Grossman Chevrolet History

GM under Durant's leadership acquired Oldsmobile later in 1908.

The next year, he brought in Cadillac, Cartercar, Elmore, Ewing, and Oakland later known as Pontiac . In 1909, General Motors also acquired the Reliance Motor Truck Company of Owosso, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck.

In 1910, Welch and Rainier were added to the ever-growing list of companies controlled by GM. Durant lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers trust as the deal to buy Ford for 8,000,000.00 fell through, due to the large amount of debt around 1 million taken on in its acquisitions.

Durant was forced out of the firm by the stockholders, and co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1911 with Louis Chevrolet.

1918 also saw personnel increase at GM. The number of employees grew from about 49,000 workers to 85,000 workers.

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.

GM surpassed Ford Motor Company in sales in the late 1920s.

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 General Motors settled down in Argentina and started producing the Double Phaeton standard and the Double Phaeton called Especial Argentino . The production was completed with a sedan model, a roadster and a truck chassis also adaptable to transporting of passengers.

In 1926, GM created the Pontiac as a companion to the Oakland brand, an arrangement that lasted five years.

Alfred P. Sloan became president that year, and the building was officially dedicated as the General Motors Building in 1929.

General Motors bought the internal combustion engined railcar builder Electro-Motive Corporation and its engine supplier Winton Engine in 1930, renaming both as the General Motors Electro-Motive Division.

Two years later this was increased to 100 . In 1931, GM acquired Holden of Australia.

In 1932, GM formed a new subsidiary United Cities Motor Transport UCMT to finance the conversion of streetcar systems to buses in small cities.

Through a stock exchange GM took controlling interest in North American Aviation and merged it with its General Aviation division in 1933, but retaining the name North American Aviation.

From 1936 the company was involved in an unpublicized project, with others, in what became known as the General Motors streetcar conspiracy to buy out streetcar and intercity train transport operators using subsidiary companies, and convert their operations to use buses.

In 1939, defending the German investment strategy as highly profitable , Alfred P. Sloan had told shareholders that GM's continued industrial production for the Nazi government was merely sound business practice.

At one point GM had become the largest corporation registered in the United States, in terms of its revenues as a percent of GDP. In 1953, Charles Erwin Wilson, then GM president, was named by Eisenhower as Secretary of Defense.

In 1955, General Motors became the first American corporation to pay taxes of over 1 billion.

By the time Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick introduced similarly styled and priced compact models in 1961, the old step-up structure between the divisions was nearly over.

In 1962 GM created the General Motors Research Laboratories, based in Santa Barbara, California, to conduct research and development activities on defense systems.

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader issued a series of attacks on vehicle safety issues from GM particularly the Chevrolet Corvair in his book Unsafe at Any Speed, written in 1965.

Late in September, sensing an impending impasse in the talks, the union called a strike, the first nationwide walkout since 1970 individual plants had experienced local labor disruptions in the interim . Within two days, however, a tentative agreement was achieved and the strike ended.

Launched as a 1971 model, it also began life as a very popular car in the marketplace.

In 1974, GM was the first major automobile company to offer airbags as optional equipment in a non-experimental, unlimited vehicle capacity.

In the 1980 model year, a full line of automobiles on the X-body platform, anchored by the Chevrolet Citation, was launched.

The J-body cars, namely the Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunbird, took their place, starting with the 1982 model year.

In 1984, GM acquired Electronic Data Systems Corporation EDS , a leading data processing and telecommunications company, to be the sole provider of information technology IT services for the company.

Hughes Electronics Corporation was formed on December 31, 1985, when Hughes Aircraft Company was sold by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to General Motors for 5.2 billion.

GM maintained this headquarters location, now called Cadillac Place, until it purchased the Renaissance Center in 1996.

After GM's lay-offs in Flint, Michigan, a strike began at the General Motors parts factory in Flint on June 5, 1998, which quickly spread to five other assembly plants and lasted seven weeks.

In 2001, following the September 11th attacks, a severe stock market decline caused a pension and benefit fund underfunding crisis.

In 2003, the remaining parts of Hughes Electronics were sold to News Corporation and renamed The DirecTV Group.

On October 8, 2005, Delphi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

On March 31, 2006, Delphi announced it would sell off or close 21 of its 29 plants in the United States.

On June 28, 2007, GM agreed to sell its Allison Transmission division to private equity firms Carlyle Group and Onex for 5.1 billion.

On February 12, 2008, GM announced its operating loss was 2 billion with a GAAP loss of 39 billion including a one time accounting charge . GM offered buyouts to all its UAW members.

On February 20, 2009, GM's Saab division filed for reorganization in a Swedish court after being denied loans from the Swedish government.