The American-based international automotive conglomerate

General Motors 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 ...

(GM) underpins its many vehicle

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

with various platforms. These platforms are established sets of

axle An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearing ...

suspensions In chemistry, a suspension is a heterogeneous mixture of a fluid that contains solid particles sufficiently large for sedimentation. The particles may be visible to the naked eye, usually must be larger than one micrometer, and will eventually ...

, and steering mechanisms which fit various

bodies Bodies may refer to: * The plural of body * ''Bodies'' (2004 TV series), BBC television programme * Bodies (upcoming TV series), an upcoming British crime thriller limited series * "Bodies" (''Law & Order''), 2003 episode of ''Law & Order'' * ...

and

powertrain A drivetrain (also frequently spelled as drive train or sometimes drive-train) is the group of components that deliver mechanical power from the prime mover to the driven components. In automotive engineering, the drivetrain is the components o ...

s from various marques that GM owns. From the early twentieth century, a

Latin letter The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...

-based naming scheme was used to designate platforms, which were aimed at vehicles under different brands that served similar niches of the market. For example, the B platform was the base for fullsize,

rear-wheel drive Rear-wheel drive (RWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, in which the engine drives the rear wheels only. Until the late 20th century, rear-wheel drive was the most common configuration for cars. Most rear-wheel ...

(RWD)

sedans A sedan or saloon (British English) is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with separate compartments for an engine, passengers, and cargo. The first recorded use of the word "sedan" in reference to an automobile body occurred in 19 ...

and

wagons A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

from 1926 to 1996. This platform underpinned vehicles made by

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 ...

Cadillac The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed i ...

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 ous ...

, Marquette,

Pontiac Pontiac may refer to: *Pontiac (automobile), a car brand *Pontiac (Ottawa leader) ( – 1769), a Native American war chief Places and jurisdictions Canada *Pontiac, Quebec, a municipality ** Apostolic Vicariate of Pontiac, now the Roman Catholic D ...

, and

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 produ ...

. During the 1970s and 1980s, GM introduced many new

front-wheel drive Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, where the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longit ...

(FWD) platforms for the first time, such as the FWD C platform introduced in 1985. Despite being mechanically very new and different, it kept the same name as the RWD C platform for the sake of consistency, as most of the models remained the same, such as the

Oldsmobile 98 The Oldsmobile 98 (spelled Ninety-Eight from 1952 to 1991, and Ninety Eight from 1992 to 1996) is the full-size flagship model of Oldsmobile that was produced from 1940 until 1942, and then from 1946 to 1996. The name – reflecting a "Series ...

. For most of these platforms, the platform name is the fourth character of a vehicle's VIN, with a notable exception being trucks, for which it is the fifth character. At the outset of the twenty-first century, General Motors' approach to platforms changed, and so did the nomenclature they use. Platforms themselves are now referred to by GM as "architectures", and are now named according to the English-language names of letters from the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...

, such as the

subcompact Subcompact car is a North American classification for cars smaller than a compact car. It is broadly equivalent to the B-segment (Europe), supermini (Great Britain) or A0-class (China) classifications. According to the U.S. Environmental Prote ...

Gamma platform. Today, many of the since-discontinued Latin letter platforms are informally called "bodies", such as "J-body", which refers to the J platform. In the 2010s, GM once again began to change platform nomenclature, this time to a four-character format: platform-generation-XX. An example of this is the D2XX, from the ''second generation'' of the ''Delta platform'', hence the "D" and "2". All but three platforms listed here use a front-mounted engine, and those exceptions are noted in the 'layout' column.

In production

As of April 2020, GM produces cars, trucks, and

sport utility vehicle A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a car classification that combines elements of road-going passenger cars with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive. There is no commonly agreed-upon definitio ...

s (SUVs) of multiple different sizes on 19 different platforms: 7 of which are inherently RWD, with the rest being FWD. All but 5 of these have

four-wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

variants as well. The GM nomenclature works as follows:
1st position is the platform: * A – Alpha * C – Chi * D – Delta * G – Gamma * E – Epsilon * P – Premium Epsilon (XTS) * Y – Corvette (Y-body) * L – Lambda * K – Trucks
2nd position is the platform generation.
3rd position is the body style: * A – Convertible * B – Coupe * S – Sedan * J – Hatchback * K – CUV? * L – Long Wheel Base Sedan * M – Minispace * U – Crossover/CUV (5 seater) * Y – SUV/Truck (7 seater)
4th position is the Brand: * B – Buick * C – Chevrolet * G – GMC * H – Holden * L – Cadillac * M – Citroën (partnership between GM & PSA) * O – Opel/Vauxhall
5th position is an optional qualifier: for example the Sales market area: * S – sales market China * N – sales market North-America * I – electric/hybrid
For example, E2UB-N is the Crossover Buick for the North-American market in the second generation of the Epsilon platform.

Historical applications

, GM has produced cars, trucks, and SUVs of multiple different sizes on 107 different platforms: 55 of these with Latin letters, 12 with English spellings of Greek letters, and 40 others. Also, 64 of these platforms are inherently RWD, while the rest are primarily FWD. Furthermore, 50 of these have four-wheel drive variants as well.

Latin-letter platforms

Others

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Future platforms

In 2015 GM announced their intention to shift all of their vehicles (with the notable exception of the eighth-generation Corvette) to four platforms by 2025. The following are those platforms, including the already-launched VSS-F: It is currently unknown whether GEM or a similar low-cost platform will be continued in some form as a subset of VSS.

EV platforms

* BEV2, base of the Chevrolet Bolt and Chevrolet Menlo *

Ultium Ultium is an electric vehicle battery and motor architecture developed by General Motors. It is planned to be deployed for battery electric vehicles from General Motors portfolio brands along with vehicles from Honda and Acura. Ultium is ch ...

, base of the Hummer H1T and Cadillac Lyriq

References

External Links

Volvo Truck 2017
{{General Motors platforms Opel Holden