GM’s founder, William C. Durant, grew up in Flint, Michigan. In the late 1880s Durant and a business partner established a company to manufacture horse-drawn carriages with spring suspension. The company soon became the leading manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages in the United States, making Durant a millionaire. In 1904 Durant bought the financially ailing Buick Motor Car Company, which had been founded in 1903 by Scottish-born David Dunbar Buick. Although Durant lacked mechanical skills, he excelled in business administration and quickly turned the Buick company into the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the United States.

Durant believed that any car manufacturer producing only one model line was vulnerable to bankruptcy if sales faltered for even a single year. A large company that produced a variety of models, he reasoned, would be better protected from market forces. In 1908 Durant formed the General Motors Company in Flint and approached leading automakers with his idea for consolidation. Within two years, GM had acquired more than two dozen companies that manufactured automobiles or car parts. Buick and Olds Motor Vehicle Company, maker of the popular Oldsmobile, joined GM in late 1908. The first U.S. passenger car manufacturer, Olds had been founded in 1897 by Ransom Eli Olds of Lansing, Michigan. Two other major car manufacturers merged with GM in 1909: Oakland Motor Car (later renamed Pontiac) of Pontiac, Michigan, and the Cadillac Automobile Company, founded by Henry Leland in 1902 and named after the French explorer who founded Detroit, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.

Durant’s many purchases overextended GM financially. In 1910 bankers took control of the company and forced Durant out of GM. A year later, Durant established Chevrolet Motor Company in partnership with Swiss-born racecar driver Louis Chevrolet. The new company grew rapidly by producing inexpensive cars to compete with the popular Model T of the Ford Motor Company. Durant used the profits to buy GM stock, and by 1916 he had regained control of GM. That year the company reincorporated as General Motors Corporation. Also in 1916, GM acquired an important parts manufacturer, Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco), whose founder, Charles F. Kettering, had invented the electrical ignition system for automobile engines. In 1918 Chevrolet formally became part of GM.