At the time of Durant’s offer, Henry Ford had just introduced the first moving assembly line for cars. (Photo Credit: Ford Motor Co.)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nFord agreed to sell his company to General Motors for $8 million. His terms: $2 million in cash, $2 million in stock, and the remaining $4 million paid during the next three years at 5% interest. But Durant\u2019s acquisition fee left GM short on cash. Durant turned to the National City Bank of New York to ask for a $2 million loan, even as GM\u2019s board of directors gives Durant the authority to buy Ford on Oct. 26, 1909. But the bank was unwilling to take a risk on the fledgling industry, let alone Durant\u2019s new company. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer was no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fallout<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately, Ford would prove victorious over Selden upon appeal, and the assembly line proved a wise innovation. By the 1920s, Ford would control half the U.S. automobile market with a single vehicle, the Model T. Ultimately, through a combination of factors, GM would surpass Ford, become the top seller of automobiles in the U.S. for decades. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, one wonders what might have been had things turned out differently in 1909.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While those same bankers later admitted they made a mistake, Durant harbored no regrets. \u201cI never would have built up that business the way Ford did,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThe Ford business would never have been what it is without Henry Ford, who has done more for America than any other man \u2014 more for the world.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week in automotive history, GM’s founder, Billy Durant, attempts to buy Ford. TheDetroitBureau.com reveals what happened next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13752,"featured_media":211330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[905,7,8,1164],"tags":[3329,3331,1444,1420,3327,3328,3330],"make":[56,58],"post-state":[],"category_old":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13752"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211321"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211361,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211321\/revisions\/211361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211321"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=211321"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=211321"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=211321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}