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On August 3, 1911 Durant and Mason, who was the Buick Engine Superintendant since 1903, incorporated the Mason Motor Company, leasing space from the Flint Wagon Works plant on West Kearsley Street in Flint, Michigan (photo on left). The company would soon receive an order from the yet-to-be-incorporated [see editor's note in previous paragraph ] "Chevrolet car company" for 2,500 four cylinder engines for the first year, as reported in the Flint Daily Journal August 5, 1911 edition.

Flint Wagon Works President C.M. Begole and treasurer W.S. Ballenger made a deal with Durant on September 13, 1911 to sell him the Flint Wagon Works including the entire property, goods, and equipment for $10 cash and stock in his new car manufacturing company - a company not yet formed! Durant accepted and the Flint Wagon Works shareholders approved the purchase at their meeting on October 12th. A $200,000 bond yielding 5% was issued to former president of the wagon works, J.H. Whiting (former president of the Flint Wagon Works and its largest stockholder who had just been voted out of being President by the Flint Wagon Works Board of Directors) as a settlement to his court claim against the company. The lawsuit stemmed from money owed him for personal loans made to the company. The rest of Flint Wagon Works debt was owed to Begole and Ballenger from a $1.2 million Little Motor Company stock issue, while other stockholders received an exchange worth 25% on the dollar.

Thus, the Little Motor Company was incorporated October 30, 1911 in Flint and took over the facility that was already tooled to manufacture / assemble the Whiting motor cars.

The Flint Daily Journal reported on October 31st that the Little Car Company would build a six cylinder touring car and a four cylinder roadster.

The Chevrolet Motor Car Company was incorporated on November 3, 1911 in Michigan by Durant, Louis Chevrolet, William Little, and Edwin Campbell (William Durant's son-in-law). Headquarters were based in Detroit at the West Grand Boulevard plant. Louis Chevrolet was awarded $10,000 in stock in the Chevrolet Motor Company but Bill Little received at least $250,000 in stock.

The Flint Daily Journal of November 10, 1911 reported that an experimental Little Four was assembled at Chevrolet Motor Company's Detroit plant and shipped to the Little Motor Company in Flint by express rail on November 9th. No photographs are known to exist of this prototype.

No vehicles were produced in 1911 by the Detroit plant though two prototypes were completed by Louis Chevrolet and his team. The Little mentioned above and the second prototype, the future big six touring car - pictured here circa late 1911 with Louis Chevrolet in the driver's seat.

1911 ended without a single car from Little or Chevrolet in production. Durant finished November and December of 1911 at the Flint Wagon Works building wagons and completing the last of the Whiting motor cars left from the buyout. Production of the first car, the Little Four, would begin the following year.