The first initiative to the manufacturing of vehicles in Colombia came from the Dugand brothers who established "Dugand Hermanos & Cia. Ltda" in
Barranquilla, producing some
Volkswagen and
Studebaker models but they had to close soon after because of the lack of money and support from the national government. As often happens with large projects, the creation of GM Colmotores emerged from the vision of a handful of Colombian businessmen, led by Germán Montoya Vélez. Then came the changes, adjustments imposed by the challenges of developing an enterprise of great ambitions, in much quixotic. Faced, first, the failure of the government of the incentives for the automotive industry, which led, of course, financial difficulties
Colmotores shareholders. In 1965, the international
Chrysler company acquired 60% of the shares of Colmotores, the company began calling "Colmotores-Chrysler", and the following year began the manufacture and sale of
Dodge and
Simca cars, and appeared in the domestic market the first car produced in Colombia, the
Coronet 440 and
Dodge D series trucks of 1-7 tons. Other Dodge models commercialised were the Alpine (
Simca 1307) and
Polara. This was due to the downfall of the Colombian auto industry, alongside high inflation and interest rates, with their factory barely active at 9% == Brands ==