Talk:History of General Motors

Could someone insert this somewhere. During the apartheid era in South Africa, General Motors was criticized for it's presence in South Africa. The company withdrew after pressure from consumers, stockholders and Leon H. Sullivan. ^[1]

Thanks Samuel 23:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

In which year did GM's annual turnover reach $1 billion, $10 billion, $100 billion? Anwar (talk) 19:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

GM mainly appears as a car maker from this history, appart from EDS, Engine divisions. No mention of Euclid and Terex

From Euclid articul

Company expansion

From these early machines, Euclid went on to produce thousands of off-road haulers and scrapers, of ever-improving and larger design and became a large corporation by the early 1950s. The early 1950s was a period of great expansion and company mergers, and in 1953, the Euclid Corporation was purchased by General Motors, in what the leaders of both companies saw, as an advantageous deal, with complementary product lines. This deal came about, due to GM's already awakened desire to enter into the earthmoving manufacturing field and the realisation by the Armington family, that a GM takeover would provide capital and design ability that they could only dream about. The GM takeover deal was announced on September 30, 1953, with the official takeover date being January 1, 1954.

Arthur Armington had died suddenly in 1937, leading to a stumble in Euclids fortunes - but George Armington only died in 1954, at the age of 89, after overseeing the highly satisfying and successful sale of Euclid to GM. Sons Stuart & Everett Armington retired in 1953, and George Jr retired in 1958 - with the youngest son Ray, being the last Armington to retire in 1960, after 7 years as General Manager of GM's Euclid Division.

The 1950s and 1960s were good years for Euclid Trucks. Euclid produced the industrys first 50 ton, 3 axle dump truck, with twin Cummins power, in 1951. Euclid produced two and three axle dump trucks with capacities up to 105 tons, in this period - with some of the largest three axle units, being used as tractors for even larger end dumps, and bottom dump haulers.

Anti-trust lawsuit

However, in 1959, the Department of Justice under Attorney General William P. Rogers initiated an anti-trust suit, under the Clayton Act, against General Motors Corporation - charging that GM was too dominant, and its business methods were stifling genuine competition, in the off-road hauler and earthmoving market. GM fought the suit for 8 years, finally surrendering in 1968, by agreeing to sell the Euclid Division of GM.

After the anti-trust litigation, and the sale of Euclid to White Motor Corporation, GM formed its own Terex brand. Under the sale agreement with White Motor Corporation, GM was not allowed to produce trucks in competition with White Motor Corporation for 4 years — from July 1, 1968 to July 1, 1972. GM could produce off-road haul trucks in this period - but could not sell them in the U.S. GM equipment dealers in the U.S. were offered a franchise deal from White Motor Corporation, to sell the White/Euclid line of trucks, for a period of 4 years. The international Euclid dealerships were still owned by GM - thus forcing White Motor Corporation to commence the formation of all new international dealerships. GM produced haul trucks in the 1968-1972 period, that it had developed during its ownership of Euclid - from plants in Canada and Scotland, that it had been allowed to keep. These were sold as Terex, but were essentially the same as the Euclid line.

History of GM appears to be a bit lacking as show from above quote in other wiki articles.

Why no reference to this era and these subsidary companies, especially as Terex is now a global brand in its own right ???BulldozerD11 (talk) 16:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The author of the article sums up the post war history of GM with build quality issues and safety problems. GM like all the other domestic post war auto makers were slow adopt safety over performance and style. However thier build quality and safety was on par with the other big 4 Ford, Chrysler, and (defunct)AMC. I feel it should be noted that as the United States reached its economic zenith in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s so did GM. In the 60s GM owned companies like Frigidaire. Frigidaire made refrigeration and air conditioning products. They also made air conditioning compressors and other components for GM cars. GM became such a conglomerate that 1 in 7 people in the U.S. worked for GM or its subsidaries. The United States emerged from World War II a superpower. It was the post war economy that financed the super power status. GM was a big part the postwar boom. The cars and engines GM produced in this time are iconic as this company. Gm is america and it has risen and fallen with us. Millions of Americans have made thier lives designing, building, selling, repairing, racing, and modifying GM cars and trucks. If this article was about the US post war history it would be ONLY about Viet Nam, race riots, Water Gate, Iran-Contra, and voodoo economics. GM has made plenty of mistakes and has suffered (economically) for it, but so has America. I think this company deserves a little better. And this being Wikipedia (whose articles I read regularly and voraciously) would have a more hollistic view. I dont think I am qualified to write articles and I respect those who do. I think however this one could be improved. My e-mail is <email redacted>, thankyou for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.254.241.87 (talk) 17:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

A few paragraphs might be devoted to GM across the border. E.g. Opel has consistently been among the top selling brands of family cars in West-Germany, and some other countries, from the 1920s until the present day. That's over tens million cars just for the Opel Astra. Rp (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Can anyone of knowledge please expand on 'the old "step-up" structure between the divisions'? i.e., an explanation of what the original target demographics were for each division, especially for the passenger cars. The article gives no clear, concrete and concise indication of that concept.

It is somewhat obvious that Chevrolet is the entry level model where Cadillac is the high end luxury model, but what about the ones in between (Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile, etc).

It can be argued, starting in the 1960's, the lines between the divisions began to blur, but it would be nice to have some insight into the original rational for purchasing or creating certain divisions. It is assumed that the intention was to capture certain market segments, but which ones?

The same treatment might be given to other, non-passenger car divisions as it is appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.96.145 (talk) 21:05, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The following sentence, as written in the article as of this comment's writing, is dubious, for reasons that I'll give below. "Nevertheless, while General Motors' US-based parent corporation has claimed that the operations of its German subsidiary (Adam Opel AG) were outside its control during World War II, this assertion appears to be contradicted by available evidence.{{Dubious|date=July 2011}}"

Everything that follows in that section is in fact true, I have no doubt—regarding how inexcusably cozy the Americans were with the Nazis in the 1930s (1933-1941). Which is what makes this somewhat tricky to tease apart without sounding like a POV partisan (which I'm not trying to be). The weakness of logic is a single implicit leap from those facts into a WP:FRINGE extrapolation. The whole discussion is knowledgeable right up until that last leap. The leap is that the fringe theorists seem not to comprehend what *changed* at the tipping point of December 1941 through January or so of 1942. They assume that nothing actually changed there except a theatrical smoke machine came on. This assumption takes leave of knowledgeable credibility based on what followed. After years of building tensions (1933-1941) in which the American body politic bickered internally along various fracture lines (pro-Nazi, anti-Nazi, isolationist, laissez-faire, etc) while the execs of the multinational business world continued to clink brandy snifters together, wink at each other, and light each other's cigars with burning hundred-dollar-bills, a seismic shift finally occurred: Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, America fell off the guard's stool it had been snoozing on and blinked in stunned confusion to find its ass on the floor, America declared war on Japan, America and Germany then declared war on each other (belatedly in the circumspect view although promptly in the narrow view), and the boozy game/garden-party of the multinational execs ended with the proverbial scratch of the needle across the record. They blinked at each other in stunned amazement, those caught with their trousers down yanked them up and tried to act inconspicuous about it, and they all scurried home to the new environment in which they were now on opposite teams in a violent contest against each other. Therefore, my commented-out explanation of why I added the tag in that spot: "Yes, that's no doubt entirely true throughout the 1930s, and ethically indefensible. But this sentence and the one before it are not as automatically connected as is implied. What happened around Dec 1941 to Jan 1942 is that "the pre-war game ended and the players scrammed"; the music of the musical chairs stopped playing. The national governments blockaded most civilian communications and sniffed whatever wasn't blocked. Therefore, everything in the remainder of this paragraph is true, but the lesson that the WP:FRINGE is trying to implicitly draw from it—that the whole idea of "warfare" was a scam and the execs all continued their transatlantic party—is an extrapolation that takes leave of knowledgeability from that point. The key difference is the concept that what they did up through 1941 powered up the Axis materiel momentum, yes; but the engine stalled when the US and Germany declared war on each other. Germany depended greatly on the assets and momentum that were built up till Pearl Harbor; but its benefits from America after that point were the [large and important] coasting and inertia from that, which they built on themselves. So yes, large and important, but no, the pre-war game was not unaffected by the war outbreak."

Notice that I didn't touch any of the paragraphs below, which are perfectly acceptable in and of themselves. The problem is simply that the fringe leap extrapolated from them is a non sequitur with the specious appearance of following. Hopefully we can continue developing this section to address this. Regards, — ¾-10 16:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

as you can observe it on wiki with all the others like Ford, Coca-Cola Company,... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.195.69.112 (talk) 20:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

While there is a brief mention of the Camaro/Firebird line, in competition with the Ford Mustang, there is nary a mention of the Covette, originally in competition with the Ford Thunderbird.

Furthermore, I should think that a putative "History of GM" would include either a list of, or links to a list of, each and every model line that had ever been produced by GM? Or is that more properly included in some other entry on Wikipedia? If so, a link to that section would be appropriate here, no? Spartan26 (talk) 20:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

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GMcommunications (talk) 18:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)Caroline, GM Community Manager

As an update for this account, what was previously "GMCommunications" is now "Pete at GM". Going forward, I will be the sole person representing GM and will be suggesting updates on behalf of the company. For more information on who I am, please visit my user page. Pete at GM (talk) 15:56, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

In the introduction section of the page, I noticed the number of global vehicles sold is out of date and reflects 2008 numbers. Below I have included two different sources and proposed content that reflectPete at GM (talk) 15:45, 6 November 2014 (UTC) the current numbers: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-23/toyota-beats-gm-vw-in-2013-car-sales-sees-3-growth-this-year.html and http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2014/Jan/0114_2013gm-global-sales.html Proposed Content: “In 2013, 9.71 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under various brands.”

In the General Motors leadership section of the page, I noticed that some of GM's leadership records are out of date. Below I have included two different sources and some proposed content: Proposed Content: [Under Chairman of the Board of General Motors] Update “Dan Akerson - December 31, 2010 - January 15, 2014” and add “Theodore M. Solso - January 15, 2014-present” Proposed Content: [Under Presidents of General Motors] Add “Dan Ammann - January 2014 - present” Sources: http://www.gm.com/company/aboutGM/board_of_directors0.html and http://www.gm.com/company/aboutGM/GM_Corporate_Officers.html Pete at GM (talk) 15:51, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Kabocha here for an editorial comment: The list of "Chief Executive Officers" (CEO) is largely redundant and should probably be deleted. As a general proposition, the title "Chief Executive Officer" (CEO) was not used much in GM before around 1970; you probably will not find it on correspondence by GM or in its annual reports before then. Second, the list of "Chief Executive Officers" that you display here is basically that of chairmen of the board, so it is mostly redundant. If GM pairs the titles Chairman and CEO with each other, then Wikipedia should, too. (In US corporate law, the shareholders elect the directors. One director is chosen as chairperson of the board of directors and runs the board meetings. That person may or may not also have substantial control over strategy for the business, which GM chairmen have traditionally had. Ideally, directors don't have a lot to do with day-to-day operations. The directors select the officers. In theory, the true officers manage the day-to-day operations, and those officers traditionally include president and vice-presidents, as provided in corporate by-laws. Since maybe 1985(?) General Motors has associated the title "CEO" with the chairperson of the board and the title of COO (Chief Operating Officer) with president. In doing so, GM blurs the distinction between officers and directors by calling a director a chief operating OFFICER. Another problem is that the link to the source has failed; GM may have discovered errors or redundancy and removed that page. Not sure why Mr. Reuss's name is written in red. He was indeed a president, serving 1990-1992. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-04-07/business/1992098050_1_gm-chairman-top-gm-executives-stempel (talk) 17:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC)kabochaKabocha (talk) 17:42, 7 April 2016 (UTC) (P.S.: I'm an attorney at law.)