car (in Crown Point , Indiana, during the 1909 Cobe Cup race)
Louis Chevrolet in a Buick "Bug" racing car at the 1910 Vanderbilt Cup
In honor of Louis Chevrolet's ICN of the SBB

Louis Chevrolet (born December 25, 1878 in La Chaux-de-Fonds , Canton of Neuchâtel ; † June 6, 1941 in Detroit , Michigan ) was a Swiss and from 1915 American racing driver and the founder of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company , which is today belongs to the General Motors group.

Live and act

Chevrolet was the second son of eight children of watchmaker Joseph Félicien Chevrolet and his wife Marie-Anne Mahon, who were married in Bonfol, Jurassic, in 1876 . The father worked in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Bonfol, but in 1886 he and his family left Switzerland to work and live in Beaune in Burgundy . During this time, Louis discovered his interest in racing as a young man. From 1890 he did an apprenticeship as a bicycle and coach mechanic with Louis Roblin. He first came into contact with a motor vehicle in 1893. He worked as a mechanic for a while, and in his spare time he successfully rode bicycles. In early 1899 he went to Paris to work in a car factory.

From there he emigrated to Montreal in Canada in 1900 . The following year he went to New York , where he was hired by Fiat as a works driver. In 1905 he was able to contest his first car race in a 90-hp Fiat in Morris Park in New York. He won the race and set a world speed record of 109.7 km / h. He was called The dare devil Frenchman by the American press . In 1906 he became chief designer of Walter Christie in Philadelphia . He designed the Darracq V8, with which he again won numerous races and also set a new world speed record with 191.5 km / h.

When he worked for the Buick Motor Company in 1909 , he learned a lot about car design and began developing his own engine for a new car. In 1911 he became a partner with William Durant , and they founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in Detroit . Just a year later, the Classic Six was launched , a four-door sedan that went for $ 2,150. Because of the small car Chevrolet 490, Chevrolet had irreconcilable differences with Durant in 1915 and sold his company share of 1.7 percent. A year later the company was merged with General Motors .

Chevrolet returned to auto racing by forming Frontenac Motor Corporation to build racing cars. In 1917 he won the Cincinnati , Chicago , Sheepshead Bay and Ascot circuit races . His brothers Arthur and Gaston Chevrolet (1892–1920) became more and more of his greatest competitors. Gaston won the 1920 Indianapolis 500 mile race in a car called the Frontenac designed by Louis Chevrolet. Louis also contested four races this year, with a 7th place as the best result. When his younger brother Gaston had a fatal accident on November 25, 1920 on the Beverly Hills racetrack , Louis stopped racing.

He then devoted himself to the further development of the vehicles in his company. In 1921 the first prototype rolled out of the Frontenac plant, and a year later 1,500 people were working in this company. He ran out of money as a result of the economic crisis and Frontenac had to file for bankruptcy in 1923. In 1926 he began to build the light aircraft engine Chevrolair 333 , but a year later he fell out with his brother Arthur and founded the Chevrolet Air Car Company in Indianapolis . In 1929 he moved to Baltimore and founded the Chevrolet Aircraft Corporation with Glenn L. Martin, a Ford supplier , which only existed until the economic crisis. In 1932 he was able to apply for a patent for a 10-cylinder radial aircraft engine, which he did not receive until three years later. A man marked by life, he returned to Detroit as a mechanic for the Chevrolet company in 1933. A year later he suffered a first stroke, which forced him to retire early. He died on June 6, 1941, but this was hardly noticed by the press. Upon request, Louis Chevrolet was buried next to his brother Gaston in Indianapolis not far from the racetrack.

Honors

  • In 1975 the Chevrolet Memorial was erected in Indianapolis.
  • In 1991 the Place Louis Chevrolet in Bonfol was inaugurated.
  • In 1992 he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame .
  • In 2011 a monument, a 5-meter-high sculpture, was created in La Chaux-de-Fonds by the artist Christian Gonzenbach

literature

  • Alex Capus : 13 true stories. Historical miniatures. Deuticke, Vienna 2004; dtv, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-423-13470-4 , pp. 110-120: The fast life of Louis Chevrolet .
  • Helmut Stalder: Louis Chevrolet. A life in the fast lane. In: Helmut Stalder: Misunderstood visionaries. 24 Swiss life stories. Verlag NZZ Libro, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-03823-715-0 , pp. 35–41.
  • Martin Sinzig: Louis Chevrolet. The man who gave the Chevy its name. The story of the racing driver and car pioneer. Huber Verlag, Frauenfeld / Stuttgart / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-7193-1566-5 .

Web links

Commons : Louis Chevrolet  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Sinzig: Louis Chevrolet: The man who gave the Chevy its name. 2011.
  2. ↑ Alex Capus: 13 True Stories. Historical miniatures. Deuticke, Vienna 2004; dtv, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-423-13470-4 , pp. 110-120: The fast life of Louis Chevrolet .
  3. ^ Chronology of Louis Chevrolet on the surface.ch website
  4. ↑ Thomas Fuchs: Chevrolet, Louis. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  5. ↑ https://www.myswitzerland.com/de-ch/erlebnisse/staedte-kultur/kunst-kultur/kunst/louis-chevrolet-denkmal/
personal data
SURNAME Chevrolet, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss and US racing driver and co-founder of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH La Chaux-de-Fonds
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1941
Place of death Detroit