After one year of production, Oakland's principal founder, Edward Murphy, sold half of the company to William C. Durant's General Motors Corporation in early 1909. When Murphy died in the summer of 1909, GM acquired the remaining rights to Oakland. Within General Motors, Oakland was later slotted as their entry-level brand below the more expensive Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac cars. Conventional four-cylinder engined models were introduced shortly after the GM takeover, and GM didn't acquire the volume-priced Chevrolet until 1917, and Oakland found itself competing with the Ford Model T introduced in October 1908. Once GM assumed operations of Oakland, production was moved to the factory that manufactured Cartercar in Pontiac, Michigan, another Durant acquisition that was cancelled while the resources were newly utilized, and the Oakland Model 40 was introduced. Starting with 1910 Oakland was exclusively offering 4-cylinder flathead engines with five different wheelbases and their advertising slogan was "The Car with a Conscience". By early 1920, however, production and quality control problems began to plague the division. In 1921, under new general manager Fred Hannum, a consistent production schedule was underway and the quality of the cars improved, and Oakland vehicles shared the GM A platform used by Chevrolet. One marketing tactic was the employment of a quick-drying bright blue automotive lacquer by Duco (a DuPont brand product), leading to the slogan "True Blue Oakland Six". The Oakland was built only in Pontiac, Michigan, which is the county seat of Oakland County. The name antedates any GM association with an automobile manufacturing facility in Oakland, California, that built Chevrolet vehicles before Chevrolet joined GM called Oakland Assembly.
Oakland Six and V8
In 1913 the Oakland Six was introduced followed in 1916 by the Model 50 365 cu in (6.0 L) flathead V8 engine sourced from Northway Motor and Manufacturing company, and production soared to 35,000 in 1917. The Series 50 V8 used a flathead design shared with the Oldsmobile Light Eight and the Cadillac Type 51. The Model 50 was only available from 1915 to 1917 as a seven-passenger touring sedan on a 127" wheelbase and was listed at US$1,600 ($47,339 in 2025 dollars ). The Oakland 34-C of 1921 and 1922 used a six-cylinder engine with 4894 cc with a 71.4 mm bore and 120.6 mm stroke. The wheelbase was 2920 mm. The petrol tank held 50 litres.
In 1930, Oakland reintroduced the Model 101 V8, again using a flathead architecture, on a 117" wheelbase and offered it as a roadster, phaeton, coupe, closed body sedan and sport coupe. Prices were listed at US$895 ($17,249 in 2025 dollars ) for the roadster or phaeton to US$1,045 ($20,140 in 2025 dollars ) for the Custom Sedan. The Oakland V8 was shared with the Viking V8 which was a companion of Oldsmobile and was the only product sold. 1931 was the last year for the Oakland Model 301 V8 and the only vehicle available was the V8 with very few changes, and was renamed the 1932 Pontiac Series 302 V8. The 1932 V8 had an oversquare bore and stroke of 3.4375 in (87.3 mm) x 3.375 in (85.7 mm) displacing 251 cu in (4.1 L) with a compression ratio of 5.2:1. Horsepower was rated at 85 @3200 RPM using three main bearings, solid valve lifters and a Marvel one barrel carburetor. Unusually, Pontiac switched to the straight-eight for 1933 until it was replaced in 1954.
