(AOL Autos) -- With car companies going in into bankruptcy and shedding famous names left and right, it's important to remember that today's automotive titans started out as tiny startups, not unlike Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. 

General Motors was almost called International Motors Co. 

Names like Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Toyota and Porsche call to mind the huge corporate successes of the past and the great automotive families that survive today. 

But behind every brand name, there is a flesh-and-blood inventor, entrepreneur or industrialist. Most of the time, they gave their name to the companies. And that fame was often about all they ended up with. 

David Buick, who invented the overhead valve engine, founded the Buick Motor Car Co. in 1903. William C. Durant, the industrialist who would eventually found GM, took over the company in 1904, when it ran into financial trouble. 

Buick stayed on as a director, but left in 1908, never making much money from the enterprise. He reportedly died in 1929, unable to afford one of his cars. 

Durant kept the name for one of his company divisions and for the car, even though he worried that people might pronounce it "Boo-ick," according to one author. Strangely enough, the man who practically created General Motors single-handedly never really liked the idea of a 'Durant' car. 

In another example, Robert Hupp invented the Hupmobile,'a two-seat runabout, in 1908. But he sold his stock in his Hupp Motor Car Company in 1911. He turned around and founded the Hupp Corp. that same year. Investors in his first firm took him to court to make him drop the "Hupp" from his new company's name and they won. His own automotive glory quickly faded, although the Hupmobile survived until the 1940s. 
What did Buick do after that?
stayed on as a director