Arthur Chevrolet

What’s Juicy

The Chevrolet Brothers did immigrate from Switzerland at the turn of the century. Louis came over first, then sent money for his brothers to come over as well. If you are interested, the Chevrolet Brothers website has some really neat pictures and articles. Arthur raced in the first Indy 500 in 1911 but did not finished because of engine problems after 30 or so laps. He was driving a Buick and it seems to have something to do with the overhead valve engine design they were using.

When they started Chevrolet with Durant, all of the vehicles were going to have overhead valve engines. The Chevrolet Brothers wanted to make race cars and Durant wanted to make more affordable passenger cars. There was a fist fight and they parted ways after only a few years. The name was kept, but there are several legends about where the bowtie logo came from.

Frontenac was their attempt to do what Durant wouldn’t let them do… make race cars. Albert Champion was a successful French cyclist and was a partner in Frontenac. They had a falling out but there was no mention of the issue (I made up spark plugs) or a fist fight. There is a strange story about Albert’s death though. He died at 49 in a luxury hotel in Paris after his wife’s married lover punched him. The fist fight seemed probable after hearing this.

Gaston ended up winning the championship that year posthumously because he accumulated enough points that no one could catch him. The Frontenac’s were pretty good race cars.

The Chevrolair was a good idea with bad timing because of the depression. The brothers had a falling out at this time and it did become physical from several accounts. I noticed that I mixed the company/corporations with the Chevrolet vs Martin names. That was a mistake. Martin didn’t do too much changing to the Chevrolet logo. Martin did become Lockheed Martin after a bunch of mergers through the years.

I don’t know if the brothers grew tired of making companies for other people but it sure did happen a lot. Arthur took his job working in Columbus, Indiana for Cummins as a research mechanic. He enjoyed bowling and golf. Preston Tucker asked him to come work for his aviation company as he was merging with Higgins. The quote from Arthur is real and it does sound a lot like The Godfather quote, but it isn’t related as far as I know. When I saw that Francis Ford Coppola directed “Tucker: A Man and His Dream”, I couldn’t resist.

Higgins Industries made the Higgins boats and they were said by many to have won the war. The National World War II Museum was built in New Orleans because of the Higgins Factory. Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex in his presidential farewell address. Technically, he invented the term.

The bourbon and fist fight tale over the naming of Tucker Higgins Aviation Company was made up. People need to be more creative with names. Maybe some bourbon would help. Too much, and you get stuff like Tucker Higgins aviation Company. The fact about the plywood needing to be warm and damp is strange and true. Once they decided to build the aviation plant, the government took over the boat factory.

That’s when the Army Corps of Engineers comes in. The song playing in the background was written in the 1960s for a government promotion for the group. Their mottos is Essayons or “Let us Try”. The plant became the Michoud Assembly Facility and produced rockets and the fuel tank for the space shuttle. They are currently building the rockets for the Space Launch System (SLS) which will propel the Orion spacecraft.

Tucker and Higgins had no reason to work together without a government contract. The C-76 was a horrible plane and not many were made. There probably wasn’t a fist fight. Tucker went on to make his car company, but that is another story. Just watch the movie.

The house on Carrey St. is supposedly his home. It has been a couple of restaurants over the years. The story about his grandson Gerald is true. There were a lot of people drowning in Lake Pontchartrain in those days. I’m not sure if he paid his taxes or not, but he did hang himself although sources vary on whether it was in the garage or in the house. My bet is on the garage.

Up until 2017, people thought Arthur was buried in Indianapolis. The cemetery name in Indianapolis is really Holy Cross and Saint Joseph. These catholic names get a bit hard to follow at times.

The story about the letter is true as is the request to be in an unmarked grave in Slidell away from his brothers. The records were lost in Hurricane Katrina, but they were not going to put a marker on his grave anyway to respect his wishes. The tradition about what direction graves are facing is real and so is the reason. Check it out next time you go by a cemetery.

The marker for Arthur was left just inside the entrance to the cemetery. They added a part on bottom to make the grave marker more of a memorial. It says, “In These Hallowed Grounds, The Exact Location Unknown, Rests Arthur Chevrolet”