Founded in 1897, Oldsmobile joined General Motors in 1908. A year later the Lansing, Mich., plant had more than 1,000 employees. By 1990 more than 30 million Oldsmobiles had been produced. Oldsmobile was America’s third-best-selling brand in the mid-1970s, but by the 1990s the company’s popularity had waned. GM made an attempt to align Olds products with European imports in the mid 1990s. However, due to flagging sales and profitability issues, parent company General Motors announced in 2001 that it would phase out the brand. The final Oldsmobile, an Alero, was built on April 29, 2004.[
