… Characters and Stories
Walter Flanders was a colorful figure in the emerging automobile industry and survived in positions of authority long after many of the others, like Ransom Olds, found themselves on the sidelines (voluntarily or otherwise). Unlike the pioneers of the day, such as Ford, Olds and of course Billy, Flanders was not a founder but a … Continue
History books tell us the automobile started in Europe with inventors like Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz. That may be true for the “rich sons’ toy,” as Billy Durant scornfully called it. But the car industry we know today was born in America. And this is the car that did it: the Curved Dash Oldsmobile … Continue
Do you remember the famous 1984 Super Bowl ad for the Apple Macinstosh? If you’re too young to know about it, or too old to remember it, here is a link to the ad. In advertising, context is everything, so allow me to set the scene. In the 1970s Apple launched the personal computer revolution with … Continue
Billy Durant engineered the greatest comeback in U.S. business history… to this day. At least that’s what I claim. A skeptic or two have pointed out that honor belongs to Steve Jobs and his heroic return to Apple. Hmm… let’s compare them. What Jobs Did We all know Jobs and Woz started Apple in their … Continue
Some people have asked: “So, William, what’s your next project going to be about?” (In author-world, I am discovering, you don’t talk about a book, you talk about a project. 🙂 ) It’s another “based on a true” story. This one is more current, set in 1998, and it involves some of the most famous … Continue
When you read Comeback! there are a few names which pop up every now and then. Not so often you get to know them, but often enough to make you scratch your head: now who was that again? Fred Aldrich is one of those. Aldrich was the same age as Billy Durant, and a friend … Continue
If you had to describe James H. Whiting in one word it would be distinguished. Outside of the Durant-Dort employee circle, few people had as much of an impact on Billy’s career as Mr. Whiting. Thirteen years Billy’s senior, Jim Whiting thought ahead like Billy, perhaps even more so, because not once, but twice, Whiting … Continue
Dabblers tinkered aplenty with horseless carriages as the 1800s wound down. The Dureya brothers tried to make a business of it, as did Alexander Winton of Cleveland. In 1899 Winton was the best selling maker of automobiles (with less than 400 sold) based largely on his reputation as a winning race car driver. Such was … Continue
When you do research for a historic novel, few things put you in the period like the ads appearing in the media of the period. Advertisers understand us better sometimes than we understand ourselves–their livelihoods depend on it. They know what our buttons are and how to push them to get us to open our … Continue
Sometimes an era is captured by something other than news reports. Today, of course, we have the internet with Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, Shutterfly and we keep images on our cellphones. Before those sites, and even the internet, people had to buy their art from artists, who were either affordable and unknown or known and pricey. … Continue