DETROIT – After 100 years, General Motors has a lot to say for itself. And to celebrate it’s centennial on Sept. 16, The General said it in Korean, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese and English, flipping between countries and languages in a live feed to showcase its hard-won global position.
Over the last 100 years, GM has sold more than 450 million cars and trucks worldwide, and it currently has manufacturing operations in 33 countries and almost 24,000 dealerships worldwide.
What has become a massive global corporation, had a simple start when William Durant combined several brands under the umbrella of a single automaker. That’s no mean feat considering thousands of startup auto companies have come and gone over the last century.
Today, GM is the world’s largest automaker. In fact, as Rick Wagoner, chairman and CEO of GM, pointed out, GM has stood as the world’s leading automaker for most of its 100 years.
Amid slumping auto sales in the U.S., the global presentation took the tone of an optimistic pep talk. According to Fritz Henderson, president and COO for GM, everywhere else in the world is showing double-digit growth. At least. In fact, Asia Pacific has shown a whopping 147 percent increase in volume between 1997 and 2007.
“This is my favorite part of the presentation,” Henderson said after revealing that stat.
During an interview after the global feed, Henderson commented that the U.S. auto industry woes have less to do with the automakers and more to do with the nation's credit and housing crisis.
However, to arrest the sales erosion in the U.S., Henderson said every vehicle in the GM lineup has to carry its weight. GM can’t depend on just the pickup trucks or SUVs to carry the company. He said each Malibu, each CTS has to be better than the one that preceded it.
And one way to do that, according to Bob Lutz, GM vice chairman, is through design prowess. During the global feed he said the goal is to create vehicles that people have to have, and in order to do that you have to start and end each car with compelling design.
Next to compelling design, the other buzzword for the presentation and, indeed, for the entire day of celebration, was innovative technology.
Throughout its storied past The General has been the inventor of the catalytic converter, fully automatic transmission and remote start as well as the first mechanical heart pump and the Lunar Roving Vehicle used by astronauts on Apollo 15.
Thus, it should come as no surprise that GM ends it’s first 100 years with an innovation that paves the way for the future of the automobile. At the end of the global presentation, Wagoner unveiled the much-anticipated plug-in electric vehicle: the Chevrolet Volt.
“We’re more than just a 100-year-old company,” Wagoner said. “We’re a company that’s ready to lead for a 100 years to come.”
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