Billy Durant makes a purchase

In 1926, Billy Durant was back in the saddle at General Motors, and was once again casting around for ways to expand GM's share of the market. Sitting there, ostensibly ripe for the plucking, was Dodge Brothers. Durant courted Dodge, but the deal never quite made it to fruition.

Suppose, then, that the deal had gone through. What are the implications for GM now that (for example) you have three makes capable of producing trucks, and now that there's another mid-level brand aiming at about the same demographic as Oldsmobile? And what does Walter Chrysler do, assuming he still goes after Maxwell/Briscoe? Could he have gone after REO (whose products were roughly comparable to the contemporary Dodge offerings), or perhaps worked out something with Studebaker?
 
In 1926, Durant was NOT in the saddle at GM. J.P. Morgan and the other new GM backers of the early 1920s forced him out after a 1921 recession hit GM, and Durant tried to prop it up with his own funds. The debt piled fast, and Morgan and others bailed him out to save their own stakes, but forced him to resign. He founded Durant Motors in 1923, which did alright through the 1920s but suffered badly in the depression, and went bust in 1933. Durant went personally bankrupt in 1936.

As for GM buying Dodge, this would badly hinder Chrysler's attempts to make his company substantial as the Dodge brothers' business formed much of the base of Chrysler Corporation. The Dodge brothers went into the car business because Henry Ford refused to make them an integral part of his business.
 
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