GM... a bit of French history too...

Chevrolet (pronounced /ˌʃɛvrəˈleɪ/, of French origin) (also known as Chevy /ˈʃɛvi/) is a brand produced by General Motors. It is the top selling GM marque, with "Chevrolet" or "Chevy" being at times synonymous with GM. Chevrolet offers 18 vehicles and many different enhanced versions in its home market. The vehicles range from subcompact cars to medium duty commercial trucks. Its number one seller in the United States is the Silverado pickup. Chevrolet continues to be the performance, price, fuel economy, and value leader for General Motors North America.

Louis Chevrolet was a race-car driver, and William Durant, founder of General Motors, had been forced out of GM in 1910. He wanted to use Chevrolet's designs to rebuild his own reputation. As head of Buick Motor Company, prior to founding GM, Durant had hired Chevrolet to drive Buicks in promotional races.<1>

Chevrolet first used its "bowtie"<2> logo in 1913. It is said to have been designed from wallpaper Durant once saw in a French hotel. More recent research by historian Ken Kaufmann presents a compelling case that the logo is based from a logo for "Coalettes".<3>
In 1915, Durant was in the process of setting up Chevrolet production facilities in Toronto, Canada. Later that year, during a luncheon meeting in New York with "Colonel Sam" McLaughlin, whose McLaughlin Motor Car Company manufactured McLaughlin-Buick cars, it was agreed that Chevrolets with McLaughlin-designed bodies would be added to the Canadian company's product line. Three years later, the two Canadian operations (Chevrolet was by then a part of GM in the United States) were bought by GM to become General Motors of Canada Ltd.<4>

By 1916, Chevrolet was profitable enough to allow Durant to buy a majority of shares in GM. After the deal was completed in 1917, Durant was president of General Motors, and Chevrolet was merged into GM, becoming a separate division. In the 1918 model year, Chevrolet introduced the Model D, a V8-powered model in four-passenger roadster and five-passenger tourer models. These cars had 288in3 35 hp (26 kW) engines with Zenith carburetors and three-speed transmissions.
Chevrolet had a great influence on the American automobile market during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1957, Chevy made the first fuel injected engine. In 1963, one out of every ten cars sold in the United States was a Chevrolet.<5>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet

Louis-Joseph Chevrolet (December 25, 1878, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Canton of Neuchâtel, Switzerland – June 6, 1941, Detroit, Michigan), of French descent was a race car driver and co-founder (with William C. Durant) of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company, which was acquired by General Motors and is their best-selling brand nationwide and in many cases synonymous with General Motors itself.

In 1886 his family left Switzerland to live in Beaune, in the Côte-d'Or département of France. It was there as a young man Louis developed his mechanical skills and interest in auto racing. He worked for the Roblin mechanics shop from 1895 to 1899, at which time he went to Paris, where he worked for a short time before emigrating to Montreal, Quebec in Canada in 1900 to work as a chauffeur/mechanic. The following year, he moved to New York City, where he worked briefly for a fellow Swiss immigrant's engineering company, then moved to the Brooklyn operations of the French car manufacturer de Dion-Bouton. In 1905, he was hired by FIAT as a racing car driver, and a year later became employed by a Philadelphia company developing a then-revolutionary front-wheel drive racing car. His racing career continued as he drove for Buick, becoming a friend and associate of Billy Durant.<1>

With little in the way of a formal education, this mechanical genius learned car design while working for Buick and started designing his own engine for a new car in 1909. He built this overhead valve six-cylinder engine in his own machine shop on Grand River Boulevard, Detroit.<2> Shortly thereafter, he would partner with Durant to start the Chevrolet Motor Car Company there. Chevrolet had differences with Durant over the design and in 1915 sold Durant his share in the company. The next year, the company was folded into Durant's General Motors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Chevrolet

William Crapo "Billy" Durant (December 8, 1861–March 18, 1947) was a leading pioneer of the United States automobile industry, the founder of General Motors and Chevrolet who created the system of multi-brand holding companies with different lines of cars.

In 1910, Durant became financially overextended and banking interests assumed control, forcing him from management of GM. He immediately set out to create another "GM," starting with the Little car, named after its founder, William H. Little. His initial intention was to compete with the Ford Model T, then beginning to show its impending popularity. Unsatisfied with this approach, however, he abandoned it and went into partnership with Louis Chevrolet in 1911, starting the Chevrolet company. Before long, a disagreement between the two entrepreneurs resulted in Durant buying out his partner's share of the company. Nevertheless, the venture was so successful for Durant that he was able to buy enough shares in GM to regain control, becoming its president in 1916, only to lose it for good in 1920 to the DuPont interests. The Chevrolet product line became part of GM in 1917.
While in charge of Chevrolet, Durant did acquire other companies, including Republic Motors, mainly to produce Chevrolets. He also assembled a collection of parts and components manufacturers into a new entity called United Motors, making Alfred P. Sloan the president. United Motors was eventually folded into General Motors, and Sloan rose to president of GM in the 1920s, going on to build the company into the world's largest automaker..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Durant

Durant was of French-American ancestry according to Wikipedia, but only through his father of which ancestry seems difficult to trace.

and

the Cadillac automobile was named after the 17th-century French explorer Antoine Laumet de la Mothe,
Sieur de Cadillac, who founded Detroit in 1701



Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, de Cadillac
(Founder of Detroit, 3rd French governor of Louisiana)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Laumet_de_La_Mothe,_sieur_de_Cadillac