Addressing a group of 450 civic leaders at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on Oct. 3, 1968, the chairman of General Motors, James M. Roche, did something almost sacrilegious for an auto executive: he talked about a future product.
Roche boldly announced that in the fall of 1970, G.M. would begin producing a small car designed for the American market and priced from $1,900 to $2,300. Developed under the code name XP-887, the subcompact would be about a foot shorter than G.M.’s smallest offering at the time, the Chevrolet Corvair.
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