When GM First Messed Up

It was 1974, and America was racked by the worst recession since the Great Depression, a direct result of the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. At 21, trying to find my way in the world with somewhere around $5 left in my checking account, I took a sales job at Sam White Oldsmobile in Houston. Even though car sales were beginning a collapse—from 14.6 million annually to 11.1 million two years later—things were still good in Houston. Sam White would end up No. 2 in the nation that year with 5,200 Oldsmobile sales, beaten for the top slot by Bill McDavid Oldsmobile on the other side of town.

Over the next 10 years I would have a front-row seat to the self-inflicted destruction of General Motors. It started in 1975, and the undoing of General Motors was the result of three problems.