Durant had experience in mass production? One the things that struck me about the early auto industry is how many were behind the time in this. Custom carriage makes sticking motors on their buggies.
Anyone think Hayes could have kept his lead absent Ford?
Ford is still gonna Ford, even if he stays at the 'Henry Ford Company' that became Cadillac under Leland. OTL, he and his financiers butted heads(imagine that). At that time, Ford's interest was towards racing high HP cars.
So handwave a bit, he stays at HFC, with emphasis on high performance autos.
Durant liked buying his way to profitability by acquiring companies: that was not sustainable, but he did well in making a holding company, United Motors Corporation that existed to supply smaller parts to automakers, they joined up with GM in time, the best know of those subsidiaries was Delco.
So Durant was an early proponent of Vertical Integration, but achieve3d that buy buying existing companies, rather than doing it all in house as Ford did with FMC
Mass Production via the assembly line predated Ford( like Olds or Hart-Parr), using it to dominate a whole market segment by turning output to 11 was Ford.
Without Ford at the low end, Hayes will still get killed by Maxwell