History of General Motors Departure (bearings); Delco Electronics and ACDelco (electrical and electronic components); GMAC (finance); General Aviation and North American Aviation (airplanes); GM Defense (military vehicles) and Electronic Data Systems (information technology). General Motors was capitalized by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908 as a holding company. The next day it purchased Buick Motor Company, and rapidly acquired more than twenty companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland, now known as Pontiac, and McLaughlin of Canada. Dr. Campbell, Durant's son-in-law, put 1,000,000 shares on the stock market in Chicago Buick (then controlled by Durant). Durant's earlier company, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, had been in
General Motors Europe General Motors Europe General Motors Europe (often abbreviated to GM Europe) was responsible for the operation of General Motors ("GM") businesses in Europe. The subsidiary was established by GM in 1986 and operated 14 production and assembly facilities in 9 countries, and employed around 54,500 people. GM's core European brands were UK-based Vauxhall and Germany-based Opel, which both sell much the same range of cars in different markets. GM also owned the Swedish Saab until early 2010 and sold Chevrolet models between 2005 and 2015. The U.S. brand Cadillac is imported into Europe in small quantities. In 2009, General Motors