Every brand ever operated by General Motors

Slide of Even people with little or no interest in motoring are aware that General Motors is a quite enormous company. And they may also know that it produces cars under several brand names. How many brand names, though? Since its creation in 1908 GM has acquired, built up  and sometimes closed over 30, thanks partly to founder William Durant’s early habit of buying almost any company he found producing wheeled vehicles. And sometimes old brands it owns get revived. Which is what we’ve just seen with Hummer, a name that closed its doors in 2010, but will now be revived as a sub-brand of GMC for a new range electric-powered pickups (pictured). Here, then, is a look at all of them. Don’t fret if you don’t recognise all the names of this list. A score of ten or above will easily cement your position as a car nut on your local quiz team: In alphabetical order Slide of Acadian Acadians were mildly altered Chevrolets (first the Nova, then the Chevelle) built in Canada and sold there by Pontiac-Buick dealers. The brand lasted from 1962 to 1971, and gave rise to a short-lived sub-brand called Beaumont. Acadian reappeared as a model name for a version of the Chevrolet Chevette in 1976, but this car was only ever marketed as a Pontiac. Slide of Asüna Created in 1992 and disbanded two years later, Asüna was Canada’s equivalent of the Geo brand in the US and a successor to Passport. The few cars it sold were all built in the Far East, such as the Daewoo LeMans-based GT pictured here. Slide of Baojun Along with Wuling, Baojun is a brand owned by a joint venture established by GM and Shanghai-based SAIC Motor. Created in 2010, Baojun produces a wide variety of models. One of the more recent is the RS-3 pictured above, a compact crossover SUV related to similar GM vehicles such as the Buick Encore, Chevrolet Trax and Vauxhall Mokka. Slide of Beaumont In the early 1960s, Beaumont was a model name for cars sold by the Acadian brand in Canada. From 1966, it became a brand in its own right, producing slightly altered versions of the Chevrolet Chevelle. GM changed its policy on this subject soon afterwards, with the result that Beaumonts were sold only until 1969. Slide of Bedford Bedford was for many years the commercial vehicle arm of Vauxhall, and took its name from the county town of Bedfordshire - its Luton factory was in the county. What’s less well known is that Bedfords were originally Chevrolets assembled in the UK from parts manufactured in Canada. Vauxhall took on this work when after it was bought by GM in 1925. The brand was discontinued in 1991, since when the company’s commercial vehicles have been sold simply as Vauxhalls, and the original factory continues today producing vans. Slide of Buick Along with Vauxhall, Buick is one of two GM brands created by Scots. David Dunbar Buick (1854-1929) was born in Arbroath and set up a company in his own name in Detroit in 1899, only to be squeezed out of it seven years later. William Durant (1861-1947) joined the company in 1904 and made it the basis of his new General Motors company four years later. One of Buick’s main market today is China, where it has been popular and prestigious for a long time. The last emperor of the country, Puyi, its first president, Sun Yat-Sen, and its first premier, Zhou Enlai, all drove Buicks. Slide of Cadillac Cadillac is GM’s second oldest surviving brand after Buick. It was created in 1902 from what was left of a failed enterprise established by Henry Ford and named after the French explorer Anthoine de la Mothe Cadillac, founder of what is now the city of Detroit. Cadillac quickly established itself as a builder of high-quality cars, and has been known for years as a luxury brand. It is successful in North America and China, though attempts to break into the European market have not gone well, despite numerous attempts. Slide of Cartercar Byron Carter founded the Motorcar Company in 1905 and renamed it after himself two years later. The fact that his cars had friction-drive transmission appealed greatly to William Durant, who bought the business for GM in 1909. Durant lost control of GM shortly afterwards, and by the time he regained it his colleagues had closed down Cartercar. Durant was criticised for the purchase, but said later, “Well, how was anyone to know that Carter wasn’t to be the thing? It had the friction drive and no other car had it. How could I tell what these engineers would say next?” Slide of Chevrolet During his period of exile from GM, William Durant teamed up with Swiss engineer and racing driver Louis Chevrolet (1878-1941) to create the Chevrolet car company. The man it was named after soon left, but the arrangement worked so well for Durant that he was able to regain control of GM. Chevrolet has since become an extremely popular brand with a global reach and is by far GM’s bigg