General Motors de Mexico

This is an article about the automotive industry in Mexico.

In 1903, motorcars first arrived in Mexico City, totalling 136 cars in that year and rising to 800 by 1906. This encouraged then president Porfirio Díaz, to create both the first Mexican highway code (which would allow cars to move at a maximum speed of 10 km/h or 6 mph on crowded or small streets and 40 km/h or 25 mph elsewhere) and, along with this, a tax for car owners which would be abolished in 1911 with Francisco I. Madero's successful campaign against Díaz's dictatorship at the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. In 1910 Daimler and Renault both established small facilities for the local assembly of vehicles primarily for the Mexican government at the behest of Porfirio Díaz but these functioned for little more than a few months before being destroyed in the Mexican Revolution. A short time after the end of the armed struggle, Buick became the first automobile producer to be officially established in Mexico, beginning 1921. In 1925, Ford Motor Company was too established and began manufacturing vehicles in the country, and as of 2016 remains the longest-running brand in the country.

In 1959, Mexico produced its first fully domestic vehicle, a small truck called the Rural Ramírez, produced by the Ramirez truck company.

Many car makers were already operational by 1961 when the first decline of the Mexican economy showed up. In the early 1960s, government regulations forced car companies to assemble cars in Mexico, using local as well as imported components. The idea was to develop a national car industry in the country, to promote employment and technological advances. Those companies that would not comply with these regulations left the country; these included Mercedes Benz, FIAT, Citroën, Peugeot and Volvo. The American Big Three (General Motors, Ford and Chrysler) remained along with American Motors, Renault, Volkswagen, Datsun and Borgward.

...
Wikipedia