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Happy 110th Birthday, General Motors

Today, General Motors celebrates another trip around the sun. The U.S. automaker is now 110 years old after William C. Durant founded the company in Flint, Michigan, on September 16, 1908.

Durant founded GM to consolidate a group of automakers at the time:  Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland, Ewing, Marquette, Reliance and Rapid trucks. Ten years later, Chevrolet was brought into the fold as was Delco Products. Fisher Body Company became part of GM in 1919 followed shortly thereafter by Frigidaire. Perhaps you weren’t aware GM sold appliances until 1979 when it sold the division.

William C. Durant

William C. Durant

Although Durant is the man behind General Motors, it wasn’t until Alfred P. Sloan took over in 1920 that GM became more of what we know today. After Durant’s ouster from the automaker, Sloan reorganized GM into just five main divisions: Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, Cadillac and Oldsmobile. Sloan allowed each division to work under an unheard of amount of autonomy for the time, though each company worked under a set of corporate guidelines at GM. Sloan also pioneered yearly design changes for vehicles and made strides in helping the public finance automobiles.

Just as the roaring twenties came to a close, GM boomed globally. The automaker added England’s Vauxhall in 1925 and Opel in 1929. Australia’s Holden joined the GM portfolio in 1931 and the Yellow Truck & Coach Manufacturing Co. (GMC) was organized into its own division in 1925.

GM Renaissance Center - GM Ren Cen - Winter 2016 021

Throughout the 20th century, GM absolutely boomed to become one of the largest industrial corporations in the world by 1941. At its peak, GM made 44 percent of all cars in the U.S. in 1941.

The latter part of the 20th century wasn’t nearly as kind to GM, and the automaker eventually spiraled into Chapter 11 bankruptcy on its 101st birth year in 2009.

GM Renaissance Center - GM Ren Cen - Winter 2016 019

Today, GM is a shadow of its former global self. It’s shed many of the brands that helped define the company last century, but a leaner automaker has emerged. In the future, America’s largest automaker could also be known as an early pioneer of self-driving cars.

Former GM Authority staff writer.

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Comments

  1. GM would have been 110 years old today if it weren’t for a little something called bankruptcy. The current company is a new one and is currently 9 years old.

    Reply
    1. International domination by Roman centurions for their own plunder led to the whole world hating Romans and the Barbarians taking over.

      International domination by the British East India Company for their own endless profits and offshore’d slave economy led to rotten British governments that couldn’t save their own asses in America in 1775-1781

      International domination by America’s General Motors led to employment, engineering development, economic co-development, and decades of day-to-day co-operation between people of vastly different cultures. Australia’s Holden is just one example, hugely boosting our economy in the 1950’s when we needed it after the British flopped, and still today employing hundreds of development engineers with excellent resources in Australia. Read Wheels and Motor magazines and read the respect and best wishes for Americans in our pages. Same goes for Canada, Brazil, Thailand, and so many other places. Alfred P Sloan’s vision matched the Marshall Plan years before Marshall thought of it, and Sloan gave it to the entire world, not just Europe. And compare Billy Durant’s boldness to anybody claiming the “bold” tag today. What great folks made GM, and today Mary Barra is one of the greats.

      This history is what made America great! Thanks so much from the entire earth to GM, and:
      Happy Birthday to You
      Thanks for the Malibu
      The Corvettes are winners,
      Give us all a ZR2!

      Cheers, Congrats, Here’s to the next 100!!!

      Reply
    2. Correct. Except the new one walks and talks a lot like the old one. I have driven some post bailout examples on a daily basis as my employer acquires them. Nothing seems as reliably unreliable between the false (and sometimes accurate) error messages, and the recalls. Ford may come close in that category, but then they stand on their own two feet.

      Reply
      1. Ford stands on its own two feet with the help of their union

        Reply
    3. You remind me of that fool from post bankruptcy GM who insisted that there was no such thing as a ‘Chevrolet Corvette’, but that there was indeed a ‘GM Corvette’.

      Reply
      1. Chevrolet is an automotive brand. Chevrolet didn’t die in 2009, the company who owned it did. General Motors Corporation died in 2009, General Motors Company was born in 2009.

        It’s a new company. It purchased the majority of the assets of General Motors Corporation. That’s what bankruptcy means.

        Reply
    4. Tell you a word which form GM haters : New GM still Old GM

      Reply
  2. Keep the longevity going, wishing you all the best to push for the 150 – 200 year mark.

    Reply
  3. Que permaneça por muito mais anos entre nós, afinal quem foi a maior empresa industrial do mundo sabe todas as nuances que o mercado em qualquer parte precisa. Só precisa ser menos burocrática e ter foco nessas aquisições e associações que quase derrubaram a GM.

    Reply
  4. GM owned so many companies that are now defunct or sold. I owned 2 first gen Oldsmobile Auroras and they were fantastic cars. The one company that was sold that really kills me is Electro-motive. EMD was without question the top locomotive builder for decades and after the SD40-2 model broke sales records they introduced the SD50/GP50. It wasn’t anywhere near as reliable as the model it replaced starting in the early ’80s. By the time they introduced the 710 engine in the SD60/GP60 it was too late. GE had the DASH-8 line in the pipe and EMD never recovered. The second owner since the sale is Progress Rail owned by Caterpillar. We’ll see how that turns out, but it makes me sad to know GM owned it and sold it.

    Reply
  5. Happy Birthday GM!

    Reply
  6. happy birthday GM , but we traveled to Lansing in 1987 to attend to 100th year birthday of Oldsmobile it was amazing the whole town celebrated with Oldsmobile’s from all over the world for 3 days, then 4 years later GM killed Oldsmobile saying declining sales , well all sales were down poor excuse now they’re still struggling to revive Buick . Todays divisions should be Chevy- GMC-Olds- Cad ..

    Reply
  7. That’s funny – Buick sells more than Cadillac, so just which brand is GM trying to “revive”?

    Reply

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