General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner secretly proposed a merger with Ford Motor Co. in 2008, a year before GM’s bankruptcy filing, the New York Times reported.

Ford Chairman Bill Ford and Chief Executive Alan Mulally held talks with Wagoner before turning down the offer, according to the article, adapted from Bill Vlasic’s ‘Once Upon a Car: The Fall and Resurrection of America’s Big Three Automakers — G.M., Ford and Chrysler,’ to be published Oct. 4.