Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the long-time president and chairman of General Motors.

AP

It was once said that when General Motors sneezed, the nation got a cold.

But that was back in the 1950s and early 1960s, when GM was not only the world’s largest auto company, but its products were on the cutting edge in design and performance.

GM celebrated its 100th anniversary on Tuesday, at a time when it has racked up billions in losses over the last few years, has lost its top spot to Toyota, and its products have long been playing catch-up in terms of design and performance.

The highlight of Tuesday’s celebrations was the unveiling of the production version of the plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt. The more dramatic concept version was unveiled last year at the Detroit Auto Show. On Tuesday, with a backdrop of applause and portentous music, a curtain parted and GM vice chairman Bob Lutz drove the car out onto a turntable.

Will the Volt get GM back on track?

“They are full speed ahead with the Volt,” said Chris Hurd, president of Hurd Auto Mall, a dealership in Johnston that offers most of GM’s marques, including Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac and Saab. “It’s a market changer.”

Certainly the plug-in technology is user-friendly. The Volt is designed to run 40 miles (the average commute) on a single charge and then have a gasoline engine kick in to generate additional electricity. As such it differs from gas-electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius, which combine electric and gas engines.

“It’s something everyone can identify with, like a vacuum cleaner,” Hurd said.

At the same time, the Volt will not hit dealerships until the end of 2010 and will be expensive — around $40,000, according to GM. Plus, the lithium ion battery technology has yet to be nailed down, according to Automotive News. Gas hybrids currently use nickel-metal hydride batteries.

And Motor Trend’s Todd Lassa could not help comparing the modest-looking car with the GM glories displayed outside the news conference. As he reported on motortrend.com:

“As I rushed to GM headquarters … I saw Harley Earl’s 1938 Buick Y-Job facing the new Buick Invicta concept in the Renaissance Center’s glass vestibule. I raced past six vintage models placed in a hall to represent GM’s umpteen divisions over the years (’38 LaSalle, ’55 Chevy Bel Air, ’73 Opel GT, ’52 Saab 92, ’63 Corvette, and ’63 Buick Riviera).”

By comparison, he wrote,: “… let’s face it, that Volt, nicely designed as it is, happens to be an automotive hair shirt, unless your idea of automotive fun begins and ends with trying to squeeze more than 50 mpg out of a Toyota Prius.”

William C. Durant, a successful carriage maker who was hired in 1904 as general manager at Buick, formed General Motors in 1908 with the acquisitions of Cadillac, Oakland (Pontiac) and Oldsmobile. He added Chevrolet in 1918, according to Automotive News, which published a 300-page commemorative edition to celebrate GM’s 100th.

Durant’s flamboyant salesmanship was followed (he was forced out in 1920) by the driven, rational approach of M.I.T. graduate Alfred P. Sloan, who has been called the father of the modern corporation because of his organizational skills, according to Automotive News.

Sloan’s achievements included combining innovation (annual styling changes) and marketing (“A car for every purse and purpose”, or, as Fortune Magazine summed it up in 1930, “Chevrolet for the hoi polloi, Pontiac for the poor but proud, Oldsmobile for the comfortable but discreet, Buick for the striving and Cadillac for the rich”) with financial and managerial discipline. Sloan was named president of GM in 1923 and ruled the company until his retirement in 1956.

By that time, GM was the world’s largest automaker and one of the largest corporations in the world. Its U.S. market share peaked in 1962, with more than 50 percent of all vehicles sold. But the company began to lose market share to Asian competitors in the 1970s and was “assailed by critics” through the 1980s and, to a certain extent, that criticism continues today, according to Automotive News.

The late 1990s saw the company rely on sales of pickups and SUVs for solid profits, a business plan that backfired when gas prices soared and consumers sought out more fuel-efficient vehicles. Its U.S. market share is now about 25 percent. In addition, it has been increasingly saddled with retiree health and pension obligations.

Here’s what GM’s hometown newspapers had to say about its 100th anniversary, starting with The Detroit News in its lead editorial on Tuesday:

“The challenges facing GM, as well as Ford and Chrysler, are immense. It must retool its manufacturing plants to build the smaller, cleaner, more efficient vehicles future car buyers will demand, and it must design those vehicles to be more attractive than those of its foreign competitors.

“It must change its relationship with the United Auto Workers union, a process started with last year’s revised labor contract. It must help the nation move away from an oil-based economy by developing cars and trucks powered by alternative fuels.

“And it must do all this in the worst possible economic times.”

And here’s The Detroit Free Press in its lead editorial on Wednesday:

“GM’s 100th birthday, marked by the unveiling Tuesday of the production version of the Chevy Volt, an electric car with game-changing promise, also finds the automaker scrambling around Washington trying to secure federal loans for retooling plants to produce more high-mileage vehicles.”

(Ford and GM are seeking $25 billion in loan guarantees against the backdrop of a meltdown on Wall Street.)

“Therein are the two sides of the future facing GM, which once sold about half of all the new vehicles in North America but today is down to about one in five. Will the company’s breakthrough Volt technology be integral to America’s deliverance from foreign oil? Will America deliver GM the resources it and other domestic automakers need to produce the vehicles to get us there?”

pelsworth@projo.com