1926 Star Model M Two-door Coach

 This Star coach (serial #L360256) was built by the Durant Motor Company at its Lansing, Michigan, plant. It was reportedly used to market Hamm's Beer at one time.
 Durant Motor Company was the third automobile maker founded or co-founded by the energetic and ambitious William Crapo Durant. Created in 1921, the year after Durant was removed from his position as head of General Motors, the Durant Motor Company made multiple lines of vehicles for the automobile market, including the Star, the Flint, and the Durant.
 Although the company became somewhat successful during the 1920s, Durant's involvement in the stock market at the time of the 1929 stock market crash brought about the company's demise. The company closed by 1933, and Durant declared bankruptcy by 1936. Durant never recovered from this financial downturn. He suffered a stroke in 1942, and died in 1947, the manager of a bowling alley in Flint, Michigan.

 On the side of this Star is a small nameplate for the Hayes-Hunt Corporation, the maker of this coach body. Hayes-Hunt was incorporated in 1922 by William Durant to make closed bodies for Star automobiles. Durant teamed with J. Clarence Hayes and J. H. Hunt to found this company which opened its first plant in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

 That fancy hood ornament on this Star Sedan is actually a Boyce Moto Meter, a device used to measure the temperature of the car's radiator. Before the radiator's temperature gauge was placed on the dashboard of automobiles, many automobiles had their gauges on the hood. Dominating the market for these radiator gauges, or "motor meters," the Moto Meter Company of Long Island City, New York, which made Boyce's gauges, reportedly sold over 10,000,000 of them by 1927. The company continued making them until the early 1930s. Stuhr Museum's 1926 Hudson also has a Boyce Moto Meter on its hood.

Two-page ad in The Horseless Age from May 15, 1918.

 Although you probably cannot see the name on the headlights of this Star, the headlight lenses were made by the L. E. Smith Glass Company of Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. Beginning in 1907, the company made glassware, including glass mixing bowls, along with lenses for automobile headlights and other glass items.

Motor World, vol. LII, no. 13
(Sept. 26, 1917), p.99.

Notes

For a brief narrative of William Durant's life and his role in General Motors, you can access General Motor's Heritage page on Durant here.
A nice resource for Durant automobiles is the The Durant Motors Automobile Club site which you can access here.
An informative webpage on the Moto Meter, with images, can be accessed here. A nice Cartype webpage on the Moto Meter, with photographs, can be accessed here.
Links to Boyce's patents issued before and after the Moto Meter on this 1926 Star was made, can be found on the Model T Ford Forum here.