#123 Albert Champion (Record-Setting Racer to Dashing Tycoon)

Champion had been born in Paris in 1878. By age twelve, he was an errand and office boy for a Paris bicycle manufacturer. He became interested in bicycle racing, won the middle distance championship in France, and went to the United States in eighteen ninety-nine for a series of races. He won the American and World Championships. returned to France to study automobile manufacturing, and returned to the United States in nineteen hundred.

He tried auto racing. almost lost a leg in a racing accident, and then organized the champion company. His original backers had kept the name and moved the company to Toledo at about the same time Champion joined Billy Durant. In Flint, Champion became known as one of the most colorful and flamboyant figures in a town

Full of them. He lived to see both his new company, later named AC Sparkplug Division, And the company he had left, the Champion Spark Plug Company, become giants in their field. He was a multi millionaire when he died. Okay, so that's an excerpt not from the book that I'm about to talk to you about today.

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