DURANT MOTORS, INC.

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 154, 20 September 1927, Page 7

DURANT MOTORS, INC.

RAPID RISE TO POWER Compared with the history of other automobile manufacturing concerns, the progress of Durant Motors Incorporated, since its inception has been remarkable. Although scarcely five years old, the corporation as it is to-day governs many huge concerns, including Durant Motors, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, with a capable output of over 450 cars a day (several other makes of cars, including the Flint, are manufactured in the same plant), Durant Motors, of Lansing, Michigan, with an output of 350 cars a day; Durant Motors, of California, with an output of 250 cars a day; and Durant Motors, of Toronto, Canada, producing 200 cars a day. The Locomobile and Flint Motor Companies and the Hayes-Hunt Motor Car Body Manufacturing Company are also directly controlled by Durant Motors Incorporated. DURANT’S AMBITION

In addition to these mammoth plants, Durant also operates within its organisation the New Process Gear Company, the Adams Axle Company, of Findlay, Ohio, and Syracuse, N.Y., the Warner Corporation, manufacturing steering gears and transmissions; and the American Plate Glass Company, of Pennsylvania, manufacturing approximately one-sixth of the plateglass produced in the United States.

Previous to organising Durant Motors, the founder, Mr. Durant, had been in the automobile business since the days when a horse and buggy were considered an ideal means of road conveyance. Pie was also instrumental in building up the huge concerns known as General Motors. But. after severing his connections with this organisation, Mr. Durant, with a few loyal members of his former staff, brought the Durant Motor Company into being, and formulated the first Durant car, known later as the model A-22. Eventually built and placed on the market, it commanded a wonderful and Immediate success. ORGANISING ABILITY

An idea of the wonderful organising ability and commanding personality of Mr. Durant may be gauged from “the following words of Mr. F. H. Pounsett, overseas representative of Durant Motors, in a speech during a dinner following upon the Rugby dealers’ conference.

“Mr. Durant seems to be a dynamic force, and absolutely knows no rest. He is a driving force, though he does not give that impression at first. To meet him you would think that he is just a lovely old gentleman, a man you could talk to and who would be very interested to hear you. At the same time, he could tell you just how many nails it takes to put into the top of an automobile, or how many pounds of upholstery are needed in the car. Pie has that hold over the automobile building industry that is something absolutely marvellous, in that it can be carried around in the brain of one man, and it is the capacity for detail that makes Mr. Durant and his organisation so wonderfully powerful to-day.’-