The Durant
Born: 1921 Nationality: American
Dismissed as chief executive of General Motors, William (Billy) Crapo Durant set up his own company with a view to match and compete with every type of car then on sale.
His first vehicle was the A-22 (right), with a 4-cylinder Continental engine. It was on sale by the end of a frenzied first year in which Durant set up plants in no fewer than five states and in Canada. By January of 1922, the B-22, a 6-cylinder version of the original car, had also been introduced - it was twice the price and wasn't very successful.
Eyeing Henry Ford's success, Durant announced the Star in February 1922 as a direct competitor to the Model T. In June he acquired a prototype and a plant from Willys-Overland, and this became the first model of yet another brand, the Flint. Then, in July, hoping to have a contender against Cadillac, Durant bought the assets of bankrupt Locomobile which had been established in 1899.
At the 1923 New York car show, Durant announced yet another brand, Princeton, and in the same month established the Mason company to build trucks. By the middle of the year, the Star was being exported to Australia, but as the Rugby because rights to the name for the whole of the British Empire were held by a British firm. Before the end of the year, the Princeton name had been dropped, and the car that was to have borne the badge was now a Flint.
From 1924 to 1926, all Durant brands continued in production, including an upmarket Star R, with a 6-cylinder engine and new variants of the Flint models. But Flint wasn't going so well, and Durant closed its Michigan plant in the summer of 1926. Then, in 1927, the whole Durant operation ceased production for restructuring. When car-making began again in 1928, the Flint and Mason brands were no more.
The Star brand also disappeared early in that year, and a number of its models were rebadged as Durant-Stars, or simply Durant. The most popular Star had been the 4-cylinder M2, but the rebadged version didn't survive beyond September, when it was replaced by the M4. In 1929, the company had only two brands left, the Durant and the Rugby, the latter now used for trucks. The key cars were the Model 40 and the Model 55, which was in fact a rebadged Star R and soon became the Durant 60.
Despite a completely new line of Durants for 1930 and plans to make a French car, the Mathis, things were going rapidly downhill for Durant. A number of its factories were closed. The California operation was restructured as De Vaux-Hall Motors, and the Canadian business was renamed Dominion Motors.
In January 1932, both De Vaux-Hall and Durant filed for bankruptcy, and the De Vaux assets were bought by the firm's engine suppliers, Continental, which launched two new cars under the Continental-De Vaux brand in the spring. In Canada, Dominion officially ceased production in 1933, but in reality hadn't produced any cars since the previous year.
William Crapo Durant died in 1947, his ambition of besting GM, which he had driven to its first success and then been fired from, shattered.
BEST CAR: Probably the Star M2, Durant's most popular car
WORST CAR: None are recorded as being bad, but we could argue the B-22, because it was far too expensive for its class
WEIRDEST CAR: All were very conservative in style, but the 1930 612 offered a "Pullman Attachment" option that allowed the seats to be reclined into a couch