The price Louis Chevrolet had to pay for his pride

Destiny has this uncanny ability to pursue genius and uncover it even if it's hidden in the innermost recesses of oblivion. One of the biggest examples is the fascinating story of how the son of a watchmaker from a sleepy little village in Switzerland was lured out of there by the American dream and went on to help create one of the most famous and enduring American brands — Chevrolet.

Louis Chevrolet, whose family had moved to a French province when he was nine, found a job at a bicycle repair shop there. Legend has it that one day he was summoned to a nearby hotel where a guest's steam-driven tricycle needed repair. That guest was American multimillionaire William Vanderbilt.

Impressed by young Louis' exceptional mechanical skills, Vanderbilt invited him to America. That was the day Louis Chevrolet fell in love with the automobile and also started dreaming of crossing the Atlantic. Although little would he have realised how huge an impact his name would ultimately have on the world of automobiles.

He didn't go straight to the US though. Together with his two younger brothers, Louis migrated to Montreal, Canada where he earned a living as a chauffeur. Although there wasn't anything exciting about the job, he used this opportunity to get more acquainted with cars and their mechanical fundamentals. And the driving experience he gained thus stood him in great stead when he turned his attention to racing, which was gaining immense popularity during the turn of the century. His reputation as a skilled mechanic and a racer grew steadily after his first race win in New York in 1905.

Again as destiny would have it, he moved from New York with his brothers, who were also into racing by then, to Michigan. There he raced Buicks for none other than William C Durant, founder of General Motors, who had been forced out of the company by then.

Durant wanted to capitalise on Louis' fame as a racing driver, so he named his new venture the Chevrolet Motor Car Company. He hired Louis Chevrolet as a consulting engineer to design his dream car.

But when the Chevrolet Classic Six was born, it was as expensive as it was powerful, and the shrewd businessman that he was, Durant realised that the car would have to be cheaper and accessible to all in order to be successful. But the proud Louis did not want his name associated with cheaper cars and he parted ways with Durant.

And in what proved to be his biggest mistake, he sold his share in the company, thus forfeiting the chance to be a multimillionaire as the Chevrolet Motor Car Company went on to be a huge success. In fact, the company did so well that it helped Durant buy his way back into GM, where Chevrolet became its main division.

And in a sad anticlimax, Louis Chevrolet lost all the money he had made in the stock market crash of the Twenties and his attempt at establishing an automobile company of his own failed.

He spent his final years earning a pittance as a regular employee at GM, which was raking in millions through the Chevrolet badge, and died a pauper in 1941. Although he couldn't reap financial benefits from the company he helped found, his name will live as long as Americans love their Chevys.