The history of General Motors (GM), one of the world's largest car and truck manufacturers, dates back more than a century and involves a vast scope of industrial activity around the world, mostly focused on motorized transportation and the engineering and manufacturing that make it possible. Founded in 1908 as a holding company in Flint, Michigan, as of 2012 it employed approximately 209,000 people around the world. With global headquarters at the Hudson's Detroit in Detroit, Michigan, United States, General Motors manufactures cars and trucks in 35 countries. In 2008, 8.35 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under various brands. Current auto brands are Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Baojun, and Wuling. Former GM automotive brands include LaSalle, McLaughlin, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Opel, Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall, Daewoo, and Holden.
In addition to brands selling assembled vehicles, GM also has had various automotive-component and non-automotive brands, many of which it divested in the 1980s through 2000s. These have included Euclid and Terex (earthmoving/construction/mining equipment and vehicles), Electro-Motive Diesel (locomotive, marine, and industrial diesel engines), Detroit Diesel (automotive and industrial diesel engines), Allison (aircraft engines, transmissions, gas turbine engines), New Departure (bearings), Delco Electronics and ACDelco (electrical and electronic components), GMAC (finance), General Aviation and North American Aviation (airplanes), Frigidaire (appliances including refrigeration and air conditioning), and Electronic Data Systems (information technology).
1907–1929
General Motors was capitalized by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908, as a holding company. The next day it purchased Buick Motor Company, and rapidly acquired more than twenty companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland Motor Car Company, and McLaughlin of Canada. Dr. Campbell, Durant's son-in-law, put 1,000,000 shares on the stock market in Chicago Buick (then controlled by Durant).
Durant's earlier company, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, had been in business in Flint since 1886, and by 1900 was producing over 100,000 carriages a year in factories located in Michigan and Canada. Prior to his acquisition of Buick, Durant had several Ford dealerships. With springs, axles and other key components being provided to the early automotive industry by Durant-Dort, it can be reasoned that GM actually began with the McLaughlin Carriage gear from 1867 founding of Durant-Dort.
GM under Durant's leadership acquired Olds Motor Works later in 1908. The next year, he brought in Cadillac, Cartercar, Elmore, Ewing, and Oakland. In 1909, General Motors also acquired the Reliance Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck. A Rapid became the first truck to conquer Pikes Peak in 1909. In 1909, the Corporation produced and sold 25,000 cars. In 1910, Welch and Rainier were added to the ever-growing list of companies controlled by GM.
GM was initially created by combining independent manufacturers who were competing with the Ford Motor Company and vehicles offered before the October 1, 1908 introduction of the Model T (produced for 19 years until 1927). Once the soon iconic Model T began to appear in all corners of America and dominate the automobile market, independent companies began to combine their resources as corporations and decided to offer what the Model T didn't. The Model T was offered by Ford only in the black color, because it dried the fastest as it rolled off the assembly line plus was the cheapest with only one color painting process, so GM offered their products in various color combinations; the Model T came with one four-cylinder engine, so GM offered their vehicles with different wheelbases and engine displacements on a gradual scale based on price.
Founder / president Durant eventually lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers trust as the deal to buy Ford for $8 million fell through, due to the large amount of debt (around $1 million) that was taken on in its earlier acquisitions, while Samuel McLaughlin left at the same time. Durant was forced out of the firm by the stockholders and then later co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911 with Louis Chevrolet. McLaughlin then bought Chevrolet stock in 1912, and by 1915 had built Chevrolet in Canada and after a stock buyback campaign with the McLaughlin and DuPont corporations, and other Chevrolet stock holders, Durant returned to head GM in 1916, as Chevrolet owned 54.5% with the backing of Pierre S. du Pont. On October 13 of the same year, GM Company incorporated as the "General Motors Corporation" after McLaughlin merged his companies and Became the first General Motors Company of Canada Limited sold his Chevrolet stock to allow the incorporation, which in turn followed the incorporation of General Motors of Canada (reverting to General Motors Company upon emergence from bankruptcy in 2009 that left General Motors of Canada Limited as a Wholly-Owned Privet Canadian Company). Chevrolet entered the General Motors fold in 1918 as it became part of and merged into the corporation with R S McLaughlin as Director and vice-president of the corporation; its first GM car was 1918's Chevrolet 490. Du Pont later removed Durant from management in 1920, and various Du Pont interests held large or controlling GM shareholdings until about 1950.
In 1918, GM acquired the Chevrolet stock from McLaughlin Motor Car Company of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, manufacturer of the McLaughlin automobile since 1907 (later to be renamed McLaughlin-Buick) as well as Canadian versions of Chevrolet cars since 1915. The company was renamed General Motors of Canada Ltd., with R.S. ("Colonel Sam") McLaughlin as its first president and his brother George as vice-president allied with the Corporation 1919. Superior Court of Ontario Canada documents show the corporation as indirect parent of General Motors of Canada Limited. General Motors of Canada is a 100% owned Canadian Company.
1918 also saw personnel increase at GM. The number of employees grew from about 49,000 workers to 85,000 workers. Many came from the South of the United States, as well as from Europe, to work at GM Michigan facilities. To accommodate them, GM began to build employee housing with the nearly $2.5 million set aside for the project. This would become one of General Motors top 5 expenditures for the year 1919. 1919 also brought changes to employee investment opportunities. Similar to modern-day 401(k) plans, all employees could invest a percentage of their wages or salary. GM proceeded to match every penny that their employees invested.
GM's headquarters were located in Flint, Michigan until the mid-1920s, when they were moved to downtown Detroit. Its building, originally to be called the Durant Building, was designed and began construction in 1919 when Durant was still president, was completed four years later in 1923. Alfred P. Sloan became president that year, and the building was officially dedicated it as the General Motors Building in 1929. GM maintained this headquarters location, now called Cadillac Place (used as a state office building by the state of Michigan since 1996) until it purchased the prominent modernist glass-facade skyscraper of the Renaissance Center seven decades later in 1996. The Buick Division headquarters however remained in Flint until two years later 1998 when it too was relocated to the Renaissance Center. On April 15, 2024, GM announced that it would relocate its global headquarters from the Renaissance Center to the nearby Hudson's Detroit development in 2025. As of January 12, 2026 they have begun official occupancy of the site.
In 1920, Durant oversaw the start-up of the Sheridan line of cars, manufactured (from 1920 to 1921) in Muncie, Indiana. The Sheridan nameplate has the distinction of being the first automotive brand started from scratch by General Motors. When Buick's D. A. Burke approached Durant about the idea of designing a car from the ground up, and then marketing the car as a bridge vehicle between GM's established divisions of Chevrolet and Oakland (a four-cylinder), and between Buick and Cadillac (an eight-cylinder), respectively.
To market the vehicles, Sheridan hired World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, himself an accomplished automobile racer in his own right. Through prosaic marketing and Rickenbacker's endorsements, Sheridan officials felt the production target of 300 cars a day was not only achievable but profitable as well.
Just as production began to ramp up, Durant was fired for the second and final time from General Motors. Since the Sheridan was a Durant pet project, GM, now under Alfred Sloan, was left with Sheridan, one of Durant's more costly but viable caprices. Durant on the other hand knew that the vehicle was soundly engineered and knew what GM paid for the Muncie facility. In May 1921, Durant purchased the rights to the Sheridan and to the Muncie plant, with the intent on using the facility to continue building the Sheridan and Durant's new project, the Durant and Princeton automobiles, now to be built by Durant Motors.
In 1925, GM bought Vauxhall of England, and then in 1929 went on to acquire an 80% stake in German automobile manufacturer Opel. Two years later this was increased to 100%. In 1931, GM acquired Holden of Australia.
In 1926, GM created the Pontiac as a "companion" to the Oakland brand, an arrangement that lasted five years. The companion outsold its parent during that period, by so much that the Oakland brand was terminated and the division was renamed, Pontiac. As part of General Motors Companion Make Program, three other companion makes (Buick's Marquette, Oldsmobile's Viking, and Cadillac's LaSalle) were created. Each of these, however, had less staying power than Pontiac and was discontinued within a few years, due in large part to the Great Depression.
General Motors acquired control of the 'Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System' (now better known as The Hertz Corporation), the Yellow Cab Manufacturing Company together with its subsidiaries, Yellow Coach Manufacturing Company in 1926 from John D. Hertz who joined the mainboard (John Hertz purchased the car rental business back from GM in 1953 and took it public the following year). GM also acquired the Yellow Coach bus company, and helped create Greyhound bus lines.
During this period (and into the 30s), Sloan and his team established the practice of targeting each of GM's automotive divisions to a specific demographically and socio-economically identifiable market segment. Despite some shared components, each marque distinguished itself from its stablemates with unique styling and technology. The shared components and common corporate management created substantial economies of scale, while the distinctions between the divisions created (in the words of GM President Sloan) a "ladder of success", with an entry-level buyer starting out at the bottom with the "basic transportation" Chevrolet, then rising through Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and ultimately to Cadillac.