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America’s largest automaker turns 100 today — amid one of the greatest crises it has ever faced.

The Detroit News comments, “In its first 100 years, General Motors Corp. endured historic challenges, from costly labor strife to attacks on automobile safety to slipping market share and broad cost-cutting moves. As GM enters its second century, the obstacles are potentially daunting, analysts say.” Still by many measures the world’s largest automaker, GM faces challenges “raising cash to keep its global operations afloat in a weakening market and curtailing the expense of costly new government mandates.”

The Detroit Free Press notes many successes over the company’s first century, from the time it surpassed Ford as the world’s largest automaker in 1931, through the sale of its 100 millionth vehicle in 2005.

2011 Chevy Volt Pictures

Even rivals took time to congratulate GM today. Autoblog reports, “Credit Ford with a classy move yesterday when it strategically left the blinds open in certain offices at its World Headquarters in Dearborn. The effect was a building-sized birthday card congratulating its cross-town competitor, General Motors, on making it 100 years in the automotive business.”

But the last year has been close to devastating for the company, with consumers turning to small, fuel-efficient vehicles — and away from the large SUVs that had been the source of GM’s profits for many years. Rumors of bankruptcy began this summer.

“In the second quarter” of 2008, The Dallas Morning News notes, “with truck and SUV sales plummeting, the company’s revenue fell a staggering 50 percent, by nearly $10 billion. Sales this year haven’t helped, either. Through August, they were down 18 percent in one of the worst years for the industry since the early ’90s. And $4 gas and the panic it provoked among consumers this summer – coupled with the deeply troubled economy – all but halted GM’s progress on the five-year business plan begun in 2005. Earlier this summer, it was forced to again return to big incentives on many of its vehicles.”

In response, GM is realigning its production working to unify diverse global operations under one umbrella, and gambling heavily on a new technology. Analysts aren’t sure it will be enough to help the General last into a second century.

The Chicago Tribune reports, “In 2007, 59 percent of GM’s vehicle sales were outside the U.S., and that’s already up to 65 percent this year.” The company “has built and sold vehicles outside the U.S. from early in its history, but until recently the North American unit operated independently of other regions and shared few vehicles, engineering or manufacturing practices.” Under the new structure, the units will work to produce “global vehicles” — enabling the company to sell the same cars on every continent. “That means cars designed in Europe or Asia will be built and sold in the U.S. and vice versa. Take the breakthrough Opel Insignia sedan, which reportedly will join the Saturn family in 2011 – and may become the underpinnings for the Chevy Malibu and others.”

The Detroit Free Press notes, “General Motors Corp. hopes to recast its image and set out on a profitable path for the next hundred years” with “the expected unveiling of the production version of the much-anticipated Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric vehicle at its centennial celebration today.” GM is gambling heavily on the 2010 Chevy Volt, with its electric powertrain supplemented by a small gasoline engine for long trips, to be GM’s savior. But the Free Press says GM is struggling “to prove it can truly develop the Volt by 2010 — and that it can generate enough cash to keep operating until then.”

Motor Trend, however, says the automaker’s biggest problem isn’t being effectively addressed — too many brands and too many dealers. “GM has too many brands selling similar numbers of vehicles with similarly modest profit margins. The brutal reality is it needs to kill off some brands in the U.S. market to better concentrate its resources.” But the problem “cannot even be contemplated at GM headquarters because of the most wrong-size part of the whole organization – GM’s dealer network. … as long as powerful, politically connected dealers drive the debate, GM’s race to truly right-size its North American operation, to get into the shape it needs to be to have a shot at surviving the next 100 years,” they predict, “is doomed.”

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