Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Great as have been the engineering advances since 1920, we have today basically the same kind of machine that was created in the first twenty years of the industry. We still deal with a vehicle moved by a gasoline engine. The heart of the engine is still a piston in a cylinder, moved by the burning of a mixture of gasoline and air, which is fired a
... See moreAlfred P Sloan Jr. β’ My Years With General Motors

Early Cadillac engineering had an important influence on the industry and upon my operations in Hyatt. This was largely due to Henry Leland, who, I believe, was one of those mainly responsible for bringing the technique of interchangeable parts into automobile manufacturing.
Alfred P Sloan Jr. β’ My Years With General Motors
These new elements I think I can without significant loss reduce to four: installment selling, the used-car trade-in, the closed body, and the annual model. (I would add improved roads if I were to take into account the environment of the automobile.)
Alfred P Sloan Jr. β’ My Years With General Motors
Unlike most early motorcar producers, who merely assembled components made by the parts manufacturers, Mr. Durant already had Buick making many of its own parts, and he expected to bring about increasing economies in this direction.
Alfred P Sloan Jr. β’ My Years With General Motors
By 1920 its lineup ranged from Chevrolet at the low end through Oakland and Olds, Scripps-Booth and Sheridan, to Buick and Cadillac at the top. But GMβs product lineup, having been assembled through acquisition, was a shambles. There was lots of overlap between brands in the middle of the range, while the lowest-price car was too expensive (the che
... See moreTom Standage β’ A Brief History of Motion: From the Wheel, to the Car, to What Comes Next
This policy, I believe, was new in the industry when we began it. It reflected our desire to protect dealers against unreasonable product-depreciation losses and to place the responsibility for reasonable production schedules in the later months of the model year on the management of the divisions. It imposed a penalty on the factory in the form of
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