On This Day 100 Years Ago: GM Buys Chevrolet
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Chevrolet wasn’t always a General Motors brand, but it’s officially been 100 years since the automaker acquired the former motor company.
It was May 2, 1918, when William C. Durant, GM founder, purchased Chevrolet. Durant also founded the division in 1911 and named the company after his partner and race car driver, Louis Chevrolet.
In an effort to regain control of the company, Durant purchased as many shares of Chevrolet as his profits allowed for. Finally, according to Click On Detroit, the GM founder offered five GM shares for every Chevrolet share. This would be the deal that sealed Chevrolet’s fate as a GM brand.
On this day 100 years ago, Chevrolet joined GM’s other brands at the time: Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Oakland. GMC trucks were soon rebranded as Chevrolet trucks, and by 1919, Chevrolet operated manufacturing plants in Michigan, Ohio, Texas and California.
Under GM, Chevrolet would flourish to become the automaker’s bread-and-butter division. It would also birth two of the most iconic American performance cars: the Chevrolet Corvette and Chevrolet Camaro.
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There’s a very interesting three-part docuseries out there called “The Cars That Made America” that details the early history of the American car industry; it discusses at length the subject in this article. Anyone interested in cars needs to see it. I especially liked the part about John DeLorean developing the Pontiac GTO.
I watched that on the History channel and while interesting, it portray’s William Durant as some wall street type fat cat. Almost like a total jerk. The character didn’t even look like him. I found that aspect to be very disingenuous. Every book I’ve read on him tells a completely different story. I found him to be more of a kind and gentle type. Somewhat scatterbrained but nowhere near what that show displayed. The guy ended up broke later in life, and actually served hamburgers outside during lunch to GM employees at one time…
I noticed other things throughout the show that were inaccurate as well. If I recall there was something about muscle cars that was wrong. The 1964 Chevelle SS wasn’t included and the 1965 Chevelle SS 396 was the first big block. And it was Henry Ford who came to Durant initially about selling him FoMoCo because Henry was under too much stress and pressure. He later backed out.
The series definitely took much artistic license. People just don’t act that dramatically in real life. Many of the people in it acted with over-the-top movie-like behavior.
You forgot the founding brand of General Motors. Here is the History: Buick has the distinction of being the oldest active American marque of automobile, and was the company that established General Motors in 1908. Before the establishment of General Motors, GM founder William C. Durant had served as Buick’s general manager and major investor. (1903)
Buick is the oldest that’s still active perhaps but Oldsmobile was 1st. And really had it more together as a company. It also was the first auto company that I’m aware of that used the assembly line production idea. It bothers me that Ford always gets credited for this. David Buick had some serious alcohol problems from my understanding and pretty much disappeared after selling the David Buick company to Durant.
Knowing this it’s so weird it’s called OLDsmobile instead of NEWsmobile.
Named after founder Ransom Olds. Nothing to do with new vs old.
Ransom left Oldsmobile and founded another brand. REO (his initials). The brand has disappeared but its iconic vehicle is now the name of a famous rock band: REO SpeedWagon.
Oldsmobile was the first to have a car song dedicated: “In My Merry Oldsmobile”, and also the first U.S. brand to offer electric cars. But a fire destroyed the factory, and only the gas engine model survived, so Ransom Olds continued to build that version. And Oldsmobile had the first HydroMatic automatic transmission, and ALL the hydraulic transmissions made worldwide have its design in theirs. Everything I posted here is a historic fact.
As of today, the oldest automobile that is still state registered and running on U.S. roads is a “Curved Dash” Oldsmobile.
No, it was essentially Chevrolet that bought GM… Durant founded and owned Chevrolet Motor Company (along with Louis who left shortly after). He did this after being ousted from General Motors by the board. He was obviously hurt after being kicked out of the company he himself started so he went after GM’s companies sales with his own new company.
The Chevrolet Motor Company flat out smoked the companies GM owned in sales. Chevrolet Motor Company by itself outsold all of GM’s companies combined. Chevrolet also took Ford to task as well. Not only in sales but in quality, luxurious options and even a V8 engine for 1917/18. Durant made so much money from Chevrolet that he used the funds to repurchase the controlling shares of GM stock within a few years time. Durant owned GM once again via Chevrolet.
A few years later he was ousted (again) from GM and started the short lived Durant Motor Company.
Agree Matt, Billy Durant was an amazing guy. So much about him is very fascinating. Yes, he was fast and loose with cash but he was a very generous individual. He knew to surround himself with incredible talent. He was a bulldog fighter regardless of the ups and downs. From creating General Motors to end up being kicked to the curb only to come back to control GM again then finally be shown the door for good. He then went on to create Durant Motors. Could you imagine Billy Durant being around today?
The company that purchased Chevrolet died in 2009. You should change the title of the article to “On This Day 100 Years Ago: GM Would’ve Bought Chevrolet”.
“It would also birth two of the most iconic American performance cars: the Chevrolet Corvette and Chevrolet Camaro.”
You missed another iconic car that still lives in the minds of Chevy fans, the Bel-Air. It remains as the famous symbol of the “Rock and Roll” era that began in the mid-1950’s,(especially the tail winged 1957 model) and still lives on!
We here in the Flint and mid Michigan area have great admiration for Diamond Billy who could turn dust to diamonds and turned everything he touched into multi million dollar businesses starting with the Dort Durant Wagon works in his 20;s making it one of the largest cart and wagon maker in the state before the advent of the automobile. Then later bought Buick making it a large money maker and then went on to his great career in autos. Mr. Durant was a soft spoken gentleman and can still be heard today as tapes of his voice can still be heard on an early form of record that he recorded his voice on and sent to his aunt. Once I heard his actual voice I knew old Billy. He can be heard on u-tube yet I think.