General Motors overtook Ford in the 1920s by slotting Chevrolet between Ford's cheap cars and pricier models, a strategy Alfred Sloan called 'widening a niche.'

Although he didn't create General Motors, Alfred Sloan is widely credited with GM's massive success and is often considered one of the best American businessmen of all time.

Longtime General Motors CEO Alfred Sloan used the motto 'a car for every purse and purpose' to represent the value of having multiple car brands with different target audiences under one company.

Listen to the story of how General Motors beat out the Ford Motor Company to become the largest car manufacturer by 1931.

Owning a large catalog of brands with distinct purposes and customer bases helped General Motors overtake Ford Motor Company as America's leading car manufacturer, something that still sets the company apart today.

See a timeline of important moments in General Motors' history, including its early automatic innovations in creating electrical systems in cars and the birth of the American muscle car in 1964.

In 1919, General Motors created the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) to offer car loans and payment plans, revolutionizing America's relationship with debt by offering one of the very first buy now, pay later programs.

Read the founding story of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, named after longtime General Motors CEO Alfred P. Sloan and research director Charles Kettering.

Charles Kettering, the person who invented the electric starter on cars, helped develop the diesel locomotive engine while working as head researcher at General Motors.

After being the country's largest automaker by sales volume for nearly 100 years, Toyota surpassed General Motors as the top automobile manufacturer in the US—representing a shift in the American economy that once heavily depended on domestic manufacturing.

Read what professors at Harvard Business School think led to General Motors' 2009 bankruptcy.

Despite founding General Motors, one of the most successful car companies in the world, William Durant lost his multimillion-dollar fortune before he died.

One of Henry Ford's early failed business ventures later became Cadillac.

Listen to a reflection on General Motors' role in American life.

Learn about how General Motors dismantled America's streetcars

See a timeline of the US government's investments and restructuring efforts of General Motors following the Great Recession.

General Motors President Charles Wilson is often quoted as saying, 'What's good for General Motors is good for America,' in 1953—but a closer examination of the records reveals a different message.

Henry Ford pioneered the first moving assembly line, building on earlier iterations of the manufacturing method

Mary Barra became the first female CEO of General Motors in 2014, making her the first woman to hold the office in the largely male-dominated automobile industry overall.

After delisting and going private for nearly two years in the midst of the Great Recession, General Motors went public for the second time in 2010 in what was then the largest IPO in history.

Motown Records used an assembly-line approach to songwriting, inspired by founder Berry Gordy's time at Ford Motor Company.

During one large strike, 9,000 General Motors workers walked out for 54 days in 1998 over management's decision to hire outside contractors for equipment removal and fears of widespread job losses.

Watch someone drive a Model T Ford, which feels like driving 'a tractor with the soul of a sewing machine'—and learn how to operate one.

In 1965, consumer advocate Ralph Nader released 'Unsafe At Any Speed,' a scandalous exposé on the risks of cars, prompting backlash from leading automakers including General Motors, which gave way to some of the earliest automobile regulations.

Henry Ford built a plastic car from soybeans in 1941

After investing more than $10B in less than 10 years, General Motors abandoned its controversial robotaxi development efforts in 2024.

Robber barons grew monopolies over their respective industries through a combination of aggressive vertical and horizontal integration strategies.

One of Henry Ford's early vehicle prototypes broke an all-time speed record and got him the money to start Ford Motor Company

Abandoned Detroit: the decline of America's car mecca

In 2023, the United Auto Workers launched the 'Stand Up Strike,' a six-week strike against all of the 'Big Three' automakers, to bargain for cost-of-living pay increases, end a tiered workforce structure, and more.

Standard Oil used vertical integration to create an empire

Read how Fordism helped invent the American middle class

The Model T's simple but functional design helped the car become popular

BYD overcame Tesla via state backing, cheaper cars, and vertical integration

Ray Kroc proposed the idea of franchising McDonald's as a way to sell more of his Multimixers 7 years before buying the McDonald's brothers out of the company for $2.7M.

See Walt Disney's corporate strategy document from 1957, complete with a plethora of Mickey Mouse illustrations.

Walt Disney's visit to a Ford factory helped inspire the layout for Disneyland

World War II innovations helped advance car racing

In 1965, Warren Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile company

How Standard Oil created Chevron and ExxonMobil

In February 2014, General Motors recalled more than 2.6 million cars—part of a record 30 million vehicles it recalled that year—over faulty ignition switches that had caused multiple deaths, ultimately costing the company more than $4B in repair costs, victim compensation, and other expenses.

Over-the-air updates, pioneered by Tesla, have become the industry standard

Learn about the relationship between Thomas Edison and Henry Ford

How Cadillac joined F1 as the first new team in a decade

In what's known as 'The Erie War,' Jay Gould and Cornelius Vanderbilt fiercely feuded for control over the Erie Railroad—a roughly 450-mile-long rail line through New York.

To avoid a total collapse of the housing market, the US government took control of the two leading mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Watch a recreation of the 'Speedee Service System,' the assembly line production method pioneered by the McDonald brothers that revolutionized fast food in the US.

Listen to the details of Henry Ford's widely speculated affair and secret child.

Tesla open-sourced all its patents to speed up industry adoption of electric vehicles

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard are known for creating the 'founding' Silicon Valley company Hewlett-Packard

NASCAR automobiles have become significantly more complex over time