more at
‘General Motors Research Laboratories. Very nicely photographed.
title: “John B. Kennedy reports — Back to the days when the biggest knocker in the country lived under the hood of your car.”
Man drives 1930s Chevrolet off the surface of Earth; Earth recedes out of back window; car proceeds back in time by 1928 to 1922 (good)
Engine knocking with motion-picture variable density soundtrack visible at left of frame to represent knocking visually
How Ethyl (lead) ended engine knocking
title: “Lowell Thomas reports — This thing called temperature depends upon what you are, not where you are!”
great timelapse shot showing ice melting in reverse and forming perfect cubes that dissolve into refrigerators
drops of mercury falling onto table
portly man holding Panama hat in left hand and fanning himself with fan in right hand
CU thermometer on brick wall with temperature dropping from over 80 to minus 10 degrees. Ice forms around mortar as temperature drops
Same portly man in heavy coat
Frame splits to show his right half dressed in heavy coat, his left half in shirtsleeves fanning himself
title: “John S, Young reports — Science removes jitters from moving parts. Shakes, Shivers and Quivers Join extinct Dodo.”
POV on concrete road through windshield, showing bumping up and down
Another POV smoothing smooth ride
title: “John B. Kennedy reports — “Looking for trouble” — before it looks for you, is another big job in this one industry.”
Proving grounds and testing
title: “The most important part of every automobile is something no manufacturer can build! As told by Edwin C. Hill.”
VS Great assembly footage
Animated driver without a car moving through countryside
Animated white-line automobile modernizes over time
Great montage of General Motors workers, plants, headquarters building in Detroit’
NEW VERSION with improved video & sound:
Public domain film from the Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
General Motors Company, commonly known as GM, is an American multinational holding corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan that, through its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, markets and distributes vehicles and vehicle parts and sells financial services. General Motors produces vehicles in 37 countries under eleven brands, including Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Baojun, Holden, Isuzu, Jie Fang, Opel, Vauxhall, and Wuling. General Motors employs 202,000 people and does business in 157 countries. General Motors is divided into five business segments: GM North America (GMNA), GM Europe (GME), GM International Operations (GMIO), GM South America (GMSA), and GM Financial.
General Motors led global vehicle sales for 77 consecutive years from 1931 through 2007, longer than any other automaker, and is currently among the world’s largest automakers by vehicle unit sales…
The company was founded on September 16, 1908, in Flint, Michigan, as a holding company for Buick, then controlled by William C. Durant. At the turn of the 20th century there were fewer than 8,000 automobiles in America and Durant had become a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles in Flint, MI, before making his foray into the automotive industry. GM’s co-founder was Charles Stewart Mott, whose carriage company was merged into Buick prior to GM’s creation. Over the years Mott became the largest single stockholder in GM and spent his life with his Mott Foundation which has benefited the city of Flint, his adopted home. GM acquired Oldsmobile later that year. In 1909, Durant brought in Cadillac, Elmore, Oakland and several others. Also in 1909, GM acquired the Reliance Motor Truck Company of Owosso, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck. Durant lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers’ trust, because of the large amount of debt taken on in its acquisitions coupled with a collapse in new vehicle sales.
The next year, Durant started the Chevrolet Motor Car Company and through this he secretly purchased a controlling interest in GM. Durant took back control of the company after one of the most dramatic proxy wars in American business history…
