Found this issue of Popular Science from February, 1954. There were 7 automobile marques on the cover, and I figured to check to see which ones survived?Nash became part of AMC, which was bought out by Chrysler and renamed to Eagle. Eagle fluttered its wings for a while and did not remain after 1998.
Buick is still going strong. They are actually rather popular in China. Though Buick's home town of Flint, Michigan hasn't fared so well at all.
Oldsmobile was old. It lasted a total of 106 years, and was finally phased out in 2004, perhaps as the start of the big GM collapse. In ways GE's Saturn was a replacement for Oldsmobile, but it didn't survive either. Remember your father's Oldsmobile? It's getting easier than remembering your own.
Have you driven a Ford lately? That was a good slogan. I'm not even sure what they have now, but it is forgettable. Anyway, there's a good chance you have driven a Ford lately as this automaker is still going strong.
Cadillac. Still around, but it seems like they've been playing catch-up with Lexus for ages now.
Packard has been gone since 1958, just four years after this magazine was published. The factory in Detroit still remains, one of that city's fabulous ruins. A postcard image is to the left.Ah yes, Chevrolet. Or is it Chevy? There was an official memo recently on efforts to try to quash the "Chevy" name. They are still around and going strong, with an array of cars with confusing names. Cruze? Equinox? Traverse (pronounced traVERSE)? At least the name of the Volt names sense.
On the back of this issue is a photo of William Holden. I wonder if he walked too many miles for too many Camels and that did him in eventually. But no, it wasn't Joe Camel. He got drunk and bonked his head and died in 1981.
6 comments:
“See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet....” That was a memorable song. And what was that song about the “little Nash Rambler,” the one where the guy in the supposedly fast car can’t shake the Rambler and in the last line of the song he wonders frantically how to get his car out of second gear? Do you know that one?
The Ford Escort was a very solid, unpretentious, dependable little no-frills car.
I had a couple of Chevy (or ahem, Chevrolet) Cavalier convertibles that I loved.
It is funny to see how smoking used to be so mainstream...now it is like...subversive. It is weird watching the pregnant ladies smoke on Mad Men.
Used to see a lot of Nash
ramblers on the road. Oldsmobile, too bad. I had
a 1966 Olds Toronado ..and like Ralphie in Christmas
Story, it was the best car
I ever had...or ever would have!
Very interesting. I vaguely remember hearing about a Packard....
They sure don't make cars like they used to.
I am dreading the day I am going to upgrade to a newer vehicle. Granted mine is only a '96 but according to today's standards, it's ancient.
PJ: I had one of those.... I remember the constant very expensive repairs, which I thought were the norm for car ownership until I got a "Japanese" (actually made in America by a Japan-owned company) car years later.
Nash was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and the city as I saw it several years ago was still dotted with huge buildings that were made for Nash and associated interests (including a really huge former UAW building downtown).
BB: I wondered if you were referring to one of those really cool Toro's when I read that, and clicking the link, I find it is the ones I remembered seeing somewhere. The Remington razor nose and all. The sister Buick Riviera was almost, but not quite, as striking.
I actually also liked the Toronado Trofeo... a far cry from the 1966, but I thought it was interesting.
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Leticia said:
"They sure don't make cars like they used to."
Well, compared to, say, the 1966s, the cars today are a heck of a lot safer and more fuel efficient and all that. Even the lowliest KIA's now tend to come with luxury doo-dads that back in the 1970s only the top Cadillacs and Lincolns came with.
But yes they have lost a certain pizzazz, and it's hard for me to think of something modern that stands out as a pinnacle of automotive design or anything that will be remembered fondly through the ages.
Instead, we seem to instead get designs that are outrageously ugly, such as the Chevy HHR and Pontiac Aztec.
And many of the names are now interchangable with either a pain reliever, or a model of Acer or Dell computer.
Yeah, I must agree some of the new cars are heinous, but for some odd reason people love them? Go figure.
I would like to have a new VW bug. They look like a sweet ride, but with two growing boys, they wouldn't fit in the backseat after a while, lol!
Btw, I see bd has kept you pretty busy. At least he is not as annoying as that anonymous troll, whew!
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