On this day in 1909, GM bought Cadillac for $4.5 million. Born from Henry Ford’s failed company, Cadillac soon became a cornerstone of GM’s growing auto empire.
TRANSCRIPT
The newly formed General Motors Corporation came one step closer to being the auto maker we know today when it acquired the country’s leading luxury automaker, Cadillac, on this day in 1909. They paid a whopping $4.5 million dollars which today would be well over 155 million. As The History Channel reports, what made the deal even more interesting is that the Cadillac Automobile Company was founded out of the ruins of auto pioneer Henry Ford’s second failed company. The shareholders of then defunct Henry Ford Company drafted Detroit Machinist Henry Leland to sell the company’s portfolio, but he saw enough salvageable that he decided to create a new company. By 1909 the fledgling business had taken hold of enough of the market that Cadillac was added alongside the Buick and Oldsmobile brands to strengthen General Motors, which had been founded just the year before.