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Chevrolet 1911-1960
By Michael W. R. Davis


PHOTO (select to view enlarged photo)

A Book Review
By Steve Purdy
TheAutoChannel.com
Michigan Bureau

CHEVROLET
1911 – 1960
(Images of America Series)
By Michael W. R. Davis
Arcadia Publishing
$21.99 – www.arcadiapublishing.com

Reading history books can be tedious and a bit dry requiring great effort and dedication, but Arcadia Publishing created a format and design called Images of America that changes all that. The format uses historic photographs with extensive captions to tell important stories. That makes for an easy and entertaining read. Whom ever said a picture is worth a thousand words was certainly right.

We now have another Arcadia book by Detroit area author and historian Michael W. R. Davis to entertain us – Chevrolet 1911 – 1960 - all about Chevrolet’s first fifty years. Soon we’ll have his next book about the second fifty. Can't wait for that one as well. These books honor Chevrolets Centennial celebrated in 2011.

Mr. Davis’ has earned impeccable credentials as an automotive historian. Having spent a full career doing public relations for Ford Motor Company he retired to become a journalist and author of mostly automotive-themed books. He is an active member of the Society of Automotive Historians and serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Automotive History Collection, a special collection of the Detroit Public Library, where much of his research is done. His previous Arcadia books have covered local history topics as well as automotive ones. You may recall a review done here on one of his books a few years ago called Detroit Area Test Tracks. Another of my favorite Davis books is called Detroit Wartime Industry: Arsenal of Democracy.

Those familiar with automotive history will know many of the people, places and events chronicled in this lively book. But, I’ll bet everyone will find some surprises. I certainly did. The book begins well before automobiles came on the scene with a description of lumbering and wagon making in the Flint area and how those industries set the stage for William “Billy” Durant to form Chevrolet in 1911 after his many other business success. We see the factories of early Flint and the unusual automobiles that preceded Chevrolet and took root there.

The book follows essentially a chronological structure broken into chapters that make sense historically, wandering in an orderly way through the designated five decades. We see how the great promoter Billy Durant hired racing driver Louis Chevrolet to Buicks and help design an affordable car to challenge Henry Ford. Durant was not happy with the design and Chevrolet went back to his racing career. We see how the company survived the depression and began making trucks and how they retooled to contribute to the war effort.

The people get nearly as much attention as do the automobiles. In the 1920s William S. Knudsen left Ford to become production boss. He presided over manufacturing at Chevy until he became GM into the depression years. Surprise – it was about then that Chevrolet became title sponsor of the most popular spectator event in the country, the Soap Box Derby.

World War II and the immediate postwar period generate many great stories told concisely by Mr. Davis’ rich captions.

Finally, for this book at least, we get just enough stories of the frenetic fifties punctuated by the introduction of one of the most important cars in the company’s history – the Corvette – and one of the most important engines in automotive history – the small block V8.

Though condensed into less than a hundred and thirty pages these approximately two hundred photos with detailed captions tell the story so well, and so colorfully you’ll forget the photos were all black and white.

This book will make a great holiday gift for all your car lovers.

©Steve Purdy, Shunpiker Productions, All Rights Reserved