Educate me: Why does GM have both GMC and Chevrolet divisions making trucks?

[Boog]

Here is some interesting facts about GMC and General Motors history.

http://www.dailynewarticles.com/arti...Grabowski.html

http://www.motorpoint.com.au/rapid-vehicle-motor.asp

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by Boog

Here is some interesting facts about GMC and General Motors history.

http://www.dailynewarticles.com/arti...Grabowski.html

http://www.motorpoint.com.au/rapid-vehicle-motor.asp

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.

[68gmsee]

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is government involvement and "anti-trust" laws. Many years ago, a lot of companies had competing groups of wholly owned subsidiaries to stay ahead of government anti-trust laws. IBM was one of them. They had divisions that in some cases competed against each other.

In the automobile industry this may have played a role in the past but these days it may be a way for corporations to assess their wholly owned subsidiaries to see if they're profitable. If they're not, they can eliminate them.

Another possibility is customer loyalty and perception. To this day, I still hear people say that GMC vehicles are slightly better. Same with Mercury vs Ford, Plymouth vs Dodge. Most of these are pretty much identical but perception keeps the customers buying.

[DT1]

I'm curious...I always thought GMC trucks were suppose to be slightly more refined or had better upgrades than Chevy trucks. Lately, I have been told that the opposite is true, ie, Today, GMC is a notch lower than Chevy. Which, if any, is true?

[Wasted Income]

Originally Posted by DT1

I'm curious...I always thought GMC trucks were suppose to be slightly more refined or had better upgrades than Chevy trucks. Lately, I have been told that the opposite is true, ie, Today, GMC is a notch lower than Chevy. Which, if any, is true?

At least now they've changed the sheetmetal between the two. Back in teh 90s, it was literally a different steering wheel horn button and grille.

I think GMC is the "upgraded" brand, with the Denali line. My brother has a new Sierra Denali, and I'd take it over a Chevy, with the styling and comfort features that aren't or weren't available with a Chevy.

[Mick Je]

GMC trucks had more heavy duty options for the chassis, had more interior options in the deluxe series and often more expensive than some Chevys for their more options than Chevys. But both are better than FORD!!!! Haha!!!
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[MattPSU]

Originally Posted by Wasted Income

At least now they've changed the sheetmetal between the two. Back in teh 90s, it was literally a different steering wheel horn button and grille.

It's funny you said this. In the 90's, my dad bought a new S-10 Blazer that had a GMC horn button. We didn't even notice for a few days and eventually the dealership replaced it for him with a bowtie one.

[DeadheadNM]

Good stuff here.

So back in 67-72, would an equivalent Chevrolet truck cost more, less, or the same as a GMC truck? Curious is one had a sales advantage in terms of cost over the other.

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by 68gmsee

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is government involvement and "anti-trust" laws. Many years ago, a lot of companies had competing groups of wholly owned subsidiaries to stay ahead of government anti-trust laws. IBM was one of them. They had divisions that in some cases competed against each other.

In the automobile industry this may have played a role in the past but these days it may be a way for corporations to assess their wholly owned subsidiaries to see if they're profitable. If they're not, they can eliminate them.

Another possibility is customer loyalty and perception. To this day, I still hear people say that GMC vehicles are slightly better. Same with Mercury vs Ford, Plymouth vs Dodge. Most of these are pretty much identical but perception keeps the customers buying.

The concept of GM was born from the fact that in the early days the public was clamoring for regulation of the new industry, a lot of people felt automobiles were a dangerous nuisance, GM was created with the thought that only large manufactures would be able to survive regulation or if the industry created it's own standards maybe the government would never get involved in the first place. Remember early on there was hundreds of car companies, if not thousands, producing very small numbers of hand fabricated cars.

Interestingly, what GM did in it's latest down sizing, brand reduction was less about what was profitable individually and more about reducing self competition. Pontiac was their 2nd best selling mark when they eliminated it, but was the greatest reduction in the distribution network aside from Chevy.
I suppose GM felt they could steer loyalty either towards Chevy or Buick. A lot of the stronger performing Pontiac dealerships became one or the other.

Originally Posted by DT1

I'm curious...I always thought GMC trucks were suppose to be slightly more refined or had better upgrades than Chevy trucks. Lately, I have been told that the opposite is true, IE, Today, GMC is a notch lower than Chevy. Which, if any, is true?

You are thinking too much in car terms, GMCs were intended to be perceived as more rugged or more commercial, luxury was not really a concept applied to trucks until recently. Actually now GMC is not a notch lower it still marketed differently, if not paradoxically, on the low end it's marketed as it always has been, towards fleet purchases and utilitarian, but on the high end it's marketed more in line with Cadillac, especially in crossovers and SUVs. What I find interesting is the confusion in direction GM seems to have with this. GMC was the division that got the RVs, so it's the adventurers mark, then it got the Typhoon and Syclone, OK GMC is the performance mark, oh wait Chevy gets the Extreme and GMC gets the Denali, so GMC is the luxury mark and Chevy is the performance mark, etc, etc...

The real problem is that there is heavy brand loyalty with both these marks, and trucks are a big seller. I think if GM tried to market Chevy trucks at non-Chevy dealerships the sales would severely tank. The sales may increase some at Chevy dealerships but probably not enough to recover the loss. In the same vein reducing the truck operations to simply a corporate wide GMC product would seriously upset Chevy loyalists. I doubt either case would send buyers running for Ford, but it may make them think about Toyotas and Nissans.

Originally Posted by DeadheadNM

Good stuff here.

So back in 67-72, would an equivalent Chevrolet truck cost more, less, or the same as a GMC truck? Curious is one had a sales advantage in terms of cost over the other.

List, nearly the same, but if you wanted 20 of them with utility boxes on the back, it would have probably been cheaper and easier from GMC. Like I said before, I bought my '91 Suburban from a GMC only dealership, and they dedicated more of their showroom space to heavy duty dealer installed options then they did to the vehicles themselves. They instantly knew how to order trucks for towing, plowing, heavy duty electrical systems, power take off pumps and such, the Chevy dealerships knew none of this stuff then. The Suburban needed to have 3 different options to get a mounted spare tire, a cover over it and a jack. Also the Chevy dealership didn't know how to order a solid color Suburban with a cloth interior or dual batteries on a non-diesel truck.

[special-K]

With all this talk about GMC being the fleet oriented brand makes me wonder how the government/military ended up buying Chevys when going with the lowest bid. Verizon and many other huge fleets use Chevys,too. I never noticed one over the other in fleets.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Because everyone loves twins!

[70blackfish]

my 69 GMC has coil rear suspension, i this rare?
has 1 piece driveshaft too. 250 /6

[special-K]

Originally Posted by 70blackfish

my 69 GMC has coil rear suspension, i this rare?
has 1 piece driveshaft too. 250 /6

Yeah,somewhat. This has always confused me. About every GMC you see has leaf and Chevy coils. Leafs were an option for either. Not sure why they didn't just make GMCs have leaf standard with coils an option,because that's really how it turned out.

I just wish they made cool hi-performance GMC stuff like valve covers from back then. I have a set of those M/T fined aluminum valve covers that had black wrinkle finish. I stripped then to bare aluminum and in that long flat blank area (always wondered why they did that. Kills the look) I'm going to have "Sierra Grande" cut,just like the bedside emblems. There's a knock-out with "Chevrolet" I need to address,either replace or just stick a GMC medallion over it.

[68gmsee]

Originally Posted by special-K

With all this talk about GMC being the fleet oriented brand makes me wonder how the government/military ended up buying Chevys when going with the lowest bid. Verizon and many other huge fleets use Chevys,too. I never noticed one over the other in fleets.

Most government and civilian purchases for the most part are bid on by different companies. There are strict requirements by these purchasing entities but it still boils down to who gives them the best service and product for the money.

[doubleb's69]

Originally Posted by 70blackfish

my 69 GMC has coil rear suspension, i this rare?
has 1 piece driveshaft too. 250 /6

My 69 GMC has coils as well. The funny thing is that when I bought it I was so sure that it would be leaf springs (because all of my other GMC's or the era were) that I didn't even notice it was coil sprung on the rear until after I signed the title and was walking back to it to drive it home. I had even done a bunch of research before buying it to lower the rear with the leaf springs.

The other weird thing about when I was looking for another GMC is that all of the ones I looked at in a month period had coils on the rear.

[skorpioskorpio]

Originally Posted by 68gmsee

Most government and civilian purchases for the most part are bid on by different companies. There are strict requirements by these purchasing entities but it still boils down to who gives them the best service and product for the money.

I'm guessing when it comes to major utility fleets and such that GM probably submits bids as Chevy since they are large chunk numbers that would tally up towards the years "best selling truck" number.

I do know that in the old Bell System days AT&T was bound by trust order to buy vehicles based on market share, so they would have to buy what ever percentage of their vehicles from each manufacture that that manufacture sold in the previous year to the general public. AT&T also was not allowed to contribute more than 25% of any one companies business, the idea was that if they ever canceled a project they wouldn't single handedly bankrupt a company, I'm sure government is the same sort of thing.

[pritch]

My dad always said the GMCs were Chevys with the bolts all tightened up

[SCHRUMGMC]

I like both...Interesting to learn the Difference, always wondered