Durant was a great
promoter and visionary, and by 1909 he had turned Buick into the best - selling car in the U.S. Searching for a business model in a new
industry, and with the prescient vision that a car company should offer multiple brands, that year he bought three other small car companies — Cadillac, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac — and merged them with Buick, renaming the combined company
General Motors.