Industry | Automobile |
---|---|
Fate | Dissolved |
Founded | 1921 |
Defunct | 1931 |
Headquarters | Lansing, Michigan, United States |
Key people
|
William C. Durant |
Products | Vehicles |
Divisions |
Durant Flint Star/Rugby Mason Truck |
Subsidiaries | Locomobile Company of America |
Coordinates: 42°44′11″N 84°34′40″W / 42.736525°N 84.577809°W
Durant Motors Inc. was established in 1921 by former General Motors CEO William "Billy" Durant following his termination by the GM board of directors and the New York bankers that financed GM.
Durant Motors attempted to be a full-line automobile producer of cars and fielded the Flint, Durant, and Star brands which were designed to meet Buick, Oldsmobile, Oakland, and Chevrolet price points. Billy Durant also acquired luxury-car maker Locomobile of Bridgeport, Connecticut, at its liquidation sale in 1922; in theory, Locomobile gave him a product that would compete against Cadillac, Rolls Royce and Pierce-Arrow. Durant Motors had a relationship with the Dort, Frontenac, and DeVaux automobile name badges. The Rugby line was the export name for Durant's Star Car line. However, from 1928 to 1931, Durant marketed trucks in the US and Canadian markets under the badge Rugby Trucks. The Princeton, a model aimed at the Packard and Cadillac price point, was planned but never realized; also planned was the Eagle car line, but it never made it off the drafting tables.