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“But only a man can fully understand.”
Funny!
It ain’t easy being cheesy.
Oh those wacky Mexican bandits and their crazy shenanigans :)
I love these old ads. Too bad that the color ones hold up so poorly.
As for Buick’s price class, it was always kind of fluid. Because each GM division used to be like its own little car company, each division (including Buick) used to try to ooze into the price range of its neighbor (recall the hierarchy -Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, then Cadillac). It was the job of GM central to keep the fences in repair between the divisions.
In 1940-41, Buick offered the Buick Limited, a really big, really expensive car which competed almost dead on with Cadillac. Cadillac people howled about it then, but the GM president at the time was Harlow Curtice, who had come up through the ranks at Buick. It did not come back after WWII.
In times of economic stagnation, Buick would head downmarket (like the early 50s Special strippo 2 door sedan in the ad.) But back then, it was not unreasonable to aspire to a low-end Buick over a better equipped Olds, just because it was a Buick. Recall that in 1955, Buick was the number 3 selling brand. Don’t think that this was accomplished without a successful bargain car that allowed more people to have Buick prestige in the driveway at a lower-than-traditional price. Also, IIRC, the original (59) LeSabre was priced fairly low. I recall as a kid that a family in our neighborhood had a 64 LeSabre wagon with blackwall tires and dog dish hubcaps. But at the same time, the Electra 225 was an expensive and desirable car, as was the Riviera.
Hindsight tells us that GM’s division differentiation was starting to shred when we saw 3 on the tree Specials in the early 60s that were no nicer than comparable Novas or Tempests. By the time the Buick Skyhawk was out in the 70s, it was game over.
Was anyone else saddened when looking at the great styling of those cars and thinking about the cookie-cutter design (I can’t bring myself to refer to it as “style”) that’s prevalent today?
I can’t help but wonder: Will the people who grew up with the present trends in car styling love them as much when they are in their fifties and sixties? I won’t be around long enough to find out….
@ Frank Williams,
I agree about the styling but it saddens me even more to remember how great these companies were along with the people they once employed. Cars are nothing more than an appliance to most people anymore.
11 makes? Ford, Dodge, Chevy the cheap 3? Maybe AMC?
11 makes? Ford, Dodge, Chevy the cheap 3? Maybe AMC?
Chevy
Buick
Oldsmobile
Cadillac
Ford
Lincoln
Mercury
Dodge
Plymouth
Chrysler
Studebaker
Hudson
Nash
Packard
All of these were still around in the mid 50’s, weren’t they?
Hard to believe that a trade in back then is still worth the same today, excluding cash for clunkers
a triple treat: 50’s attitudes, cars, and film techniques.
Yeah, and don’t forget DeSoto, Pontiac, Aero Willys and Kaiser. Watching these commercials just reminds me how infantile consumerism really is.
11 makes? Ford, Dodge, Chevy the cheap 3? Maybe AMC?
Chevy
Buick
Oldsmobile
Cadillac
Ford
Lincoln
Mercury
Dodge
Plymouth
Chrysler
Studebaker
Hudson
Nash
Packard
All of these were still around in the mid 50’s, weren’t they?
I’m reminded of – and wish I could find – a classic New Yorker cartoon showing a man on a psychiatrist’s couch, with the caption:
“I’m 45 years old and still driving one of ‘the low-priced three!\'”
Two-door sedan? Is that like a four-door coupe?
Twotone
Back then it was Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth as the low priced three. Dodge went up against Pontiac. DeSoto competed against Oldsmobile. Chrysler went against both Buick and Cadillac, until Imperial was broken out.
Ford tried doing it on the cheap: Ford/Chevy, Mercury/Pontiac and maybe Oldsmobile, Lincoln/Cadillac and Buick. The purpose of the Edsel was to fill in the gap to take on the high end Oldsmobiles and low end Buicks.
What was interesting back then is how certain makes of cars seemed to fit in with certain occupations and social strata. My family, through an aunt, was rather involved with the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. Around there, a successful pastor of a parish would be driving a Chrysler New Yorker or Buick Roadmaster/Electra (and the New Yorker was preferred as it was a more conservative car). Never a Cadillac, Lincoln or Imperial – too showy.
This kind of behavior certainly covered other fields.
Styling has come up, and on that subject –
I recall a conversation with my grandfather back in the ’60s. He was saying that all the cars “nowadays” (mid 1960s) look the same. In his opinion, cars started to loose their individuality in the 1920s. To me, every ’20s car looks the same – black, no windows, a doghouse over the engine, and cans for headlights.
Anyone who actually likes ’50s styling is probably living in purgatory right now. But people who like today’s look will like it 30 years down the road, at a time when “all cars look the same”.
@ twotone: The distinction between a sedan and a coupe, technically, is rear-seat room, not number of doors. In the forties and fifties, a fair number of automakers offered a choice between business coupes (two doors, no rear seat at all, but a very large cargo area), club coupes (two doors, small rear seat), two-door sedans (normal back seat, but still only two doors), and sport coupes (which by the fifties typically meant a pillarless hardtop), as well as four-door sedans and sometimes four-door hardtops. (And then there were two- and four-door station wagons, sedan deliveries, and El Camino/Ranchero-style “utes.”) By the early sixties, a lot of the variations had been dropped due to low sales, and the distinction between coupe and sedan usually mean hardtop versus pillared two-door.
I had this on VHS I was about 15. There were commercials for 4 tapes (Cars, toys, food, and another topic) it and I begged my parents for it. In the days before youtube.com (Like 1995) It was amazing to have access to old commercials like this. I watched it over and over. To this day, when I see a Thunderbird, I think “A Thunderbird says Action, even with the brakes on”
To bad they cant rebuild some of these older styles based on newer safety standards. I love the old American big body style vehicles.
BuzzDog: I have a book that contains all of the New Yorker cartoons from the beginning. I’ll see if I can find it.
Syke: I thought the Edsel was supposed to slot between the Ford and Mercury brands. The lower-end Edsels were built on Ford body shells, while the higher end Edsels shared their junk with Mercurys.