The nucleus of the fledgling General Motors was the Buick Motor Car 
Company. It was formed in 1902 by David Buick in Detroit and later moved 
to Flint, Michigan, where William Crapo Durant, "king of the carriage 
makers," took control. Durant, who brashly predicted that "a million cars 
a year would someday be in demand," oversaw Buicks rise to become the 
second largest and most influential automobile manufacturer in the 
country. He also began organizing a network of
suppliers and producers.

When General Motors Company was incorporated as a New Jersey firm, Flint 
had a population of about 25,000 and four streetcars. It was more than 
three months before Flint papers carried a single story about the new 
enterprise.

Early members of the infant GM family were Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, 
Oakland (now Pontiac), Ewing, Marquette, Welch, Scripps-Booth, Sheridan, 
and Elmore, together with Rapid and Reliance trucks. GMs other U.S. 
automotive division, Chevrolet, became part of the corporation in 1918.

Only four of the car lines -- Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Oakland -- 
continued making cars for more than a short time after their acquisition 
by GM. By 1920, more than 30 companies had been acquired by General 
Motors, by purchase of all or part of their stock. Two were forerunners of 
major GM subsidiaries -- the McLaughlin Motor Company of Canada (which 
later became General Motors of Canada Limited) and the Fisher Body 
Company, in which GM initially gained a 60 percent interest.

Although legally a New Jersey corporation, all of GMs original facilities 
were in Michigan, and Mr. Durant encouraged other firms to locate their 
facilities in the state.

By 1911, the idea of a general staff organization had gained more than a 
toehold in the company, and a director of production was appointed. The 
company began to "create a general staff of mechanical engineers, gasoline 
engine engineers, designers, production experts and other experts not 
attached to any particular factory, but whose advice and services would be 
available (to) ... the necessarily more limited staff of each individual 
factory."

A testing laboratory also was established, as the annual report said, to 
"serve as an additional protection against costly factory mistakes and 
give the purchaser of every one of our machines an additional guarantee 
not merely for his comfort, but to assure his safety."

This notion of consulting, advising, fact finding and testing is the 
genesis of GMs present comprehensive staff organization. Today it covers 
such fields as design, engineering, manufacturing, research, labor 
relations, marketing and advertising, personnel, purchasing, consumer 
relations and service, environmental and energy activities, 
industry-government relations, communications, finance and legal.

About the same time GM was getting started in Michigan, an engineering 
development that was to prove critical to GMs subsequent leadership in 
research was occurring in Dayton, Ohio -- the introduction of the electric 
self-starter. Designed by Charles F. "Boss" Kettering at his Dayton 
Engineering Laboratories Company, it first appeared on 1912 Cadillacs and, 
by doing away with the dangerous and unpredictable hand crank, definitely 
popularized motoring.  More than any other development, the electric 
self-starter is credited with making motor cars more accessible to a 
greater part of the population.

"Boss" Kettering later became the scientific mastermind of the 
corporation, in charge of its unparalleled research and engineering 
programs. He joined GM in 1920 when the Dayton Research Laboratories were 
merged into GM and moved the Research Laboratories to Detroit in 1925. He 
remained with the corporation until his retirement June 2, 1947.

The General Motors Company officially became General Motors Corporation on 
October 13, 1916, when incorporation papers were filed in Delaware. By 
August 1, 1917, the new corporation had acquired all the stock of General 
Motors of New Jersey, which was formally dissolved two days later.

It was during World War I that GM, for the first of four times in its 
history, would turn its facilities and experience to the production of war 
materials. It did so again in World War II, the Korean conflict, and 
Vietnam.

With no previous experience in manufacturing military hardware, the young 
American automobile industry within 18 months completed a turnaround from 
civilian to war production. The result was an outpouring of weaponry 
credited with the winning of the war, changing the face of Europe, and 
giving rise to the United States as a world power.

Between 1917 and 1919, 90 percent of GMs truck production was directed to 
the war effort. GMs truck operations supplied the Army with a variety of 
models; Cadillac supplied Army staff cars along with V8 engines for 
artillery tractors and trench mortar shells; Buick built Liberty airplane 
motors, tanks, trucks, ambulances and parts; Central Products Division was 
formed to build a drop forge plant that was later taken over by Chevrolet; 
and Central Foundry at Saginaw was rushed to completion.