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LINCOLN

LINCOLN COMPANY’S LUXURIOUS VEHICLES SPEAK FOR ITS ROYALTY

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When the automobile industry started expanding, most of the companies aimed at making low-cost car designs. This was a revolution that started to make sure every people of the nation can afford one of them. For example, we know that Volkswagen started manufacturing Volkswagen Beetle which became famous as The People’s Car. But, many companies were also inclined towards producing luxury vehicles. Back in the early 1900s, the demand for personal luxury vehicles also existed. Some people loved the tinge of royalty that led to its mass production. Lincoln Motor Company, a division of the American automobile company, Ford specializes only on luxury vehicles. Henry M. Leland founded the company in August 1917 which gradually came under the acquisition of Ford.

Henry M. Leland

Henry is one of the most famous American automotive entrepreneurs who founded two major companies, Lincoln and Cadillac. He was born in 1843 and was the youngest among his eight siblings. Born into Vermont, Henry grew up in Barton. Later, he went to Brown & Sharpe Plant where he learned engineering and precision machining. His growing knowledge landed him a job in the firearms industry.

In the upcoming years, he served in many companies and also invented the electric barber clippers. In 1902, Henry started working for Ford. And, under his guidance, many changes were made in the engineering of its vehicles. Five years after founding Lincoln Motor Company, Henry was struggling to keep the company altogether and thus sold it to Ford. He sold Cadillac to General Motors.

Henry also took a very active part in politics to set his country free from corrupt politicians. He died on 26th March 1932.

What led to the founding of a new company?

Henry already founded Cadillac went to established Lincoln Motor Company. He came into a heated argument with William C. Durant, President of General Motors. So, he left the company in 1917 and planned to build a new company. He decided to name the company after Abraham Lincoln, as Henry cast his first-ever vote for him.

Henry founded the company with a capital investment of $10 million. He was focused on making Liberty V12 aircraft engines and he bought many parts from companies like Buick, Cadillac, and Packard. Due to World War I the production came to a halt. But, before it took place, the company produced 6,500 units of such engines.

After the acquisition by Ford Motor Company

Ford acquired the Lincoln Motor Company on 4th February 1922 for $8 million. Ford noticed that after General Motors bought Cadillac, they made an entire division for luxury cars. So, they did the same thing with Lincoln Motor Company and gave a tough competition to GM. Lincoln witnessed many changes after the acquisition.

In 1933, Lincoln became the first company to manufacture luxury vehicles with an exclusive V12 engine. The company introduced many models during this time. Some of them are Lincoln Model K (1931), Lincoln Zephyr (1940), Lincoln Continental (1948), etc. The company ended the production of Continental after producing 5,322 units. In the 1950s, Lincoln launched Continental Mark II as its model line. During this time, this model became the most expensive car in the automobile market in America.

The recession economy                     

Due to the global recession in the 1950s, Lincoln was forced to consolidate its model lineup to a single model line. Moreover, the model cycle of Lincoln witnessed an extension of nine years from three years. But, in the next decade, Ford decided to come up with a new model as the successor of Continental Mark II. So, in the last 1960s, Continental Mark III was released in the market.

During the 1980s, the company redesigned and launched the new Continental thus making it the lightest model in its history after World War II.

A new century

After entering the 21st century, the company ended the production of Mark series and started producing Navigator SUV. In 2006, the company released the redesigned Lincoln Zephyr which became the smallest sedan Lincoln ever produced. 2020 will witness a series of new models which includes Lincoln Aviator Black Label, Lincoln Corsair, Lincoln MKZ, and many more. The company has a very huge market in South Korea apart from introducing the Lincoln Navigator model. The company has stopped importing in Japan since 2016. Other markets where the company is available are Oman, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mexico, United States, etc.

Durant

How william c. Durant company had owned the market for selling trucks and utility vehicles

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The name, William C. Durant is attached not only with General Motors but also with companies like Buick and Chevrolet. The automobile industry has seen the growth of many large companies from scratch. And, General Motors Company is famous all over the world for the production of upscale cars, trucks, and most heavy commercial vehicles. William C. Durant co-founded General Motors with Frederic L. Smith. He is also the founder of Chevrolet and Frigidaire. In his career life, he created a series of automobile lines which now has become some of the largest business conglomerates. He also took control of the company Buick Motor which eventually came under General Motors.

William founded the company in 1911, but its history trails back to 1902.

About the founder

William was a very successful businessman. He was born in Boston to William Clark Durant and Rebecca Folger Crapo. He belonged to a very wealthy family but he didn’t complete his schooling. He started working at his grandfather’s lumberyard from a very young age. William started his carrier as a cigar salesman and eventually moved to sell carriages.

In 1886, William co-founded Flint Road Car Company with Josiah Dallas Dort. Within four years, the valuation of the company became $2 million. During the 1900s, a huge revolution started over horseless gasoline-powered carriages. William saw it as an opportunity to open a new automobile company that could change the entire future of this industry.

For the starters, he bought Buick and another small company with large debts. Durant already had money from Durant-Dort Carriage Company and his profit escalated after he bought Buick. So, this games him a strong base for founding General Motors. Durant dreamt about building a company that would produce independent marques and holds subsidiaries.

In the 1920s, Durant showed interest in buying stocks with the advice of one of his friends. He wanted to play the Wall Street market but the idea backfired and he went bankrupt by 1936. William also went through many family turmoils and the mysterious disappearance of his wife. He died at the age of 85 in New York City.

Early History of General Motors Company 

The history of General Motors started when the founding of the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company took place in 1902. After William founded GM he gradually took Rapid Motor under its control as well. In 1908, William also acquired Reliance Motor Car Company which helped in expanding GM. In 1909, General Motors Holding acquired Cartercar Company which William bought going against everyone’s decision. He also planned on buying Ford but the board members dismissed the decision.

He founded General Motors Truck Company in 1911. So, this new division along with Rapid and Reliance merged into one and started its production at Rapid Motor Plant 1 in Michigan. When the company started growing it had three main production units at Michigan, California, and Missouri respectively.

During World War II

GM’s truck division proved to be of immense benefit during the war. The trucks were so efficient that a 2-ton GMC truck drove from New York to San Francisco in 5 days and 30 minutes. The demand rose and GMC had to produce 600,000 trucks for the military.

Growth and Acquisitions 

In 1925, GM acquired Yellow Coach, a Chicago-based bus and taxicab manufacturer. GM changed its name to Yellow Truck & Coach Manufacturing Company. The company also announced that all manufacturing will now take place under YT & CMC. This company remained as an affiliated subsidiary of GM until GM bought the remaining parts of the company in 1943. The company was then renamed as GMC Truck and Coach Division.

By this time, GM was successfully manufacturing vehicles in two plants. The bus production of GM came to an end in 1987. The reason why GM took leave from bus manufacturing was the rising competition between 1970 and 1980. GMC hopped into the next century after changing its branding name to GM from GMC.

GM raised a toast to 100 years of its founding celebration by releasing a book called The First 100 Years. By 2009, General Motors stopped the production of medium-duty commercial trucks. The company currently makes SUVs, vans, light-duty trucks, and pickup trucks. Some of the GM models that are still producing in the market are Sierra, Canyon, Savana, Yukon, Acadia, Terrain, etc.

BUICK MOTOR

BUICK MOTOR COMPANY- A DIVISION OF THE AUTOMOBILE COMPANY, GENERAL MOTORS

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The automobile industry has got ample of multinational companies to lure us with exquisite vehicles. For more than 100 years, companies like Daimler, Volkswagen, General Motors, and many more are ruling the automobile sector. Buick Motor Company is also one of them which now operates as a division of General Motors.

The history of this company dates back to Motor dates back to late 1800. And, General Motors was established a few years after that. David Dunbar Buick founded Buick Motor Company in 1902 but before that he conducted several experiments with combustion engines. The main markets of the company include China, the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

About the founder

Born in Scotland, David moved to Detroit at a very young age. He didn’t get an opportunity to complete his schooling and started working for a plumbing company. In 1882, David and a partner took over the company. And, this was his first stepping stone. David proved himself as a great inventor and was engrossed in experimenting. The partnership didn’t work out well and the company was dissolved.

Eventually, he went from just making engines to a whole car. In 1902, he founded this Manufacturing Company. But, soon he ran out of the company and he only had a single designed car to show. So, he decided to take a loan from one of his friends and finally help the company run.

The company faltered at the beginning

In 1904, the company moved from Detroit to Flint. In the meantime, David left the company in 1906 and sold his stock. There was a shortage in the capital when the company brought William C. Durant as a major investor. Durant made the company one of the leading automobile production companies during the next few years. And, in a single year, the company produced 37 Buick automobiles. The number kept increasing and reached to 8,800 in 1908.

Growth of Buick

The profit made from Buick rose exponentially which helped Durant to found the Mega Corporation, General Motors in 1908. Many new models of the company came up eventually. Some of them are Buick Model 10 Runabout (1910), Buick D-35 Roadster (1917), Buick Model 67 sedan (1932), etc. Since Durant was running both General Motors and Buick; he wanted to control the expenditure of resources. So, the company used a platform called GM A platform (a shared platform with four other companies).

By the 1920s, the company started selling 80% of its vehicles in China. Many new engines came up after World War II. The production of Buick’s vehicles resumed in 1945, after three years of contributing to the war. In 1947, the company launched a new model, Buick Super and next year it offered Dynaflow Automatic Transmission. Buick’s one of the most famous models, Buick Special received the award, Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1962. In 1966, the foundation of the Buick Club of America took place. It is a non-profit organization to preserve the vehicles of the Buick Motor Division. Both new models and sales kept escalating very fast. In 1978, the company broke its record by selling 795,316 vehicles. This number turned to 915,336 at the end of 1985. In 1988, the company became the official car of the U.S Olympic Team.

With the arrival of a new century, the production of many models discontinued. Some of them are Roadmaster sedan and wagon. In 1999, Buick was listed second among 37 international brands in the automobile industry.

A new century 

The arrival of 2000 witnessed a diversified model of Buick. The company noticed that the SUV models were getting popular in the market. This gave him the idea to redesign LeSabre and started building it on GM’s G platform. In 2009, Buick came into a joint partnership with Jaguar to increase growth in the United States. Recently, Buick has replaced the Regal sedan with a new model which was especially for the North American market. Many new models are going to launch this year which include the Encore GX compact crossover, the Enclave mid-size crossover, station wagon, and many more. The main market of Buick is currently in China and North America. In 2016, Buick sold around 1.1 million vehicles in China. The other markets are Mexico, South Korea, Israel, and New Zealand.