Don't throw in towel on 101-year-old General Motors just yet

Now that General Motors has lost some of its identity - Government Motors, Obama Motor Co. - it could be too early to count this company out.

This corporation has a legacy of leading the country's industrial might in peacetime or wartime. Let's explore some of the highlights:

1897: One of GM's most famous carmakers, Oldsmobile, was founded by Ransom E. Olds in Lansing, Mich. The first Oldsmobile: the Curved Dash Runabout with a price tag of $650.

1903: Billy Durant founded Buick Motor Co.

1908: Using Buick as a base, Durant founded General Motors Co. Oldsmobile joined the corporation a few months later.

1909: GM acquires an interest in Oakland Motor Co. (now known as Pontiac). Other companies joining GM includes Cadillac, AC Spark Plug Co. and Rapid Motor Vehicle Co., now known as GMC.

1910: Durant loses control of GM.

1911: Durant starts another car company called Chevrolet, which was named after Buick race car driver Louis Chevrolet.

1912: Engineer "Boss" Kettering invented the electric starter and the first electric lights for motor cars.

1918: GM buys the remaining operating assets of Chevrolet Motor Co., two years after Durant regains control of GM.

1919: General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC) is established to finance the sale of cars and trucks.

1920: Durant is ousted for the last time by GM's new owners, J.P. Morgan and the Dupont family.

1923: The Dupont group installs Alfred P. Sloan Jr. as president and chief executive.

1924: Sloan articulates GM's product strategy, "A car for every purse and purpose" meaning a product range from Chevrolet to Cadillac would fulfill any consumer desire for transportation. Sloan also initiated yearly model changes.

1926: Harley Earl designed his first GM car. He was the first to establish a corporate design center.

1931: GM outsold Ford Motor Co.: This leadership has continued to this day.

1936: GM workers, inspired by the United Auto Workers, begin a sit-down strike the last week in December in Flint, Mich.

1937: The 44-day strike ends as GM signed its first labor agreement.

1938: Almost broke, Durant opened a bowling alley in Flint. I had the pleasure of meeting him, still a dynamic executive at the time.

1942-45: GM leads the nation's military production.

1953: The Chevrolet Corvette, the first production sports car, is introduced.

1955: Chevrolet's first small-block V-8 engine was the brainchild of Ed Cole, later a GM executive vice president.

1959: Cadillac shows off outrageous tail fins.

1964: Pete Estes and John DeLorean create the Pontiac GTO. It starts the muscle car revolution.

1967: GM celebrates the production of its 100 millionth U.S.-made car.

1990: The first Saturn rolls off the assembly line. It was designed to compete with small cars from the imports.

2004: The last Oldsmobile, a 2004 Alero, is assembled in Lansing, 107 years after the first Oldsmobile was produced.

2008: GM celebrates 100th anniversary.

There have been other notable GM achievements. For example, the company developed the first sport-utility vehicle in the 1935 Chevrolet Suburban Carryall; the first viable automatic transmission in the 1940 Oldsmobile Hydramatic; and the first high-compression, overhead-valve V-8 engines in the 1948 Cadillac and Oldsmobile.

In the late 1960s, scientists and engineers from GM's AC Electronics Division developed the inertial guidance and navigation systems for the entire Apollo moon program and were responsible for all the mobility systems and components of the Lunar Roving vehicle that astronauts took to the moon in 1971.

So, what is my opinion about GM's future?

I have never lost faith in the corporation. This is not the time to change.

George Spaulding is a retired General Motors executive and distinguished executive-in-residence emeritus at the School of Business and Economics at the College of Charleston. He can be reached at 2 Wharfside St. 2A Charleston, S.C., 29401.