General Motors was founded by a man who made his first fortune building horse-drawn carriages.
Billy Durant ran the largest carriage company in America before he touched a car. From 1908 he rolled more than a dozen automakers, Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and others, into General Motors. Twice his financiers took it from him. By 1940 the founder of what became the world’s biggest carmaker was running a bowling alley in Flint.
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