Delco Electronics
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Delco Electronics Corporation was the electronics design and manufacturing subsidiary of General Motors.
The name "Delco" came from the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Co., founded in 1909 in Dayton, Ohio by Charles Kettering and Edward A. Deeds. That company was responsible for several innovations in automobile electric systems, including the first practical automobile self starter and the first reliable battery ignition system. Delco was eventually sold to General Motors and merged with Remy Electric in 1926 to form Delco-Remy.
In 1936 Delco began producing the first dashboard-installed car radios. By the early 1970s Delco had become a major supplier of automotive electronics equipment. Based in Kokomo, Indiana, Delco Electronics employed more than 30,000 at its peak.
In 1962 GM created the General Motors Defense Research Laboratories, based in Santa Barbara, California, to conduct research and development activities on defense systems. This organization was eventually merged into Delco Electronics and renamed Delco Systems Operations.
In 1985 General Motors purchased Hughes Aircraft and merged it with Delco Electronics to form GM Hughes Electronics (GMHE). In 1997 all of the defense businesses of GMHE (including Delco Systems Operations) were merged with Raytheon, and the commercial portion of Delco Electronics was transferred to GM's Delphi Automotive Systems business. Delphi became a separate publicly-traded company in May 1999, and continued to use the Delco Electronics name for several of its subsidiaries through approximately 2004.
Although Delco Electronics no longer exists as an operating company, GM still retains rights to the Delco name and uses it for some of its subsidiaries including the AC Delco parts division.
