The Oakland was a brand of automobile manufactured between 1907–1909 by the Oakland Motor Car Company of Pontiac, Michigan

Pontiac, Michigan

Pontiac is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan named after the Ottawa Chief Pontiac, located within the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 59,515. It is the county seat of Oakland County...

, (formerly a carriage-maker called Pontiac Buggy) and between 1909 and 1931 by the Oakland Motors Division of General Motors Corporation

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

. Oakland's principal founder was Edward M. Murphy, who sold half the company to GM in January 1909; when Murphy died in the summer of 1909, GM acquired the remaining rights to Oakland.
As originally conceived and introduced, the first Oakland used a vertical two-cylinder engine that rotated counterclockwise.