However, the GM story started with another brand, Buick. David Buick established it in 1899 and went into financial trouble in 1903. Carriage maker Billy Durant took over it then and started absorbing other car makers. This brilliant businessman has no engineering background, but his financial know-how helped him to win battles after battles. He saw there were too many car makers rose and fell in America. He believed a consortium of several car makers would provide a stable finance without being risked by the poor performance of individual models. He also pioneered the concept of component sharing among the brands which reduce the price of parts and cost of engineering. 

Therefore Durant acquired the Oldsmobile in 1909 and created General Motors. Then the targets went to Oakland Motor (1909) which was then renamed to Pontiac after a popular model. The largest purchase was the famous Cadillac (also 1909). At last finished the shopping by taking over Chevrolet in 1916. By 1920, GM had grown 8 times compare with four years ago. Durant lost his post during the post-WWI recession. 

The famous GM building was completed in Detroit in 1920 as a symbol for American industry. Since then the research and development of cars were centralised, with a budget and facilities that made the rest of the world jealous. GM became a world leader for mass production technology, such as the mass production six-cylinder engine, high compression V8, automatic transmission, air conditioning, electric windows, safety glass, fast-drying paint etc. By 1927, GM surpassed Ford to be the world’s largest car maker, thanks to its variety of model ranges, in contrast to the one-car policy of Ford. 

Since the 20’s, GM adopted a clear pricing policy - each divisions and each models were assigned with a price range and target customers to avoid internal competition. On the other hand, GM started a so-called "revolution" in car styling. It employed the industry’s first stylist, Harley Earl, to help diversify the image of its wide model ranges. He shaped cars according to taste and fashion instead of functions, created the idea of "model year" by facelifting cars every year. Like the fashion wear, this increased the public interest to change cars frequently, hence increased sales. The situation went too exaggerate to the extent that the cars in the 50’s had ultra-long trunk and tailfins inspired by aircraft fighters. During the "good old days", the wealthy American public could afford it, thus pushed General Motors to its peak. 

After the peak, GM started a trend of "muscle car" with Pontiac GTO. That pushed the American market to another extreme - everyone pursued for big block V8s with up to 7 litres capacity and 400 horsepowers. In response to Ford’s popular pony car, Mustang, Chevy Camaro and Ponitac Firebird was born with nearly equal success. All American car makers succeeded to achieve fire-breathing performance in a low price with big but old-tech V8 produced in mass amount. The cars also grew too irreasonably big ("size does matter", as they said) and thirsty to be exported. Handling were ruined by the size and weight as well as the lack of concern in suspension and chassis design. The whole American motor industry was set on fire and seemed to crazy in the eyes of European.  

The first energy crisis in 1967 punished GM (also Ford and Chrysler) heavily. But it did not learned from the lesson as the crisis disappeared quickly. However, the second oil crisis in ‘ 73 and then the third occasion in ’78 were not so kind, accompany with emission regulations. The big 3 found their ignorance about small economy cars paid the price. Sales of Japanese imports surged. Chevrolet made its first so-called "compact car", Corvair, but not too "compact" by our standards. GM was in loss times to times during the 70’s and 80’s. In 1989, it recorded the biggest loss ever experienced by the world’s industry. Substantial cost-cutting afterwards helped it to regain profitability, but market share is declining as a result. 

Since the Mustang era, GM has been known as a bulky giant without much new ideas explored. It talked too much about reform but did too little, with the exception of Saturn. Saturn was a clean-sheet new division with its own R&D. It learned development and production methods from the Japanese and started production in a new factory in Tennessee, in 1990. However, the result was not very successful. Market share is still being eaten by the Japanese.

In the 90s, GM made some big scale acquisition. It bought Saab in 1990, Subaru in 1999 (which it sold off 6 years later) and Daewoo in 2003. But the most spectacular of all was the merge with another giant, Fiat, in 2000. However, the marriage lasted only 5 years. As the financial crisis of its Italian partner deepened, GM pulled out in early 2005.

• Dodge - budget car brand and truck brand
  
• Chrysler - more upmarket car brand
  
• Plymouth - similar to Dodge
  
• Jeep - off-roader brand

The Plymouth brand was born in 1928. Car maker Dodge Brothers was acquired in the same year. The purchase of AMC (American Motors Corporation) in 1987 from Renault secured the famous Jeep division. 

Like Ford and GM, Chrysler’s factories were turned into arsenal during WWII and concentrated on making the Sherman M4 tank. The broke out of Korea war in 1950 gave it another opportunity to earn a great profit.  

Chrysler created a few classic cars. The Air Flow of 1934 was one of the first saloon designed with aerodynamic concern. The Chrysler 300 of the 50’s pioneered a powerful V8 with hemi-spherical combustion chamber, which gave the heavyweight coupe a strong performance. Another classic is Dodge Charger of 1967, which was the most fearsome muscle car. Its spirit inspired the Viper of the 90’s. 

Chrysler was in financial crisis during the 70’s and early 80’s, thanks to oil crisis, emission control and the Japanese’s invasion. When Lee Iacocca was employed from Ford in 1978 as the new president, the company was closed to bankrupt. Iacocca, the father of Mustang, introduced a radical cost reduction, cutting heads, axing unpopular models and reducing platforms - eventually to only one ! As a result, Chrysler lost weight by 50%.  

He sought $1.5 billion loan from the federal government, using them to finance the development of the one and only one platform - the front-wheel-drive K-cars, which formed the basis of many models including the Laser coupe. The K-cars were small cars compare with GM and Ford’s models. It helped Chrysler to regain profitability in 1982. Next year, it pioneered the MPV trend with Voyager / Caravan which was soon became the company’s best seller. 

Chrysler tried to expand many times, some succeeded but more failed - the acquisition of 15.6% in Maserati in 1984 resulted in a turbocharged convertible version of the K-car built in small quantity. The took over of Lamborghini in 1987 resulted in the Diablo and the promising F1 engine program, but the company pulled out before any return was generated. The merge with AMC resulted in just several factories but a precious name, Jeep. The joint-venture with Mitsubishi to form "Diamond-Star" helped Mitsubishi to access the US market. It was then sold to the Japanese company in the mid-90’s. 

Since the Iacocca era, Chrysler had became an efficient, fast-reacting and creative car maker. It was the first to realise the potential of MPV and SUV, which helped it earned billions before competitors came. The Neon also represent a creative design and development process with engineers and stylists working under the same roof. This helped it to achieve a record-breaking development time. 

In 1998, Chrysler merged with Daimler-Benz to become DaimlerChrysler. The merge was said as "equal merge", but in 2000 most American top executives were sacked and replaced with German. By then it was clear that the merge was actually a takeover by Mercedes.

At the same time, the company faced sales slump and had to implement a 3-year cost cutting plan. Thanks to the reduced cost and a number of successful products, Chrysler returns to healthy.