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For a while, the American company, General Motors (or GM) was the biggest auto manufacturer around the world. Their headquarters are in Detroit, Michigan. It is made up of assembly operations, production, and distribution places in many countries. GM provides trucks, cars, parts, and engines. How did they start, though? Where are they now? This article will explore the history of General Motors.
William Durant
You can’t talk about the history of General Motors without looking at the founder, William Durant. The family pushed him to study law, but instead, he left school when he was just seventeen years old. The first job he took had him piling lumber. His second job, selling cigars, really showcased his sales drive, and he excelled at it. By the time he turned twenty-four, he was deemed to be a profitable businessman.
Being a partner in a lucrative insurance company wasn’t enough for this driven man. In 1886, Durant chose to enter the transportation business. From the money that he had borrowed, he purchased a modest horse-cart business. This included a design patent and only two fully assembled carts. He had the idea to take one of the carts to a local fair, where he was awarded a blue ribbon for it. He received over six hundred orders for carts, although he had never built one before. The Durant-Dort Carriage Company grew from an initial investment of two thousand dollars to over two million dollars within fifteen years. The first manufacturing plant was in Flint, Michigan, and became the biggest vehicle manufacturer in America. William Durant became known as the “King of Carriage Makers.”
A New Endeavor (Buick)
When William Durant was forty years old, he was a millionaire with a successful carriage company, but he craved more excitement. James Whiting, who operated Flint Wagon Works purchased Buick to help the community and stop the business from financial doom. He wanted Durant to be the one to run things. However, William thought cars were loud and scary and hesitated to take on the position. Never to shy away from opportunity, he drove a Buick on a variety of roads for a couple of months. He liked what he experienced so much that he took the job at Buick (in 1904). Buick became more prosperous than companies like Cadillac and Ford. William Durant became a legend to the Flint employees because of their quick journey from the biggest carriage manufacturer to the biggest car producer in only a few years.
General Motors
In 1907, William got sent word of an automobile merger happening. Durant and three leaders in the automobile industry (Henry Ford, Ransom Olds, and Ben Briscoe) attended the meeting. Ford stated that he wanted cash instead of stocks. Negotiations failed miserably, and everyone left, but William was convinced that a merger should still happen. He understood that Oldsmobile was having financial problems and approached them about consolidating Oldsmobile and Buick. An agreement was struck and on September 16, 1908, General Motors was incorporated.
Almost a year and a half later, William Durant bought twenty-two businesses. Not all panned out, but some of the other companies that he acquired that were fruitful included Cadillac, GMC, and Oakland Pontiac. Some thought he was crazy, but Durant knew that the automobile industry would become a wildly popular business.
When 1910 came, the demand for larger vehicles diminished, and consumers looked for the dependable and modestly priced Ford Model T instead. At this time, Ford only had one model to choose from. GM had twenty-one models of bigger cars manufactured in ten separate places. Not many of these divisions made money. He didn’t want to, but he entered a five-year loan with bankers to help General Motors financially. Durant was out and the bankers were in.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Durant was already looking towards the future. This is where he began to speak with Louis Chevrolet, a previous racer for Buick. In 1911, they co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company. By 1914, the company had two models they offered. They did very well with customers. In 1916, it was announced that Chevrolet had most of the GM stock, and Durant was re-elected as President of the company.
Over the years, Durant faced hardship off and on. Around 1920, many companies failed financially, and the bankers bailed Durant out again with the stipulation that he leave General Motors. This would be the second time this happened to Durant. He was fifty-nine years old and facing unemployment. Always looking for the next great opportunity, he remained driven and energetic over the years. General Motors went on without him.
General Motors Today
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Today, General Motors is made up of Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC. For seventy-seven years, GM was the largest and most profitable auto manufacturer in the world, although it lost out to Toyota in the year 2008. When it came to sales in 2022, GM was the biggest in sales in America. Always wanting to be forward-thinking, they plan to stop producing cars with internal combustion engines (by 2035). This is part of the initiative for “carbon neutrality” by the year 2040. Nowadays, GM employs more than one hundred and sixty-five thousand people. Their vision is to embrace what the future holds in the ways of technology, design, and engineering.
