General Motors pioneered the idea that consumers would aspire to buy up an automotive product ladder if a company met certain price points. As General Motors entered the 1920s, the product ladder started with the price leading
ChevroletChevrolet is a brand of automobile produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant in 1911, Chevrolet was acquired by General Motors in 1917...
marqueA marque is a brand name, especially in the automobile industry. For example, Chevrolet and Buick are marques of their maker, General Motors . A company may have many marques: GM has used more than a dozen in the North American market alone.-Differentiation:There are huge economies of scale in...
, and then progressed upward in price, power and appointments to Oakland,
OldsmobileOldsmobile was a brand of automobile produced for most of its existence by General Motors. It was founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In its 107-year history, it produced 35.2 million cars, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory...
,
BuickBuick is a marque of automobile sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Qatar, Kuwait, and Israel by General Motors Company...
and ultimately to the luxury Cadillac marque.
However by the mid 1920s, a sizable price gap had been created between Chevrolet and Oakland, while the difference between an Oldsmobile and a Buick was even wider.
General Motors pioneered the idea that consumers would aspire to buy up an automotive product ladder if a company met certain price points. As General Motors entered the 1920s, the product ladder started with the price leading
ChevroletChevrolet is a brand of automobile produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant in 1911, Chevrolet was acquired by General Motors in 1917...
marqueA marque is a brand name, especially in the automobile industry. For example, Chevrolet and Buick are marques of their maker, General Motors . A company may have many marques: GM has used more than a dozen in the North American market alone.-Differentiation:There are huge economies of scale in...
, and then progressed upward in price, power and appointments to Oakland,
OldsmobileOldsmobile was a brand of automobile produced for most of its existence by General Motors. It was founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In its 107-year history, it produced 35.2 million cars, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory...
,
BuickBuick is a marque of automobile sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Qatar, Kuwait, and Israel by General Motors Company...
and ultimately to the luxury Cadillac marque.
However by the mid 1920s, a sizable price gap had been created between Chevrolet and Oakland, while the difference between an Oldsmobile and a Buick was even wider. There was also a product gap between Buick and Cadillac. To address this, General Motors authorized the introduction of four companion marques priced and designed to fill the gaps. Cadillac would introduce the
LaSalleThe LaSalle was an automobile product of General Motors Corporation and sold as a companion marque of Cadillac from 1927 to 1940. The two were linked by similarly-themed names, both being named for explorers — Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac and René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur...
to fill the gap between Buick and Cadillac. Buick would introduce the Marquette to handle the higher end of the gap between Buick and Oldsmobile. Oldsmobile would introduce the
VikingViking was an automobile manufactured by General Motors' Oldsmobile Division for model years 1929 to 1931.Viking was part of Alfred Sloan's companion make program introduced to help span gaps in General Motors pricing structure, and was marketed through GM's Oldsmobile division...
, which took the lower half of the spread between Oldsmobile and Buick. Finally, Oakland would introduce the lower-end
PontiacPontiac is a brand of automobiles first produced in 1926, and sold in the United States, Canada, and Mexico by General Motors . Pontiac has been marketed as an "athletic" brand, specializing in mainstream performance vehicles....
marque. This is often referred to as General Motors Companion Make Program.
It is interesting to note that all of the companion makes failed with the exception of Pontiac, which outlived parent Oakland and continues as a GM marque until the Company announced in April 2009 it would cease production of Pontiac with the 2010 model year. Today, GM has merged Buick, Pontiac, and GMC Truck together, intending all three to be sold together from the same dealerships as companion makes.
Rival
Ford Motor CompanyThe Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands, Ford also owns Volvo Cars of Sweden, and a small stake...
briefly experimented with companion makes as well. The company added
Lincoln-ZephyrLincoln-Zephyr was a brand name for the lower priced line of luxury cars in the Lincoln line. Lincoln-Zephyr and Mercury bridged the wide gap between Ford's DeLuxe line and the exclusive Lincoln K-series cars...
as a lower-end marque for
LincolnLincoln is the luxury brand of Ford Motor Company. Founded in 1917 by Henry M. Leland and acquired by Ford in 1922, Lincoln has manufactured vehicles since the 1920s. Leland named the brand after his longtime hero Abraham Lincoln.-History:...
in 1936, introduced
De Luxe FordFord Motor Company introduced its De Luxe Ford line in 1938 as an upscale alternative to bridge the gap between its standard Ford line and luxury Lincoln offerings. The "Deluxe" name was used intermittently before and after this to specify an upscale trim, but the De Luxe Ford line was...
as a companion make for its mainstream Ford line in 1937, and added
MercuryMercury is an automobile marque of the Ford Motor Company founded in 1939 by Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford, to market entry-level-luxury cars slotted between Ford-branded regular models and Lincoln-branded luxury vehicles, similar to General Motors' Buick brand and Chrysler's namesake brand....
to further fill the gap in 1939. This experiment was short-lived, however, with De Luxe Ford becoming a mere trim line in 1941 just as Lincoln cancelled all but their Zephyr-based line. Ford would stick with Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln through modern times, with the exception of the brief
EdselThe Edsel was a marque of the Ford Motor Company during the 1958, 1959, and 1960 model years. The brand is known best as one of the biggest commercial failures in the history of American business.-History:...
failure.