GM's bold vision helped shape America then faced near collapse
General Motors is one of USA TODAY’s Iconic Brands. How it shaped America.
DETROIT, MICHIGAN / Detroit Free Press / April 15, 2026 — In 1915, Cadillac ran a full-page print advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post unlike any other.
No slogans or windswept models leaning out of luxury vehicles, just a wall of text under the title “The Penalty of Leadership.”
The advertisement — designed to deflect negative press after Cadillac premiered the somewhat faulty V-8 engine — presented a lengthy defense of those who stand above their peers and “must perpetually live in the white light of publicity.”
No one criticizes that which is not worth remarking upon: “That which deserves to live — lives,” the ad concluded.
The same alchemy that allowed the advertisement to work on readers in 1915 also propelled Cadillac and its parent company General Motors into lasting American icons — leveraging bold ideas that shocked and intrigued the public.
When serving as general manager of Cadillac, Mark LaNeve had the “Penalty of Leadership” framed in his office to serve as a reminder that the road to greatness is lined with critics. But big swings had almost always paid off for Cadillac.
“It was the car of movie stars and kings, from Elvis to Eisenhower. It was symbolic of the biggest and best of America: celebrity, fame and status,” LaNeve told the Detroit Free Press. “The most successful person in small town America drove a Cadillac. It might have been the only one in town, but it was driven by the most successful person.”
The world’s first corporate conglomerate
The legacy of the Detroit automaking behemoth hinges on invention. It created an ambitious acquisition strategy that folded in dozens of competitors and a series of technological and design inventions that kept GM on the cutting edge of automotive achievement across the 20th century.
To form GM, former carriage maker William Crapo Durant Jr. cobbled together as many of the top auto brands as the banks would allow, collecting the talented engineers who ran them like jewels. Starting with Buick and quickly adding Oldsmobile in 1908, Durant acquired Cadillac shortly after a once-in-a-lifetime stunt.
The same year that Durant founded GM in Hudson County, New Jersey, Cadillac leader Henry Leland brought eight vehicles to London to participate in a competition testing precision and excellence in manufacturing. He became the first ever American to clinch the Dewar Trophy after he took three of those vehicles apart, mixed up the parts (each vehicle had exactly 721 parts), and reassembled them in front of Royal Automobile Club judges. But all three vehicles drove 500 miles afterward at full speed, launching one of the brand’s most enduring slogans, the “Standard of the World.”
Engineering remained at the heart of GM’s strategy.
“Cadillac had that standard of excellence almost from the get-go,” according to Larry Printz, an automotive journalist and cartoonist. “They had the first … you name it. The first self-starter, the first mass produced V-8 and V-16 engine, the first heated seats, the first factory-fitted alarm systems, automatic windshield wipers,” and the list goes on.
“There was a reason GM was No. 1, and Cadillac was reflective of that,” Printz said.
Durant’s belief that America would one day require as many as 1 million automobiles per year fueled the extraordinary acquisition spate. But it was Alfred Sloan, who took over GM a few years later, who would go down in history after famously decreeing the company would design “a car for every purse and purpose.”
In a 1924 report to shareholders, Sloan outlined plans to divide the U.S. vehicle market into segments by price range. By 1929, GM offered as many as 72 different vehicle models.
In creating the annual model change and marketing its separate brands in a tiered system, GM invented the concept of “graduating” to a better vehicle, according to Matt Anderson, curator of transportation at The Henry Ford Museum. Starting with Chevrolet, Americans graduated to a Pontiac, then Oldsmobile, then Buick, then reached Cadillac status, Anderson said, “when you reach your full potential in life and can live out your dreams.”
Cars for the stars
Ronnie Hux knew his favorite car was driven by movie stars.
Hux, who retired in 2010, has collected Cadillacs for over 50 years, and at one point sold them at a dealership that battled for the No. 2 spot as the highest volume Cadillac stores in the country outside the suburbs of Detroit.
Hux is now president of the Cadillac LaSalle Club, a society of over 5,600 international members who, among them, possess thousands of Cadillacs.
Without naming names even after all these years, Hux said he still couldn’t believe his Memphis, Tennessee, clientele.
“Meeting those people, and seeing how successful they were and trusting us to sell them cars — that was fun,” Hux said. “You’re kinda struck with awe when you’re sitting across the desk from some world famous executive or singer or golfer and selling them a car.”
Famous Cadillac drivers include Hollywood stars Shirley Temple, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, Richard Burton, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe and singers Liberace, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen. Since the early 1980s, the presidential limo has been a Cadillac.
GM products launched an entire musical genre. The song “Rocket 88,” recorded in 1951 about driving in an Oldsmobile 88, one of the first ever muscle cars, is universally agreed upon as the first ever rock ’n’ roll tune.
Hux is now president of the Cadillac LaSalle Club, a society of over 5,600 international members who, among them, possess thousands of Cadillacs.
Without naming names even after all these years, Hux said he still couldn’t believe his Memphis, Tennessee, clientele.
“Meeting those people, and seeing how successful they were and trusting us to sell them cars — that was fun,” Hux said. “You’re kinda struck with awe when you’re sitting across the desk from some world famous executive or singer or golfer and selling them a car.”
Famous Cadillac drivers include Hollywood stars Shirley Temple, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable, Richard Burton, Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe and singers Liberace, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen. Since the early 1980s, the presidential limo has been a Cadillac.
GM products launched an entire musical genre. The song “Rocket 88,” recorded in 1951 about driving in an Oldsmobile 88, one of the first ever muscle cars, is universally agreed upon as the first ever rock ’n’ roll tune.
GM worked to establish one of the first minority dealer development programs to ensure its dealerships reflected the communities in which they operated. Cadillac also was the first brand to sell to Black Americans.
The world’s first automotive design studio
Across the country, vehicle interior designer Harley Earl had built a reputation in Hollywood customizing cars for the stars when GM hired him first to create the 1927 Cadillac LaSalle. After its success, GM brought him to Michigan to create the industry’s first full-time, in-house design studio, which Earl headed until his retirement in 1959.
Though he did not invent car design, Earl formalized the concept, and at GM launched a profession as important to vehicle development as engineering, said Printz, who also judges collector and antique car shows.
One of Earl’s most meaningful contributions to automotive history is the concept car ― an aspirational vehicle intended to inspire future iterations of the brand. Called the Buick Y-Job, Earl unveiled the car in 1938 to gauge public response to new technologies and design.
Concept cars showcased radical inventions and styling choices. The pelts of 187 Somalian leopards upholstered the 1950 Cadillac Debutante Coupe, alongside a gold-plated instrument panel and ignition key. The design of the 1959 Cyclone — the jet engine-like body style — reflected its out-of-this-world technology like a radar-sensing crash avoidance system and a Plexiglas bubble-top that automatically closed when its sensor detected rain.
GM stirred interest by premiering concepts on the World’s Fair circuit or, after World War II, its own traveling auto show called Motorama. The shows often prompted business decisions. In 1953, GM unveiled the first Corvette, a high performance concept that strong customer response at Motorama led Earl to insist on putting the vehicle into production.
Millions attended these exhibits and then went home to gawk at the vehicles at their local store.
“All the new models would come out in one day, the car could not be sold until that day, and that was a big thing,” Hux said. “I remember new car announcement day, dealers would cover up their windows so you couldn’t see the new cars.”
Issues with quality control
To compete with increased offerings from foreign automakers, GM planned a new generation of small cars beginning with the milestone 1960 Chevrolet Corvair, the first air-cooled, rear engine car built and sold in volume in the United States.
The vehicle was revolutionary, but imperfect — accidents resulting from its design inspired the landmark book “Unsafe at Any Speed,” penned by political activist and lawyer Ralph Nader.
The book, which referred to the Corvair as a “one-car accident” for its faulty rear suspension system, increased public scrutiny of the auto industry and led to the creation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
But for decades to follow, GM struggled with quality issues from downsizing vehicles. This allowed other brands to gain market share, Hux said.
“For years, Cadillac had a wide selection of cars and the reputation of luxury. Then all of a sudden you had Mercedes and Lexus, BMW and others that also had a wide selection,” he said. “They were sleeper brands in America but they grew fast by going after ownership experience and trying to build value and did a good job.”
Running aground
Quality concerns had GM struggling for positive press, but it didn’t mean GM took all criticism lying down. In a landmark 1993 press conference, Harry J. Pearce, GM’s executive vice president and general counsel, revealed that NBC fabricated an explosion on an episode of "Dateline" meant to demonstrate that fuel tanks on GM pickup trucks built from 1973-1987 were prone to catch fire in side impact collisions.
"Dateline" anchors apologized during a live broadcast the night after Pearce’s press conference, the first time any television network had ever issued such a retraction on the air.
While still successful, GM started to fade in the American imagination.
In an internal interview after his retirement in 2003, former CEO and 42-year GM veteran Jack Smith outlined what made the automaker slower to adapt in the latter half of the 20th century.
“What Alfred Sloan had put together in the 1920s — no one seemed to want to tear that up, it was like the Holy Bible,” he said. “We had been so successful. We thought we were on top.”
In 2002, Cadillac’s Super Bowl ad featured Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll,” which begins, “It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled.” That line resonated with the status of the brand, LaNeve said, but something big was coming: the Cadillac Escalade SUV.
“Cadillac was always ostentatious — it’s American! Americans are ostentatious,” he said. “We tapped into an ethos of America that we hadn’t tapped into for generations.”
The Escalade singlehandedly rejuvenated sales and lowered the average age of a Cadillac buyer by about a decade.
Profitability and prospects were looking up, but a series of unfortunate events could overwhelm even the most competent corporate team.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, oil prices doubled. GM’s SUVs at the time relied on truck-like architecture that got horrible mileage. LaNeve recalled: “Sales really slowed down. During the financial crisis, business basically stopped and tipped over.”
Other legacy costs also impeded the company. GM signed the first agreement with the United Automobile Workers of America in 1937 following the sit-down strike at two plants in Flint, Michigan, but about 70 years later, those UAW-won benefits started to wear on GM, according to Stephanie Brinley, associate director of Auto Intelligence at S&P Global Mobility. Alongside UAW costs, Brinley noted the credit collapse and the industry practice of producing more cars than needed which then required steep discounting.
GM struggled. After several attempts at streamlining and selling off business lines, in 2008 GM had 15 brands. GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 1, 2009, one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in U.S. history, and underwent a government-backed restructuring effort. Just four brands remained: GMC, Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac.
“The very corporate structure that made them great was their undoing,” Printz said. “Being the biggest auto company in the world for so long, when they ran aground it took them a long time to turn around, but they did.”
The massive ignition switch recall in 2014 and the concerns it brought over how GM handled safety and quality struck another blow to the company’s image. In total, 30 million vehicles were recalled and GM paid out $900 million in a government settlement.“Name an automaker that hasn’t had issues with quality,” Brinley said. “Part of the cost of continuing to make vehicles perform better ― safer, faster, more fun to drive, to hold more people ― you’re always going to run into something that breaks.”Still, the crisis saw the historic appointment of Mary Barra, the industry’s first female CEO who continued breaking down barriers between siloed departments and maintaining discipline in auto production and incentives.
GM moving forward
GM’s ladder of success still stands as the most intricate and elegant any automaker has created, but it came about at a time when they didn’t face the competition they face now from foreign automakers, said Sean Tucker, managing editor for compact and full-size vehicles at Kelley Blue Book.
Last year, the average Buick buyer paid less than the average Chevrolet buyer, according to KBB data ― a complete inversion of the original ladder.
“It’s just not as easy to establish a brand as it used to be now,” Tucker said. “It’s happening principally because Chevy has the Silverado and Buick doesn’t have a truck, but we’re now in a world where you don’t follow the old ladder anymore.”
And the ladder has a few fewer rungs than it once did. Automotive brands that compete in North America “all followed the same model of pursuing the high-end buyer. No one is serving the low end of the market.”
In many ways, today’s auto industry mirrors the early days, Tucker added. Affordability concerns and electrification opened the doors to new automotive brands for the first time since the 1910s. But now, the country that produces, buys and exports the most vehicles is China.
But he thinks the same strategy that made GM great may also carry the corporation into the future. GM has placed ambitious bets on software-defined vehicle technology that aims to push the boundaries of what a car could be — with increased automation, voice-activated conversational features powered by AI, and connectivity intended to make driving more comfortable, and safer, than ever before.
GM still offers one of the most diverse vehicle lineups of any automaker and has recently taken two bold steps: launching the Cadillac Celestiq and joining Formula 1.
The latter may reestablish Cadillac as a performance brand, while the former — a handmade bespoke offering that starts at $400,000 — brings ultra-luxury levels back to the iconic company. These choices may prove that GM isn’t simply hanging on for the next chapter of automotive history ― it’s moving boldly ahead.
“It’s a ballsy kind of 1950 move for Cadillac to make,” Tucker said. The Celestiq "is stunning, and beautiful, and borrows on an art deco design theme that reflects the 1920s; an era when they were maybe thought of that way.”
How the List Was Chosen
The Iconic Brands 50 identifies American companies that most profoundly shaped the nation’s identity, economy and culture. Selection emphasized historical significance, industry-building innovation, measurable economic influence and lasting cultural impact. Brands were chosen for transforming daily life or becoming enduring symbols of American values. Long-term relevance and sustained national influence carried greater weight than short-term financial performance or recent popularity.
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Reach her at jcharniga@freepress.com.
