If you love authentic restorations and car history, the annual Salisbury Automobile Classic is the best of Des Moines, and the event will be held Sunday, September 7 from 12 pm until 5 on the Salisbury House grounds. Ninety vintage cars and hundreds of visitors are expected.
The special interest this year is William Crapo Durant whose life history reads like an out of control comet: son of Michigan’s governor; high school drop out; manager then buyer of Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac (then called Oakland) and Cadillac; came close to buying Ford; founded General Motors; lost them all; co-founded Chevrolet Motors then bought out his partner; rejoined GM and led a huge expansion of the business including the purchase of Fisher Body and formation of GMAC; lost enormous wealth in the 1920s; fired at GM; founded another auto company only to go bankrupt during the Great Depression; managed a bowling alley in Flint; collected a pension from GM. He was a genius who at several wrong times, ran his businesses and his life a little too close to the edge of insolvency.
You can read his story in
- Flint Journal
- the Flint library website
- encyclopedia.com
- GM next
I have gone the last three years. To me the Salisbury Automobile Classic was well worth the time.
photos by Jim Lindberg
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
awesome cars dude
is anyone allowed to get a ride in them
considering they must b lotsa dollars to own
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