June 30 1926
GM traded 667,720 shares of its own stock, at market value of $136 million to acquire remaining 40 percent of Fisher Body to make Fisher Body Division of GM.
June 30th 1953
The first regular-production model of Corvette rolled out. In the First production year, just over 300 Corvettes were assembled by hand in Flint, Michigan. About half of them sold, rest given away to company executives and VIPs. The first Corvette was unveiled in New York City at GM Motorama show at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on 17th January the same year, whereas prototypes were built on 22nd Dec 1952 which GM spent between $50,000 and $60,000 to build. The name "Corvette" came from a type of small, lightly armed warship used by most Allied navies during World War II.
June 30th 1969
The last U.S. produced Rambler (an American Rambler) rolls off the production line in Kenosha. A total of 4,204,925 had been made.
The Nash Rambler had originally been developed by George Walter Mason after World War II. Mason realized before anyone else that the postwar "seller's market" would evaporate once the market was again saturated with cars. He foresaw the difficulty that independent car companies would experience once they were faced with head-to-head competition with the Big Three's massive production capabilities. It was Mason's theory that to compete with the Big Three, the independents needed to market a different product. He developed a number of smaller cars, including the Rambler, the Nash-Healey (a collaboration with British Healey), and the Metropolitan. None of the cars managed to capture the American market. But years later, after Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson merged to become AMC, the Rambler finally caught on as a sub-compact car. George Romney, Mason's protÉgÉ, coined the term "gas-guzzling dinosaur" to describe the Big Three's products. Romney led a personal ad campaign promoting the AMC Rambler as an efficient, reliable car. His campaign was immensely successful, and the Rambler single-handedly kept AMC alive during impossible times for independents.
The Rambler marque was continued in numerous international markets. Examples include AMC Hornets and AMC Matadors assembled by the Australian Motor Industries (AMI) from CKD kits that continued to be badged as Ramblers until 1978. The Rambler nameplate was last used on automobiles in 1983 by Vehiculos Automotores Mexicanos (VAM) in Mexico.
In Argentina, the Rambler American became the IKA Torino in 1967. It then became the Renault Torino and was offered until 1980.
Corvette Unveiling
Rambler American
Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia