Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, a Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History

Tells the story of the early days of the American auto industry.

As a designer, a student and teacher of transportation design history, I find this book a master piece and indispensable documentation of the early and formative years of the industry.As a designer, my knowledge and interest of the industry starts after 1926 when Mr.Earl entered the stage. Everything happened before that were rather sporadical to me (with the exception of Ford’s model T and mass production). This book connected all the dots for me and added the perspective I badly needed for the early days of the industry.The book is also well organized, authentic and very engaging to read. Just well done Mr. Pelfrey! Thank you!

loved it.excellent book

I was looking for a biography of Alfred Sloan which does not seem to be available on Kindle, so I bought this instead. I am very pleased to have stumbled upon this easy reading gem. It is a fascinating story which necessarily covers much more than Sloan and Durant. The subject matter is gigantic and could never be exhaustively presented in such a relatively short, well edited, well researched book. Basically it whetted my appetite to learn more details of not only Sloan and Durant but also Ford, the duPont family, Chrysler, the Dodge brothers and others. I am distressed to see how far cities such as Detroit and Flint have fallen. I am amazed that Durant died almost anonymously and practically broke. I recommend this book to business students and people who are interested in American history in general but who do not want to wade through a dense academic tome. I will note that to some readers, the author might appear to be unsympathetic to labor. However, I feel that the author was simply presenting management's anti union positions.

Well written, very informative