How a Chevrolet ended up in a Chrysler at Indianapolis

Louis Chevrolet

By Bob Erickson
NTC Communications

Born in Switzerland in 1878, Louis Chevrolet came to America in 1901 and established a reputation as a mechanic and a race driver, winning his first road race on a cinder track in New York state in 1905.

Chevrolet then brought his younger brothers Arthur and Gaston to America and left for Flint, Michigan, to drive for W.C. Durant, founder of General Motors. Chevrolet drove a Buick in the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911, but a broken camshaft put him out of the race early.

Louis Chevrolet behind the wheel of the 1926 Indy pace car. Click the photo for a pdf with more information.

Meanwhile, Durant split from GM and privately hired Chevrolet in 1912 to make a very expensive luxury car called the Chevrolet Classic Six. Chevrolet was a consulting engineer, not an officer, in the Chevrolet Motor Car Company.

Chevrolet resigned the next year, apparently upset after Durant decided to make cheaper vehicles but keep the Chevrolet nameplate. Meanwhile, General Motors reorganized with Chevrolet becoming its leading division.

Without even his name available to him, Chevrolet formed the Frontenac Motor Corporation. By 1917 he had a new and very advanced racing machine, complete with an aluminum engine block, but no production system. Seeking a regular paycheck, he signed on as vice-president and chief engineer for a new company called the American Motors Corporation. He helped develop their American Beauty, but when development got under way his services were deemed expendable.

Walter P. Chrysler (arm on door) had worked for William Durant at Buick, but the two parted on unfriendly terms. So it must have been especially nice for to have Louis Chevrolet behind the wheel of his Chrysler pace car for the 1926 classic.

The Monroe Company next hired Chevrolet to build a race car. He updated his Frontenac racer and with his brother Gaston at the controls, won the 1920 Indianapolis 500. Tragically, Gaston would die before the year was out in a fiery crash on a boardwalk raceway in Beverly Hills, California.

With the prestige garnered from the Indianapolis victory, Chevrolet obtained backers to incorporate Frontenac Motors, but the company went bankrupt with his cars still on the design table. Another car company failed in 1924 and Chevrolet turned to boat racing, winning the Miami Regatta in 1925. But the victory did not translate into widespread success.

In 1926, he was invited out of courtesy to drive the pace car in that year's Indy 500. Ironically, it was not a Chevy, but the brand-new Chrysler Imperial E-80. The “80” designation represented the speed the car was guaranteed to run at – 80 mph. That was an astonishing speed for the roads of the day.

The Chrysler Imperial E-80

In 1929, Louis and Arthur Chevrolet left the auto business altogether to form the Chevrolet Brothers Aircraft Company with a new engine of their design, but they lost the business. Finally in 1934, out of charity and a moral obligation towards the man who gave their best-selling car its name, General Motors put Louis Chevrolet on their payroll.

Illness forced Chevrolet to retire in 1938. He and his wife lived in a small Florida apartment but the humid climate accelerated his decline in health and he returned to Detroit for a leg operation in early 1941. Complications forced a complete amputation from which Chevrolet never recovered. He died in 1941 at the age of 63 and was buried in Indianapolis, scene of his greatest racing triumph.