Louis Chevrolet

Louis-Joseph Chevrolet (December 25, 1878 – June 6, 1941) was a Swiss-born American racing driver, mechanic, and entrepreneur who co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in 1911.

Louis-Joseph Chevrolet was born on December 25, 1878, in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a center of watchmaking in the French speaking northwestern Switzerland. He was the second child of Joseph-Félicien Chevrolet, a watchmaker, and Marie-Anne Angéline Mahon. His family was originally from Bonfol, now in the canton of Jura.

In 1887, Chevrolet left Switzerland along with his father to settle in Beaune, France. There, as a young man, he developed his mechanical skills and interest in bicycle racing. During this period, Chevrolet invented a wine pump, which he built from a defective one-cylinder motor mounted on a tricycle.

Chevrolet worked at the Roblin mechanics shop in Beaune from around 1889 to 1899. He then moved to Paris, where he worked at various mechanics shops, between 1899 and 1900, before emigrating to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1900 to work as a mechanic. The following year, he moved to New York City, where he worked briefly for a fellow Swiss immigrant's engineering company, then moved to the Brooklyn operations of the French car manufacturer de Dion-Bouton.

In 1905, Chevrolet won his first race, racing a Fiat at Morris Park, the first-ever national championship race sanctioned by the American Automobile Association (AAA) Contest Board, then known as the Racing Board. In 1907, he was hired by the Autocar Company in Philadelphia, probably for a secret project to develop a revolutionary front-wheel-drive racing car.

Chevrolet's racing career continued as he drove for Buick, becoming a friend and associate of Buick owner William C. Durant, founder of General Motors. He raced at the Giants Despair Hillclimb in 1909. With little in the way of formal education, Chevrolet learned car design while working for Buick, and started designing his own engine for a new car in 1909. He built an overhead valve six-cylinder engine in his own machine shop on Grand River Boulevard in Detroit. He is credited as one of three co-designers of the 1910 Buick 60 Special, also known as the "Buick Bug".

On November 3, 1911, Chevrolet co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company with his brother Arthur Chevrolet, William C. Durant, and investment partners William Little (maker of the Little automobile) and Dr. Edwin R. Campbell, son-in-law of Durant and friend of Samuel McLaughlin of the McLaughlin Car Company of Canada Ltd. The company was established in Detroit. One story tells the choosing of the company's logo as a modified Swiss cross, to honor Chevrolet's homeland. Another story tells of the Chevrolet logo as a design taken from the wallpaper of a Paris hotel room where Louis once stayed.

Louis-Joseph Chevrolet had differences with William Durant over the car's design, and in 1915 sold Durant his share in the company and started McLaughlin's Company in Canada building Chevrolets. By 1916, the trading of Chevrolet stock for GM Holding stock enabled Durant to repurchase a controlling stake in General Motors, and by 1917 the Chevrolet company that Louis had co-founded was merged as a company into General Motors after the outstanding Chevrolet stocks were purchased from McLaughlin in 1918. The McLaughlin Car Company then merged with his Chevrolet Motor Company of Canada Ltd. to become General Motors of Canada Ltd. in 1918, prior to the incorporation of the General Motors Corporation in the United States when General Motors Company of New Jersey dissolved.

In 1905, Chevrolet married French-born Suzanne Estelle Treyvoux (1888–1966), a daughter of Louis Antoine Treyvoux, a furrier originally from Paris, and Marie Treyvoux (née Burlat). They emigrated to the United States in 1904. They had three children;

Charles Louis Chevrolet (1906–1934), industrial draftsman, married Anne Blessing (born 1906), they had one daughter Renee Chevrolet Goeke (1929–2018), who was the only granddaughter of Louis Chevrolet.

Chevrolet has been inducted into the following halls of fame:

Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame (1984)

International Motorsports Hall of Fame (1992)

Motorsports Hall of Fame of America (1995)

In addition, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in Speedway, Indiana, features a memorial at the entrance to the building dedicated to the accomplishments of Chevrolet. The memorial, designed by Fred Wellman and sculpted by Adolph Wolter, was created during 1968–1970 and installed in the spring of 1975. The centerpiece of the memorial is a bronze bust of Chevrolet wearing a racing cap and goggles; it rests on a marble and granite square base.