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Bunkie Knudsen
Semon Emil "Bunkie" Knudsen (October 2, 1912 – July 6, 1998) was an American automobile executive. Early life Semon Emil Knudsen was born on October 2, 1912 in Buffalo, New York. He was the son of former General Motors President, and Army three-star general William S. Knudsen. The nickname "Bunkie" is attributed to his relationship with his father and is derived from the World War I term for bunk mate. He was interested in mechanical things, particularly automobiles. When he asked for a car as a teenager, his father gave him one in pieces, which he had to assemble. After attending Dartmouth College in 1931–1932, Knudsen transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated in 1936 with a Bachelor of Science in general engineering. Personal life Knudsen was married to Frances Anne McConnell for 58 years until her death in 1996. They had four children: Judith, Lisa, Kristina, and Peter. Career General Motors career Knudsen began working for General Mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Southern Ontario. With a population of 278,349 according to the 2020 census, Buffalo is the 78th-largest city in the United States. The city and nearby Niagara Falls together make up the two-county Buffalo–Niagara Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which had an estimated population of 1.1 million in 2020, making it the 49th largest MSA in the United States. Buffalo is in Western New York, which is the largest population and economic center between Boston and Cleveland. Before the 17th century, the region was inhabited by nomadic Paleo-Indians who were succeeded by the Neutral, Erie, and Iroquois nations. In the early 17th century, the French began to explore the region. In the 18th century, Iroquois land surrounding Buffalo Creek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Motors Corporation
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and was the largest in the world for 77 years before losing the top spot to Toyota in 2008. General Motors operates manufacturing plants in eight countries. Its four core automobile brands are Chevrolet, Buick, GMC (automobile), GMC, and Cadillac. It also holds interests in Chinese brands Wuling Motors and Baojun as well as DMAX (engines), DMAX via joint ventures. Additionally, GM also owns the BrightDrop delivery vehicle manufacturer, GM Defense, a namesake Defense vehicles division which produces military vehicles for the United States government and military; the vehicle safety, security, and information services provider OnStar; the auto parts company ACDelco, a GM Financial, namesake financial lending service; and majority ownership in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chevrolet Corvair
The Chevrolet Corvair is a compact car manufactured by Chevrolet for model years 1960–1969 in two generations. A response to the Volkswagen Beetle, it remains the only American-designed, mass-produced passenger car with a rear-mounted, air-cooled engine. The Corvair was manufactured and marketed in 4-door sedan, 2-door coupe, convertible, 4-door station wagon, passenger van, commercial van, and pickup truck body styles in its first generation (1960–1964) and as a 2-door coupe, convertible or 4-door hardtop in its second (1965–1969) – with a total production of approximately 1.8 million from 1960 until 1969. The name "Corvair" originated as a portmanteau of Corvette and Bel Air, a name first applied in 1954 to a Corvette-based concept with a hardtop fastback-styled roof, part of the Motorama traveling exhibition. When applied to the production models, the "air" part referenced the engine's cooling system. A prominent aspect of the Corvair's legacy derives from co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chevrolet
Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ousted General Motors founder William C. Durant (1861–1947) started the company on November 3, 1911 as the Chevrolet Motor Car Company. Durant used the Chevrolet Motor Car Company to acquire a controlling stake in General Motors with a reverse merger occurring on May 2, 1918, and propelled himself back to the GM presidency. After Durant's second ousting in 1919, Alfred Sloan, with his maxim "a car for every purse and purpose", would pick the Chevrolet brand to become the volume leader in the General Motors family, selling mainstream vehicles to compete with Henry Ford's Model T in 1919 and overtaking Ford as the best-selling car in the United States by 1929 with the Chevrolet International. Chevrolet-branded vehicles are sold in most autom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontiac Grand Prix
The Grand Prix is a line of automobiles produced by the Pontiac Division of General Motors from 1962 until 2002 for coupes and 1989–2008 for sedans. First introduced as a full-size performance coupe for the 1962 model year, the model varied repeatedly in size, luxury, and performance during its production. The Grand Prix was the most expensive coupe Pontiac offered until the 1970s, when the Bonneville Brougham and the Firebird Trans Am became more exclusive. Among the changes were positioning in the personal luxury car market segment and mid-size car offering from the second generation to the fifth generation for the sedan and from the second generation to the sixth generation from the coupe. The Grand Prix, which is French for "grand prize", returned to a full-size car from the sixth generation to the seventh generation for the sedan, positioned below the larger Bonneville in Pontiac's model lineup. First generation (1962–1964) 1962 The Grand Prix was an all-new m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buick
Buick () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General Motors in 1908. Before the establishment of General Motors, GM founder William C. Durant had served as Buick's general manager and major investor. In the North American market, Buick is a premium automobile brand, selling luxury vehicles positioned above GM's mainstream brands, while priced below the flagship luxury Cadillac division. Buick's current target demographic according to ''The Detroit News'' is "a successful executive with family." After securing its market position in the late 1930s, when junior companion brand Marquette and Cadillac junior brand LaSalle were discontinued, Buick was positioned as an upscale luxury car below the Cadillac. During this same time period, many manufacturers were introducing V8 engines in their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ford Thunderbird
The Ford Thunderbird (colloquially called the T-Bird) is a personal luxury car produced by Ford from model years 1955 until 1997 and 2002 until 2005 across 11 distinct generations. Introduced as a two-seat convertible, the Thunderbird was produced in a variety of body configurations. These included a four-seat hardtop coupe, four-seat convertible, five-seat convertible and hardtop, four-door pillared hardtop sedan, six-passenger hardtop coupe, and five-passenger pillared coupe, with the final generation designed again as a two-seat convertible. Ford targeted the two-seat Thunderbird as an upscale model, but the 1958 model year design introduced a rear seat and arguably marked the expansion of a market segment eventually known as personal luxury cars. This class of cars was positioned to emphasize driving comfort and convenience features over handling and high-speed performance. From 1968 through 1998, Lincoln-Mercury marketed rebadged variants of the Thunderbird as the Contin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and his son, Jim France, has been the CEO since August 2018. The company is headquartered in Daytona Beach, Florida. Each year, NASCAR sanctions over 1,500 races at over 100 tracks in 48 US states as well as in Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Europe. History Early stock car racing In the 1920s and 1930s, Daytona Beach supplanted France and Belgium as the preferred location for world land speed records. After a historic race between Ransom Olds and Alexander Winton in 1903, 15 records were set on what became the Daytona Beach Road Course between 1905 and 1935. Daytona Beach had become synonymous with fast cars in 1936. Drivers raced on a course, consisting of a stretch of beach as one straightaway, and a narrow blacktop beachfront highway, Florid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pontiac Bonneville
The Pontiac Bonneville is an automobile built by Pontiac (automobile), Pontiac from 1957 until 2005. Bonnevilles were full-size car, full-sized, with the exception of a brief period of mid-size car, mid-size between 1982 and 1986. The brand was introduced as a limited production performance convertible during the 1957 model year. The Bonneville (known as the Parisienne in Canada until 1981), and its platform partner, the Pontiac Grand Ville, Grand Ville, are some of the largest Pontiacs ever built; in station wagon body styles they reached just over long, and at and more were also some of the heaviest cars produced at the time. The name was taken from the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, the site of much early auto racing and most of the world's land speed record runs, which was named in turn after U.S. Army officer Benjamin Bonneville. Luxury Trim Package and Concept Car The Bonneville name first appeared in 1954 on a pair of bubble-topped GM Motorama concept cars called the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Packard
Packard or Packard Motor Car Company was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana in 1958. One of the "Three Ps" alongside Peerless Motor Company, and Pierce-Arrowthe company was known for building high-quality luxury automobiles before World War II. Owning a Packard was considered prestigious, and surviving examples are found in museums, car shows, and automobile collections. Packard vehicles featured innovations, including the modern steering wheel, air-conditioning in a passenger car, and one of the first production 12-cylinder engines, adapted from developing the Liberty L-12 engine used during World War I to power warplanes. During World War II, Packard produced 55,523 units of the two-stage/two-speed supercharger equipped Merlin V-12s engines under contract with Rolls-Royce. Packard also made the versions of the Liberty L-12 V-12 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John DeLorean
John Zachary DeLorean (January 6, 1925 – March 19, 2005) was an American engineer, inventor, and executive in the U.S. automobile industry, widely known for his work at General Motors and as founder of the DeLorean Motor Company. DeLorean managed the development of a number of vehicles throughout his career, including the Pontiac GTO muscle car, the Pontiac Firebird, Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevrolet Cosworth Vega, and the DMC DeLorean sports car, which was featured in the 1985 film ''Back to the Future''. He was the youngest division chief in General Motors history, then left to start the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) in 1973. Production delays meant that DMC's first car did not reach the consumer market until 1981, when a depressed buying market was compounded by lukewarm reviews from critics and the public. After a year, the DeLorean had failed to recover its $175 million investment costs, unsold cars accumulated, and the company was in financial trouble. In October 1982, DeLore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile or formally the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it produced over 35 million vehicles, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory alone. During its time as a division of General Motors, Oldsmobile slotted into the middle of GM's five (passenger car) divisions (above Chevrolet and Pontiac, but below Buick and Cadillac), and was noted for several groundbreaking technologies and designs. Oldsmobile's sales peaked at over one million annually from 1983 to 1986, but by the 1990s the division faced growing competition from premium import brands, and sales steadily declined. When it shut down in 2004, Oldsmobile was the oldest surviving American automobile marque, and one of the oldest in the world, after Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Renault, Fiat, Opel, Autocar and Tatra (i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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