Recently I received an interesting book about the life of Louis Chevrolet from Yves De Cauwer, Senior Manager Public Affairs at Chevrolet Belgium.   

A welcome occasion to tell you a bit more about the fascinating life of this flamboyant Frenchman and the turbulent days of the birth of the automobile. Read further on this page! 

Hans Knol ten Bensel

The well illustrated book is written by journalist Pierre Barras, a Swiss from the Juras, like Louis Chevrolet himself.

The book is full of personal details of the life of Luis Chevrolet, and richly illustrated...

The book tells us interesting personal details about Louis Chevrolet. He was born in the world capital of Swiss clock making, La Chaux-de-Fonds, and also his father Joseph Felicien was a clock-maker. By the age of seven and a half, Louis moved with his parents to Beaune in France, where his father continued a small clock-making workshop. With seven mouths to feed, the family was not exactly wealthy. The young Chevrolets had barely left school – at the age of eleven in Louis’ case – when they were forced to find work to bring money into the household.

The stuff of heroes, as the American public liked it: the heavy mustache of Louis, the cigarette loosely in his mouth, the face full of passion and drive to win... but look also at the striped suit!  

Louis Chevrolet was fascinated by mechanics from an early age. Soon he worked for a bicycle seller named Roblin. This is where he learned the rudiments of mechanics.

The Roblin workshop was only a few metres away from the Hotel de la Poste, one of the most prestigious hostelries in the region, which it remains right until this day. Of course, well-heeled guests would visit the cycle workshop whenever there was something amiss with their cars. The legend has it that the millionaire Vanderbilt himself once came to the workshop with a mechanical problem, and that the young Chevrolet could repair it. Still according to this story, Vanderbilt then invited the young mechanic with the mustache to come to America…

Early start in Montreal

Louis went first to Montreal, where he had found a job as a chauffeur. This was of course a much more important job as it is today, as the chauffeur was also expected to repair the car or at least to keep it running. But soon he heard that in the United States chauffeurs had a much brighter future. So he arrived in New York in 1901, not speaking one word of English!

If there ever was a flamboyant and lucky racing driver, it must have been Louis Chevrolet. He managed to remain completely unscathed after wrecking this locomotive strong Fiat racer at the training of the Vanderbilt Cop in 1905... note the completely destroyed steering wheel and the chassis member in front of his left foot: bent completely sideways!

Nevertheless, he managed to get himself hired, according to author Pierre Barras, by De Dion Bouton America. He felt well at home here, as the company had other French mechanics.

It would make life easier for the young Chevrolet to have some female help around, and he wrote to his father in Beaune that his two sisters Fanny and Berthe would be able to have a better life in the states, and that he planned to rent a house where they all could live in. His father died at the age of 49 on the 9^th of March 1902, and young Louis now brought the whole family over, including his mother.

Louis the racing driver

In 1905, Luis married happily, and found a new job at the Fiat dealership in New York.

Here it soon became clear that besides his obvious mechanical talents, he also knew how to drive a car, and, even more important, that his competitive spirit was short of unstoppable. He was soon to be found behind the wheel of a ninety horsepower Fiat racing car, and broke the world record for the 1 mile in 52.8 seconds, at an average speed of 109,7 kph on the winding track.

The book depicts Louis as the glorious racing driver... a daredevil adored by the American public!

He then got a second Fiat racer to compete on Long Island in the Vanderbilt Cup race, only to wreck the car in training. That he escaped the accident completely unscathed is nothing short of a miracle, as one sees the massive Fiat chassis being completely bent and the steering wheel literally in pieces.

The Darracq racing car had a massive engine, but the cycle wheels of a dog cart: nevertheless, Luis drove close to 200 kph with it...

In 1906, Louis left Fiat for Darracq, and drove a very powerful Darracq with an absolutely massive V8 engine.

The car must have had an absolutely formidable performance, as Luis managed to drive the flying start mile in a mere 30.6 seconds, or a speed of not less than 189,30 kph.

Then came Durant…

Louis Chevrolet behind the wheel of the Buick "Bug", ahead of its time... and very fast, winning virtually all the Grand Prix in 1909!

Billy Durant, the grandson of a former governor of Michigan, was in the meantime building up his automotive empire. He had acquired Buick and was promoting the make through racing. This is where he met Luis Chevrolet, and his brother Arthur. Both Chevrolet brothers raced on Buicks, and the Buick “bug”, nicknamed because the aerodynamic capsule over its massive engine, won in 1909 virtually all the Grand Prix races.

When the Buick ‘bug’ was on the drawing boards, Chevrolet dreamt about making his own car. Durant saw the commercial importance of having a car bearing the name of a famous racing driver, and gave Chevrolet carte blanche to build a car.

 

The Classic Six was the first Chevrolet, Luis standing in a white coat on the steps completely to the left, with the son of Billy Durant behind the wheel...

The Classic Six was then the first Chevrolet, designed and built in 1911, but going into full production only a year later. The car was luxurious to say the least, and was powerful with a 4.9 litre engine. Top speed was well over 100 kph. In 1913 Chevrolet took his whole family back to France, on a ‘sebatical’ year, but in the meantime, Durant took the occasion to reorganise the company. Durant wanted to produce cheaper, less expensive Chevrolets. Louis disagreed and broke off his relationship with Durant and left the firm. But Durant kept the right to use the name of Louis Chevrolet, and so it grew to be one of the most succesful car makes in history, until this day…

Never give up…

Even when the odds were a bit against him, Louis just gripped the steering wheel a bit firmer and just never gave up... and remained also a gentlemen racing driver until the end: look at the classic, beautiful tie and the fashionably striped soft racing hat! 

Louis Chevrolet diverted his passion again to racing. He was convinced that only a light racing car made sense, and he built a Frontenac racer, with a very narrow aerodynamic body. He used aluminum parts wherever he could, and the car was indeed 250 kilos lighter than its competitors. The Chevrolet brothers Louis and Gaston drove to many wins, but when a racing accident killed his brother and godson Gaston, Chevrolet decided to give up racing for good.

Louis Chevrolet stand proudly behind his Fronty Ford (with lighter suit), just next to ... Henry Ford himself, sitting behind the wheel!   

Not that he left the racing circuits. In 1921, he founded together with his brother Arthur the Chevrolet Brothers Manufacturing Company, established in Indianapolis. The single seater racer they built was based on the model T Ford, but the Chevrolet brothers had designed a special cylinder head, which made the car really fly. This racer, nicknamed the ‘Fronty’ from Ford and Frontignac, was the most sensational performer on quarter mile dirt tracks ever built…

Sadly, the depression took its toll, and after having developed the Fronty Fords for 8 glorious years, the adventure came to an end.

But as we all know, the cars which bear his name live on, right until this day… as he does also in the most recent dossier of Michel Vaillant, titled Louis Chevrolet "Never give up". This strip book contains 5 chapters and tells also the life of the hero, drawings are from the Graton studio, and the texts are from the hand of Pierre Van Vliet

Indeed, the book contains many beautiful drawings, as we come to know it from the Graton studios, and is for sale in Belgium and the Netherlands for 8,50 Euros... and brings the Chevrolet story and also the story of the Chevrolet cars well into the present with the WTCC Cruze "bolides"...

 

Hans Knol ten Bensel