Durant builds Buick, creates GM and Chevrolet
Durant, known as Billy to business associates, was a quietly charismatic figure, neither loud nor a back-slapper. He was about 5-foot-8, slim, often flashing a big smile and in his mid-40s always carrying an air of confidence. Besides his reputation as a supersalesman , he was also becoming known as a genius as a promoter and organizer of businesses. However he was also criticized for a lack of brakes when the economy turned sour.

Two years after Durant created GM, the bankers cut off his credit and took control. So Durant, with just a little help from former Buick race driver Louis Chevrolet, put together Chevrolet Motor Company. Through promotion, business deals and just plain salesmanship, Durant built Chevrolet into a giant within five years, traded Chevrolet stock for GM stock, and in 1915-16 regained control of GM from the bankers. Taking the presidency of GM, the company he had founded, for the first time, he now built GM into a company eight times larger than the GM he had regained in 1916. Along the way he added Fisher Body and developed a fledgling refrigerator company he himself named Frigidaire - another "self-seller" - before turning it over to GM. He also brought into GM such iconic automotive stars as Alfred P. Sloan Jr. and Charles F. Kettering. Never missing an opportunity to get help from old Flint associates, he leaned on A.B.C. Hardy, a former Durant-Dort president who in 1901-03 was Flint's first automobile builder, to manage Chevrolet production in Flint.