General Motors

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

 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 Chevrolet

Chevrolet

Chevrolet , also known as Chevy , is a brand of vehicle produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant on November 3, 1911, General Motors acquired Chevrolet in 1918...

 marque, and then progressed upward in price, power and appointments to Oakland, Oldsmobile

Oldsmobile

Oldsmobile was a brand of American 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...

, Buick

Buick

Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...

 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 LaSalle 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 Viking

Viking automobile

Viking 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 Pontiac

Pontiac

Pontiac was an automobile brand that was established in 1926 as a companion make for General Motors' Oakland. Quickly overtaking its parent in popularity, it supplanted the Oakland brand entirely by 1933 and, for most of its life, became a companion make for Chevrolet. Pontiac was sold in the...

 marque. This is often referred to as General Motors Companion Make Program. The final structure worked out to the following order:

• Cadillac
• LaSalle
• Buick
• Marquette
• Viking
• Oldsmobile
• Oakland
• Pontiac
• Chevrolet

Chevrolet alone did not receive a companion car at this time although Geo

Geo (automobile)

Geo was a brand of small cars made by General Motors as a subdivision of its famous Chevrolet division from 1989 to 1997. Its original slogan was "Get to know Geo." Originally formed by GM to compete with the growing small import market of the mid 1980s, the line continued through the 1997 model...

 could be said to be Chevy's companion make, 60 years late. All of the companion makes ultimately failed with the exception of Pontiac, which outlived parent Oakland and continued as a GM marque until 2010.

Rival Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker 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 and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...

 briefly experimented with companion makes as well. The company added Lincoln-Zephyr

Lincoln-Zephyr

Lincoln-Zephyr was a marque for the lower priced line of luxury cars in the Lincoln line 1936-40. Lincoln-Zephyr and Mercury, introduced 1939, bridged the wide gap between Ford's V-8 De Luxe line and the exclusive Lincoln K-series cars. This served a purpose similar to Cadillac's smaller LaSalle...

 as a lower-end marque for Lincoln

Lincoln (automobile)

Lincoln is an American luxury vehicle brand of the Ford Motor Company. Lincoln vehicles are sold mostly in North America.-History:The company was founded in August 1915 by Henry M. Leland, one of the founders of Cadillac . During World War I, he left Cadillac which was sold to General Motors...

 in 1936, introduced a De Luxe Ford

De Luxe Ford

Ford Motor Company introduced its De Luxe Ford line in 1938 as an upscale alternative to bridge the gap between its base model and luxury Lincoln offerings...

 as a companion make for its mainstream Ford line in 1937, and added Mercury

Mercury (automobile)

Mercury was an automobile marque of the Ford Motor Company launched in 1938 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 canceled all but their Zephyr-based line. Ford would stick with Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln (with the brief exception of the Edsel

Edsel

The Edsel was an automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company during the 1958, 1959, and 1960 model years. The Edsel never gained popularity with contemporary American car buyers and sold poorly. Consequently, the Ford Motor Company lost millions of dollars on the Edsel's development,...

failure) until 2010, when Ford announced the cessation of the Mercury brand,