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Originally Posted by Boog
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These articles are actually very poorly written and leave out way too many details, to the point they are very misleading, starting with Rapid Motor Vehicle Company being the basis of GMC, that was only one element of what was to become GMC truck. GMC truck Division didn't simply drop "truck" from its name in 1996 unless the current name GMC Motor Coach Division which It isn't. The source of the article seems to be way more recent than the list of assets, EMD, Detroit Diesel, and many of the other assets listed were sold off way before that article was written. The article sort of eludes to the G in GMC being some sort of nod to Grabowski, even if never officially filed that way, and it most certainly is not, both Ford and Durant felt the real future of the that industry was in commercial vehicles, this is why both companies applied the companies trade name to the commercial division and why General Motors Company and later General Motors Corporation used GMC to identify its commercial offerings and simply GM to collectively represent the overall operation. It saw the trade name it applied to the commercial line to be more significant than the name it applied company itself since it didn't directly market products under that name.
Story has it that at one time Henry Ford approached General Motors and offered to join the company and head up the tractor division, and that they essentially laughed him out of the office, to which Ford set his sights on trying to destroy GM and that this objective was responsible for much of his early drive. Ford did aggressively go after the tractor market, GM never really did.
Chevrolet on the other hand has so much significants within General Motors because it represents Durant's plan to build up the company to execute what amounts to a leveraged buyout of General Motors after the Bankers who backed the original General Motors Company voted him out of the company. Durant teamed up with a race car driver (Louis Chevrolet) who had name recognition to build up a new competitor while he was secretly acquiring shares in GM, he offered to merge into GM to which he would get a value of additional shares for Chevrolet then when he produced the "other" shares he had acquired it gave him control of the company again. Note that neither David Dunbar Buick or Louis Chevrolet are significant characters in the grand picture of the early automotive industry or even GM for that matter, other than they contributed their names as GM brands, and for that they get mentioned. In the end Durant was ousted again and anything Durant touched, those who took control were going to make sure it did better without him, so this is the brand that GM decided was to be the volume leader. Had Durant simply rolled over after being kicked out the first time we'd probably be asking why both GMC and Buick build almost identical trucks.
It is interesting to note that since Louis Chevrolet was really being used by Durant for a grander sceme Chevrolet himself was gone by the time the company joined GM, and was off running another company making high performance racing parts for Fords, go figure.