Louis Chevrolet
| Louis Chevrolet | |
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| Nationality | Swiss (1878–1915) American (from 1915) |
| Born | Louis-Joseph Chevrolet December 25, 1878 La Chaux-de-Fonds, Canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland |
| Died | June 6, 1941 (aged 62) Detroit, Michigan, United States |
Louis-Joseph "Louis" Chevrolet (December 25, 1878 – June 6, 1941) was a Swiss-born American race car driver of French descent, co-founder of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in 1911, and a founder in 1916 of the Frontenac Motor Corporation, which made racing parts for Ford's Model T.
The second child of Joseph-Félicien and Marie-Anne Angéline, née Mahon, Louis-Joseph Chevrolet was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Canton of Neuchâtel, a center of watchmaking in northwestern Switzerland. In 1886, Chevrolet's family left Switzerland to live in Beaune, in the Côte-d'Or département of France. There, as a young man, Louis developed his mechanical skills and interest in bicycle racing.
Chevrolet worked for the Roblin mechanics shop from 1895 to 1899. He then went to Paris, where he worked for a short time before emigrating to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1900 to work as a mechanic. The following year, he moved to New York City, where he worked briefly for a fellow Swiss immigrant's engineering company, then moved to the Brooklyn operations of the French car manufacturer de Dion-Bouton.
In 1905 he married Suzanne Treyvoux; the couple had two sons. In the same year, he was hired by FIAT as a racing car driver. In 1907, Chevrolet was hired by in Philadelphia, probably for a secret project to develop a revolutionary front-wheel-drive racing car.
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