Abstract
It is hard to imagine that General Motors, one of the leading car companies, occupying 15% of the automobile market and that in 2003 alone earned $3.8 billion on record revenue of $185.5 billion, was founded in the small town of Flint, Michigan, by an ingenious salesman and labourer, William Crapo Durants. Over the years, General Motors has come to represent more than a car brand name. It has come to represent a tradition, an American tradition, employing more than 325,000 people worldwide, and ranking third in international sales. From salesman to automobile pioneer, William Crapo Durants' business intuition led him to the successful production of two wheeled horse carriages until 1903, when Durant met a young inventor named David Dunbarr Buick, a Scottish expatriot. In this same year Durant made a quick decision to change from manufacturing carriages to cars. Buick and Durant founded the Buick Company, releasing their first charter on June 17, 1905. And so began the production of the first automobiles, which in 1908 took on the name of General Motors.
