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- Wayback Wheels -
Vintage Car Talk
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- GM celebrates 100 years of assembly lines
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- By A Neilly
- This year marks the 100th anniversary of the formation of
General Motors. GM was founded in 1908 by William Crapo Durant
(yes, GM was started by a man whose middle name was "Crapo.”)
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- Durant began with a starting capital of $2,000 on September
16, 1908, when he incorporated General Motors of New Jersey.
Within two weeks, the new stock issue had raised $12 million.
He then proceeded to purchase the Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac
car companies, along with several small truck manufacturing firms.
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- That same year, the Ford Motor Co. introduced the Model T
and in Canada, Sam McLaughlin and his brother George began
producing their own car that became known as the McLaughlin-Buick,
named after Durant’s Buick division, which provided the
powertrain. Sam McLaughlin became president of GM Canada and
brother George was vice-president. Sam died in 1972 at the age
of 100.
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- (A third brother, who was a chemist, went on to become the
founder of Canada Dry ginger ale.)
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- In 1920, Ford had sold 845,000 vehicles, compared to General
Motor’s 193,000. However, before the end of that decade,
GM would out-sell Ford by offering more models, different colours,
new features and styling that would change every year.
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- GM also introduced something that Henry Ford was totally
offended by - credit
By 1925, 75% of all GM vehicles were purchased by customers using
payment plans. In that same year, GM bought the Yellow Cab and
Truck Company, Vauxhall in the U.K. and the Fleetwood Body Company.
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- Throughout the past 100 years, GM was responsible for many
innovations and automotive firsts. In 1933, they introduced no-draft
ventilation and in 1939 installed the first electronic turn signals
on a production vehicle. The first automatic transmission (no
clutch) arrived in 1939 and by the next year, GM had built its
25 millionth vehicle. The Autronic Eye, which dimmed headlights
automatically, arrived in 1952 and the following year, the first
U.S.-built sports car, the Corvette, surfaced.
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- Ten years later, in 1963, the classic split-window Sting
Ray made its debut; 1966 ushered in the first large car with
front wheel drive, (the Toronado) and 1967 gave us the sporty
Camaro and Firebird models.
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- In 1990, the Saturn division was introduced to compete with
the imports which were beginning to take a larger share of sales.
The Oldsmobile division was dropped in 2004 after decreasing
sales numbers.
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- GM was the first auto company to gross more than a billion
dollars in sales in one year and was the dominant automobile
manufacturer for most of the 20th century.
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- Today, General Motors is facing ever-increasing competition
from the Japanese auto companies and just this month announced
a mind boggling $38 billion loss for 2007. To put that number
of a billion into perspective; one billion or so seconds ago
it was 1959; the year GM introduced the El Camino.
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- What does the next 100 years hold for GM? It's hard to know.
India is about to release its new version of “The People’s
Car,” the Tata Nano. It will sell for less than $2,500 Cdn.,
passes all safety regulatory requirements and exceeds current
emission standards. It is rumoured that this same company is
about to purchase the Jaguar and Land Rover divisions from the
Ford Motor Company.
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- The future is uncertain.
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