July 22 1908
Albert Fisher and his nephews, Frederic and Charles Fisher, established the Fisher Body Company to manufacture carriage and automobile bodies. Albert Fisher personally supplied $30,000 of the company's total of $50,000 in initial capital. Charles and Frederic had been trained in their father's carriage building shop and supplied the technical know-how required at the company's inception. Fisher Body quickly abandoned carriage building to concentrate on car frames. By 1910, Fisher supplied some car bodies for General Motors (GM), and in 1919 GM purchased controlling interest in the company to shore up a supplier for its car bodies. At that time, Fisher was the largest supplier of car bodies in the world. The Fisher brothers were early advocates of closed-body, steel and wood frames, and they pre-empted their competition by creating more closed-bodied cars than open-bodied. They were also early in their adoption of aluminum and steel frames.
July 22nd 1911
General Motors organized General Motors Truck Company (later GMC) to handle sales of GM's Rapid and Reliance products.
In 1901, Max Grabowski established a company called the "Rapid Motor Vehicle Company", which developed some of the earliest commercial trucks ever designed. The trucks utilized one-cylinder engines. In 1909, the company was purchased by General Motors to form the basis for the General Motors Truck Company, from which GMC Truck was derived.
Another independent manufacturer purchased by GM that same year was Reliance Motor Car Company. Rapid & Reliance were merged in 1911 by GM, and in 1912 the marque "GMC Truck" was first shown at the New York International Auto Show.
July 22nd 1912
Edward G. Budd formed Edward G. Budd Mfg. Co., at 121 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, with $75,000 of his own savings, $15,000 from family friend named A. Robinson McIlvaine, $10,000 from another friend, J.S. Williams; Budd as president, McIlvaine, secretary; first product - all-metal truck body for Philadelphia coal distributor.
July 22nd 2005
MG Rover Group acquired by Nanjing Automobile for $97 million.
Fisher Logo
1919 GMC truck
The famous Budd company logo on the builder's plate in a Metro North M-3 railcar.
Nanjing Automobile
Source:
The History Channel
Wikipedia