There aren’t very many Chevrolet Classic Six models left, and of the paltry few survivors, the oldest running example is accessible to the public nearly every day. That Classic Six can be seen year-round in the Flint, Mich., Sloan Museum.
The fact that this car was built in Flint also plays into this story. According to Jacob Gilbert of the Sloan Museum, Louis Chevrolet started building the Classic Six in Detroit. When he went on a vacation to his native Switzerland in August 1913, “Billy” Durant moved all Chevrolet manufacturing to a plant in Flint where the Durant-owned Little Motor Car Co. operated. The Little was named after William H. Little, who had worked as the general manager of Buick when Durant put together his original General Motors empire in 1908.
While Buick was one of the better acquisitions Durant made, he also made some terrible buys that didn’t pay off. Back in 1910, Durant was broke and desperately in need of money, which some banks agreed to give him if he relinquished control of General Motors. He was forced to accept their conditions, so he took the money, left GM and hooked up with Louis Chevrolet to start a new car company named after Chevrolet, who was a well-known Buick Racing Team driver and car designer. Chevrolet had come to America to make his fortune in the New World, and he was poised to make it with Durant.
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