General Motors (GM) was founded by William Durant on September 16, 1908. The company, which included only the Buick Motor Company in its founding years, had acquired Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland (later renamed Pontiac), and the German Opel by 1929.
William Durant (1861-1947) American entrepreneur and industrialist. He is the founder of General Motors Company, one of the largest companies in the USA and the world automobile industry.
He was born on December 8, 1861, in Boston, Massachusetts, and died on March 18, 1947 in New York. Durant, who started industrialism by making horse-drawn passenger cars in Flint, Michigan, in 1886, understood the importance of the automobile in the near future and the rich opportunities of the automobile industry, so he would produce different models for a wide range of buyers and would be able to closely supervise the production by gathering the parts manufacturers in the same organization. He was planning to establish a large company.
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American multinational automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing its four core automobile brands of Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac and Buick. By sales, it was the largest automaker in the United States in 2022, and was the largest in the world for 77 years before losing the top spot to Toyota in 2008.
The Buick Motor Car Company, which he took under his control in 1904 and included among the largest automobile manufacturers in the country within four years, even though it was about to go bankrupt, formed the first nucleus of this giant organization he designed. Indeed, General Motors Company, which was founded in 1908 with Durant's initiative and included four major automobile manufacturers such as Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Oakland (Pontiac), and several smaller companies, quickly dominated the US automobile industry as Ford's biggest rival.
William Crapo Durant (December 8, 1861 – March 18, 1947) was a leading pioneer of the United States automobile industry and co-founder of General Motors and Chevrolet. He created a system in which a company held multiple marques – each seemingly independent, with different automobile lines – bound under a unified corporate holding company. Durant, along with Frederic L. Smith, co-founded General Motors, as well as Chevrolet with Louis Chevrolet. He also founded Frigidaire.
However, the control and financing problems caused by this rapid growth led to the change of General Motors management in 1910 and Durant's removal from the company management. In 1911, he established a partnership with the French-born automobile designer Louis Chevrolet (1879-1941) and started the production of Chevrolet automobiles. In 1915, Durant regained control of General Motors, which had survived the financial crisis, and in the same year, he added the Chevrolet Motor Company to the General Motors group of companies. General Motors, which experienced a new period of growth under Durant's presidency and entered into a new organizational structure with largely independent production units, became one of the largest industrial corporations in the USA in 1919. However, a year later, the temporary stagnation in the US automobile industry, due to the intense competition among automobile manufacturers who had rapidly started mass production and the lack of demand, dragged General Motors into a new financial crisis. Durant, who was removed from management for the second time in 1920, started automobile production again by establishing a company under his own name the following year, but he could not strengthen his situation after the 1929 economic crisis and went bankrupt in 1935.
The story of General Motors
GM continued to grow in the 1920s and 30s with the slogan 'a car for every budget and every desire'. Buick Y Job was the first concept car produced by the company. This model encouraged other manufacturers to make concept cars to understand consumer demands.
The largest strike in the company's history was launched in December 1936 by the United Auto Workers union, which was newly organized at that time. The strike ended on February 11, 1937, when GM accepted the union's demands.
By the 1950s, GM was not only the largest automobile manufacturer in the United States but also the largest company in all its businesses. During these years, the popularity of luxury Cadillacs, distinguished by their shark fins, was at its peak.
In 1964, GM introduced the Pontiac GTO, which would later pave the way for the legendary Pontiac Firebird. Despite the success of these models, GM, affected by the recession at that time, announced that it would close the Pontiac brand by 2010.
GM launched its first sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette, in 1953. Thousands of Corvette fans celebrated the 50th anniversary of this car in Nashville in 2003.
In 1995, GM sold more than 3 million vehicles per year to North America for the first time in its history and entered the Chinese market for the first time that same year. In May 2001, the Chevrolet Blazer began production in Jinbei, China.
In the 1990s, GM began to focus on the Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV) market. However, the increase in oil prices in 2008 caused sales of SUV models to drop by 30 percent.
In 2008, when it celebrated its 100th anniversary, GM's slide into bankruptcy became clear. The company, which borrowed $20 billion from the US government that year, was forced to sell its European brands and cut wages.
Less than a year after turning a century old, GM filed for bankruptcy protection.