1929 Durant

First of three parts

William Crapo Durant is one of the larger-than-life characters from the early years of the automobile business.
A born salesman, he gained control of Buick in 1904 and marketed it so successfully that he was able to buy a number of other automobile and parts manufacturers, including Cadillac, and merge them in 1908 into a company he called General Motors.
He’d be remembered as one of motoring’s great pioneers if he’d stopped there. However, Durant got overextended and lost control of GM in 1910. He then teamed up with race car driver Louis Chevrolet, determined to create another company modelled on his GM model that would offer a car in every price range. He didn’t have to. After buying out Chevrolet’s interests he made enough money to again take control of GM in 1916, only to lose it for good in 1920.
But Billy Durant was an empire builder and just a few months later he was back in business – and this time with a company, and a car, bearing his name.
Durant Motors Inc. began manufacturing 4- and 6-cylinder automobiles in 1921 and, following the GM example, soon offered a wide number of brands in all price ranges –Star, Durant, Flint, Eagle, Princeton and Locomobile.

1927 Star

Durant had enjoyed a long friendship with R.S. McLaughlin of Oshawa, Ont. – a relationship which had led to the formation of General Motors of Canada in 1918. So it was only natural that his new enterprise also should acquire a Canadian component.
Thus, Durant Motors of Canada was incorporated on Sept. 3, 1921 and operations set up in a former munitions factory in Leaside, now part of Toronto.
A contract with Durant Motors Inc. was signed giving the Canadian plant the rights to build and sell Durant and Star automobiles for 20 years. Billy Durant retained half the shares in the new company – and also got half the profits.
According to the 1973 book, Cars of Canada, in its first two years the Leaside factory assembled more than 13,000 low-priced Stars and medium-priced Durants, sold through a country-wide network of 445 dealers. Leaside made its own bodies and some other parts, but brought in Continental engines from Muskegon, Mich.
By 1924 Durant had become Canada’s third largest domestic automaker and in 1924 the Canadian operation was given the rights to handle all of the company’s export business to British possessions.
By the end of 1926, some 5,000 cars had been exported by the Canadian branch plant and that year, after paying taxes and retiring previous debt, it earned a profit of $133,581.
Things were really humming at Leaside under the direction of newly appointed president Roy Kerby, a staunchly Canadian super-salesman from Petrolia, Ont.
But just as things had always gone sour for Durant at General Motors, in 1926 things also began to fall apart at the American enterprise that bore his name. This led to the formation of a new Canadian auto company, which we’ll explore in future installments.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com