The Chevrolet began it's life in 1911 when a race car driver and automotive engineer Louis Chevrolet cofounded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company with William C. Durant and investors William Little and Dr. Edwin R. Campbell.
The design for the first Chevy, the Series C Classic Six was drawn up by Etienne Planche and was ready for production long before Chevrolet was actually incorporated.
This design was made by M. Etienne Planche on 15 March 1911 at a garage premises at number 707, later 3939 Grand River Avenue, Detroit. It appears that the small second story space above the garage was used for new engine design and construction only. Prototypes of the Chevrolet were produced in what would today be called a "pilot plant" in the 1145, West Grand Boulevard Plant that was used between August 1911 and August 1913. 
By November 3, 1911 The Chevrolet Motor Car Company entered the turbulent automobile market.
Durant envisioned his new company as an inexpensive competitor to the Ford Model T.
He chose to name the company after its designer, Louis Chevrolet, because he liked the sound of the name and because Chevrolet was a prominent name in motor sports.
The Chevrolet family was poor and Louis was given only a basic education before he left home. He was not capable to be a designer/drawer, but got a great deal of technical experience, first in the wine and bicycle business in Europe, and then with several car dealers in New York after arrival in 1900. After joining the racing car business, chasing Barney Oldfield and others with success he was engaged by Durant first to the Buick racing team No. 1 with his brother, and later as a consultant adviser  for the new car Durant had in mind. 
Finally in 1934,  GM put Louis Chevrolet on their payroll as a mechanic in one of the factories. Illness forced him to retire in 1938.
However the Louis' car: The Classic Six was far too expensive (USD 2100,-) to compete with the T-Ford, so Durant had to skip the big, expensive car and go for small, simple ones as the Little Four. As before, Louis disagreed. He "lost" his name to the car, but left with $10,000 and 100 shares in the Chevrolet Motor Car Company, and started working with another racing enthusiast, Albert Champion, on his racing career again.

The production of Chevrolet type C Six was so delayed that it became a 1913 model. From April 1912 until end of the year the Little Motor Company (owned by Chevrolet Motor Co.) produced 2999 Little Four's. All had "Little" as the emblem on the radiator (not Chevrolet). Regrettably there is still the published misnomer that Chevrolet built 2999 Classic Sixes as 1912 models as its first year of production.  The first Chevrolet Six was ready for the dealers 2nd Jan. 1913, and was delivered to the first consumer 13th March. During July and August of 1914, all the remaining parts were used up and the Type C Classic production ended at Flint. Advertisements in August 1913 announced that the Little cars were now to be called "Chevrolets". Its 299 cubic inch, 6 cylinder engine could reach a top speed of 65 miles per hour. 
The Chevrolet Bow Tie has been one of the World's most recognized trademarks since 1913, when William C. Durant first introduced the symbol that represents Chevrolet's winning success! The Bow Tie was used on the renamed Little cars for the 1914 season (late 1913).
A story in Chevrolet Pro Management Magazine, October 1986, which was copied in the May 1987 G&D, told that W.C. Durant did not copy the design from the wallpaper in a French hotel room, and that according to Mrs. Durant, the bow tie emblem was first seen by her husband in an illustrated Virginia newspaper, while they were vacationing in Hot Springs, Virginia around 1912. Mrs. Durant was quoted as recalling, "We were in a suite reading the papers, and he saw this design and said, 'I think this would be a very good emblem for the Chevrolet' " She did not explain how the newspaper used the emblem.
Chevrolet first used the Bowtie emblem in 1913. It is said to have been designed from wallpaper Durant once saw in a French hotel but there are several other versions of how the bow tie came about.
The success of the 490 sales in 1915 gave Chevrolet a flying start in the low price market. The 490 sold at that time for $490. However, the 490 was already too under priced when introduced, as all margins had been as low as possible from start. Ford fought back by reducing his price (several times) and Durant had to increase the price for his 490's after some few months. He could not challenge the continuously cheaper T-Ford mass production, so Durant used a different method of competing. he added sought after features like electric lights and starter etc. and he introduced the closed bodies to capture some of the low price market. This method worked. 
Ford was far ahead with much higher volume, but Durant made much higher profits on each car, which was one of the reasons that he was able to regain the ownership in GM in 1916. 
Chevrolet continued to improve their cars and add options that the public wanted. Chevrolet offered the first radio option in 1924.
Chevrolet sold it's first truck in 1918 and in that year joined GM Corporation. 
GM nearly went out of business in 1920, when up to 100,000 cars of the "490" were stored at the
factories, unsold for some time.

1927 was a year that Chev will never forget. Chevrolet outsold Ford by topping 1 million units for the first time. In all but four of the next 55 years, Chevrolet was the top selling American nameplate. 
However Chevrolet didn't do as good as it at first appeared. The main reason why Chevrolet 
reached # 1 position 1927 was the fact that Ford closed his factories for several months to change all production lines to make the A-Fords, leaving his share of the market open for Chevrolet and Chrysler.