| Editor's Notebook - June 2009 |
|
|
|
This month, we're using this space to remember the great cars and people that once made Detroit the Motor City; car capital of the world. In the midst of a tsunami of bad news for U.S. car makers, it's nice to remember better days.
Where Is Iacoccao When We Need Him? Mr. Lee Iacocca is one of a kind. He managed to pull Chrysler back from the brink of financial disaster. His tools? A few mediocre sedans, a mini van, and an indefatigable belief in his mission. Always the master salesman, his schtick became a parodied icon. He didn't care. Against humongous odds, he kept Chrysler afloat; so a group of rapacious Germans and a motley crew of inept venture capitalists could ultimately scuttle the ship. Check out the Fuel Economy K cars were cheap stop-gap offerings that sold enough copies to generate desperately needed cash flow for Chrysler in the early '80s. The fuel economy ratings mentioned in this ad are 28 years old and, while they were probably a tad optimistic, they make you wonder how we've made so little real progress in making more fuel efficient vehicles. The Ford Rotunda The Ford Rotunda was originally built as an exhibit building for the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. After the fair closed, the building was disassembled and shipped in parts to Dearborn, where it was reassembled across the street from Ford's main offices, near the fabled Rouge Plant. The building looked like a gear stack and its roof was an early geodesic dome, designed by the brilliant but eccentric R. Buckminster Fuller. On a fateful day in November 1962, hot tar being used for roof repairs ignited. Before the fire could be contained, it destroyed this unique symbol of Ford's importance in the automotive world. Ford Cars 1960 A couple years before it was destroyed, my dad took his sons to visit the Rotunda, where a 1960 T-Bird display opened my young eyes wide. Salad days. The New Motoramic with Glide-Ride Suspension Wow. "Valve-in-head engine!" Copywriters in the '50s were apparently paid by the hyphen and encouraged to come up with as many catchy names as possible for new model features: Turbo-fire; Blue-Flame; PowerGlide; Motoramic; Four-Fender Visibilty; Outrigger Rear Suspension; Sweep-Sight Windshield. Maybe GM just needs to bring back a few old copywriters who could stack so many adverbs on adjectives that you needed a word traffic controller to prevent mid-sentence collisions. 1958 GM Car Ad Ah, yes, 1958. When more was more. Big fins and chrome everything. When Pontiac Growled GM took a relatively light car and stuffed a 389 cubic-inch engine under the hood. The rest is history. (That 389 had enough grunt to pull a B&O coal car.) Ford Mustang - Game Changer It's hard to appreciate how important this car was—is. It was truly a game changer that spawned all sorts of imitators, and created a whole new market that offered sporty looking cars at brown bag sedan prices. The original, lean Mustang grew fatter year by year, and lost a lot of its original appeal. The most recent Mustang iteration hearkens back to the styling cues of the original, classic design, iconic to this day. 1960 Detroit Auto Show Promo Ramblers, DeSotos, Corvairs, and the Olds F-85. The Olds was an early GM unit body compact car. It would grow larger over time and father the insanely popular Olds Cutlass. Chevy Corvair Had one of these (the car). Still like the looks (both). The heater was a little anemic (your call), but was a ball to drive. What does Ralph Nader know about cars, anyhow? For Pete's Sake Happy as an Olds with a new Peter. John Shorty Powers - Olds Rocket Control Lt. Colonel John "Shorty" Powers was the voice of Mission Control for NASA in the early '60s, and transferred his space program fame to auto advertizing. GM did a bang on job of letting Col. Powers associate Olds' technical expertise with that of the American space program. Rocket Action; Jetstar 88. Lift-Off at your Olds dealer! Assembling the 1959 Buick Back when cars had full frames, the assembly process and sequence was very different from what we see today. When Impala Ruled Throughout the 1960s, the Chevy Impala dominated the sales charts. In 1965 Chevy sold more than 1 million! These were true bread and butter cars for GM, at a time when they could seemingly do no wrong. This Impala was affordable, appealing, and accessorized with features everyone wanted. The Monument Valley Ad One of the most famous car ads of all time. Thanks! Return to June Issue
» 1 Comment
1Comment
at Tuesday, 02 June 2009 10:57by Charlespaul http://www.hemi.com/hemi.html
Here's a link to a great site describing the history of the Chrysler Hemi. For what it's worth, I shot the photo of the '69 Hemi Charger as part of the new vehicle launch press kit in the summer of '68 » Post Comment
Only registered users can write a comment.
Please login or register. |
| Next > |
|---|
