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History of the Chevy Bow Tie

HawaiianBrian

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Not sure if this was shared previously. Got this info from a TV show last night.

The Chevy Bow Tie was thought up on a trip to France, it was wall paper design at a hotel.

Could it be true?

Google to the rescue, found this...
http://www.chevrolet.com/culture/article/bowtie-history.html




 
The bow tie came from the mind of Billy aka William C. Durant  :B: 

French hotel wallpaper, Swiss flag cross, newspaper ad, dinner table doodle  ???

In my somewhat expert opinion the correct answer is (A) wallpaper (E) all of the above.

Mystery solved? this is very plausible,... Durant partnered with Louis Chevrolet who was a Frenchman born in Switzerland, when he saw a similar logo in a newspaper ad it reminded him of the wallpaper, the French and Swiss connections didn't escape him so later he doodled it at the dinner table.

Billy Durant always had many irons in the fire, about 1885 at age 24 he got into wagon building and partnered with J. Dallas Dort in Flint, MI, by 1890 the Durant-Dort Carriage Company (which was a precursor to GM) was on it's way to becoming the leading manufacturer of horse drawn vehicles in the world. Durant used the same strategy of start-ups, buyouts and mergers to turn a failing Buick into General Motors. He lost control of GM, then started Chevy which he used it to take back control of GM before losing it again.

Consider this: Durant attempted to buy FORD, depending on who you ask either Ford spurned the offer or the GM board of directors over-rode the decision but both could be true. It's possible Ford wanted more money so Durant upped the ante and the board said no. Had GM bought Ford it's entirely possible the bow tie floating around in Durant's head may have replace the Ford oval we all know or it could have been used as a logo for countless other companies GM did purchase.

I was born in Flint, MI in 1960, I've worked for GM in Flint for thirty years. In the mid 1970's after months of exhaustive research (both personal and library, no internet!) I got an "A" on my term paper titled: "The History of General Motors: The First Ten Years" (btw- my grandfather and namesake was a UAW/GM organizer/sit-down striker in the '30s.) I'm an avid reader and history buff so there's little I don't know about the subject.

Flint MI, Buick, Chevrolet and General Motors are part of my hometown family history.
 
Very interesting. I've always wondered whether Henry would have just started another competing company if GM had bought Ford back then, and today things would still be the same except Ford Motor Co. would just have a different name, logo and history. Who knows, those were wild times for the auto industry.
 
MLM said:
Very interesting. I've always wondered whether Henry would have just started another competing company if GM had bought Ford back then, and today things would still be the same except Ford Motor Co. would just have a different name, logo and history. Who knows, those were wild times for the auto industry.

Had Ford sold out he would have had the capital, maybe he'd have taken a page from GM and created something like AMC by buying out many of those companies years before they banded together to survive.

Read this about the McLaughlin-Buick GM Canada history connection.

http://www.gm.ca/gm/english/corporate/about/ourhistory/detail
 
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