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  • sdasda Member Posts: 6,936
    Michaell said:

    And another page -- interesting that the optional 5-speed was a dogleg:


    Yep, I had that 5sp in my '76 Sunbird w/V6. It was a noisy transmission, with tight gates. It was not an easy transmission to shift quickly, and it took a lot of effort to use the clutch. After driving the Sunbird and then getting into our Datsun or Toyota, I'd just about put the clutch pedal thru the floor of those cars, the effort to use the clutch was so light.

    2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav

  • sdasda Member Posts: 6,936
    fintail said:

    A new year's wish from MB, 1963, interesting they used Euro lights for a USDM ad:

    image

    Somehow that car/color looks vaguely familiar ;)

    2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav

  • ab348ab348 Member Posts: 19,027
    edited January 2019
    Those Sunbird seats look something less than what I would call handsome.

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  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    Was that Sunbird dash carved out of a wood plank - just kidding :p Actually, probably kind of neat for young guy recently out of school.
  • sdasda Member Posts: 6,936
    My Sunbird had the 'luxury' interior upgrade. It was actually pretty nice, especially compared to most subcompacts at the time. Unfortunately the seats did not recline yet they were comfortable. If you zoom in on the gear shift you can see the 5speed shift pattern. It also had a/c which like most GM cars easily cooled the car regardless of how hot it was.

    2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav

  • kyfdxkyfdx Moderator Posts: 235,188
    A/C?

    Didn't get my first car with A/C until 1990.

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  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    By 1925 Ford was making and selling about 2 million Model Ts, and for the Touring model below the price had dropped to an astonishing $290. But the Model T was already technologically and stylistically way behind the times, and not everyone wanted a car that was black—although right about this time Ford recognized this and started offering a few colors beyond black on its upper-end enclosed models. At the time of its greatest sales to date, Ford had engineered its own decline by not updating its key product enough, and that helped GM pass Ford in sales and market share just a year or so later. The top pic is a 1925 Ford Model T touring, built at Henry Ford’s Highland Park Plant in Dearborn. This example now resides in Australia, owned by the founder of FordModelT.net. The ground clearance on the Model T seems like it's more than some SUVs today. The Cadillac in the ad in this set is huge compared to the Model T, and it also has the multi-colored Duco paint treatment that some cars featured at this time—which unfortunately since the ad is in in black and white we can only get a hint of. In a year or so full-color ads will be used in the Post by some high-end car brands to illustrate their wonderful—and sometimes a little strange to our eyes—color combinations.


    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    1925. I don't know if I'll get through it, but I've just started reading Alfred Sloan's book My Years With General Motors, published in 1963. Sloan became president of GM in 1923, and worked for GM even into the 1950s. In 1925 GM's ad company came up with its famous advertising line "a car for every purse and purpose." GM's research labs and testing grounds were the biggest and in many ways the best in the auto industry by 1925. Packard could still compete with Cadillac and Buick, but it was increasingly challenging to do that given GM's resources.



    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    1925. Chrysler was also having impressive success in these years as the ad in this set shows. But in terms of advertising, from my pov I think GM's were often the best visually and textually in terms of making me personally want to own the car advertised if I'd been around back then. I wonder who their ad firm was? I'm sure one of the biggest and best of that era. I'm guessing that GM had all of its ads designed by one firm. That was obviously a huge account.


    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    I didn't know until I saw this 1925 ad that the term "conquest" sale was already around at this time, as Packard was saying that they were getting conquest sales from other brands. But General Motors with all of its brands was no doubt getting more conquest sales—and then GM started inventing new brands, like Pontiac.



    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    "Germany was where the automobile was born, France and Italy was where it was raised as a youngster and America was where it matured".
  • fintailfintail Member Posts: 57,095
    Used car ad from May 1976, anyone want anything?

    image
  • kyfdxkyfdx Moderator Posts: 235,188
    Really high prices for used cars in 1975.

    That Monza was well under $5K MSRP, new

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  • ab348ab348 Member Posts: 19,027
    I thought those prices were on the high side also. Not much there I would want but I would give the '68 Toro a look at least.

    Here is an ad from I believe 1954. Interesting torture test for a British car. The price in the USA quoted is rather breathtaking for the times.


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  • fintailfintail Member Posts: 57,095
    WA prices seem to be higher now, maybe they were in 1976, too. I also didn't pine for anything in the ad.

    "Austin of England" dates it, that was the 50s branding they used, I guess to differentiate from the tiny "American Austin" some time earlier. The badge even appeared on some cars:

    image


  • texasestexases Member Posts: 10,685
    ab348 said:

    I thought those prices were on the high side also. Not much there I would want but I would give the '68 Toro a look at least.

    Here is an ad from I believe 1954. Interesting torture test for a British car. The price in the USA quoted is rather breathtaking for the times.


    That price would be something like $28,000 today, the price of a (much better in every way) Miata, so I guess it's not too crazy.
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019

    "Germany was where the automobile was born, France and Italy was where it was raised as a youngster and America was where it matured".

    In 1924 the US produced c. 3.7 million vehicles, France 145k, England 138k, Canada 135k, and Germany only 18,000.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cars_in_the_1920s

    Interesting what happened to market share between Ford and GM between 1921 and 1926....

    1921 Ford 61% GM 12%
    1922 Ford 49% GM 17%
    1923 Ford 49% GM 19%
    1924 Ford 51% GM 18%
    1925 Ford 49% GM 19%
    1926 Ford 37% GM 27%
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  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Henry Ford was a stubborn old mule of a man, and despite his genius, he had a number of rather unattractive traits, to say the least. Did you know he is the only American named in Mein Kampf?
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019

    Henry Ford was a stubborn old mule of a man, and despite his genius, he had a number of rather unattractive traits, to say the least. Did you know he is the only American named in Mein Kampf?

    Yeah, I know....yikes.

    Strange car....


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  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    That's what they now call "naive aerodynamics"--meaning it looks fast but actually has a lot of drag.
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    1976 was heading into the last hurrah for the Detroit duopoly. Chrysler was not much of a factor by then, so Ford and GM kept raising prices while cutting corners on quality and reliability. Then came Japan Inc. adding pricing pressure and quality expectations on Detroit from the consumer.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    The late 70s and early 80s was basically an era of periodic consumer boycotting against the Big Three. 1970, 1975 and 1980-82 seem to stand out as conspicuous retractions in interest in domestic products.
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    The biggest factor for Japan Inc. may have been the import restrictions Detroit got from Washington that led to all the transplants in the south and Ohio. How ironic really.
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    The Buick ads from 1925 say that their engines are "triple sealed"—which actually just meant that they had an oil filter, an air filter, and a gas filter. It seems likely that Cadillac got those filters too, although I think one ad does claim that they are exclusive features for Buicks. In an case, it's clear that Oldsmobile and Chevy didn't have oil, air, or gas filters in 1925. Just guessing, but wouldn't an engine without an oil and air filter turn into junk (even with oil changes) in maybe c.5-7 years? If that's true, then the Buick and Cadillac ad copy claiming that it's actually less expensive in the long run to get a Buick or Caddy—because they last longer—seems to be correct back in 1925. If your 1925 "triple sealed" Buick was garaged and meticulously maintained seems like it might have even made it to 100k, but it doesn't seem likely that an engine without filters would make it that far...
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  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    Hmmm....

    "GM's share of the U.S. light-vehicle market slipped to 17 percent in 2018 from 17.4 percent in 2017."

    https://www.autonews.com/sales/gm-sales-slip-year-ends-sealing-3rd-straight-annual-drop

    Looks like the last time GM's market share was 17% was in 1922. I didn't realize until today it had fallen that far. Even back in the 1970s there might still have been vague talk about "breaking up GM" because their market share had been above 40% since before 1950.
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  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    omarman said:

    The Dauphine was every bit as capable as the VW Bug, which certainly succeeded on American highway and which engendered an entire generation of DIYers---so the excuses Renault made in that ad don't really hold water.

    That's a good explanation of the real difference between success and failure for North America imports.

    Ironically when VW introduced the Rabbit in the U.S. it was, to me, just as weird as the Bug in its own way. Thing is that people liked VW. Both the Bug and Rabbit. And that didn't happen by accident or even by superior performance alone. Somehow America can love all things French except their cars.

    And whatever happened to VW in North America? I mean after the retro new Beetle.

    I remember this to me amazing ad for the all-new Rabbit back in 1974. Until c. 1984 my Mom owned a 1966 VW Bug convertible. Classic car in great condition, but not safe. It was one of the cars I learned to drive on, but honestly I wouldn't have felt safe driving it more than about 65 mph—and really it was one of those unsafe at almost any speed kind of cars. This is what made the idea of a Rabbit going 90 seem amazing. Probably wasn't a good idea to take it over 80, but that's a lot faster than 65.

    The Rabbit along with the Civic were one possible way to the future for some of us back in the early 70s. Smaller, functional, logical, and technologically advanced cars for the time.

    The problem was that the Rabbit was actually kind of a piece of junk when you came down to it. My neighbor had a 1975 Rabbit, and by maybe 1978 or so the dash was already cracking i the sun—while the metal dash of my Mom's 66 Bug still looked new. And my neighbors said the Rabbit had all sorts of problems with the engine, fuel injection, etc. The bug just ran and ran with oil changes and regular maintenance and that's it. It was dead reliable, which looking back on it was kind of amazing.

    On paper the Rabbit was much better than the Bug, but until sometime in the 80s—and maybe even after that—the reality didn't quite match what was on paper.
    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • texasestexases Member Posts: 10,685
    My ‘83 GTI had very few problems over 13 years. But a friend had lots of problems with their ‘80 Rabbit. 
  • MichaellMichaell Moderator Posts: 240,084
    Were these German Rabbits or Pennsylvania Rabbits?

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  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    Michaell said:

    Were these German Rabbits or Pennsylvania Rabbits?

    My neighbor's Rabbit in the mid 1970s was from Germany. Although it had lots of problems, as we know a lot of cars in those days did. One thing amazing about the first generation of Rabbit was how small it was, with a length of only 146 inches, a width of only 63.5, and a weight of only 1750 pounds. No one ever got that advertised 38 mpg in the real world, because the EPA ratings of that time were hopelessly unrealistic. Since then the EPA has revised downward its ratings 3-4 times to make them more realistic, to the point where now you can sometimes even get better than your epa rating in the real world. The "corrected" epa mpg combined city/hwy rating of a 1984 Rabbit (the earliest available) is actually only 22 mpg, which is less than the 27 mpg combined rating on my 2018 TLX—which weighs 3500 pounds and is 191 inches long. So most of us are getting better mpg than a 1st gen Golf.
    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    Some cars in 1925 were marketed toward women. By 1925 General Motors was growing by leaps and bounds, and offering with some justification what it called "the greatest values in automotive history" across its lineup of brands from Chevy, to Oldsmobile, to Buick, and all the way up to Cadillac.



    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    The baby announcing the new year of 1926 was cutting income taxes in the prosperous 1920s. Delco along with AC sparkplugs were both part of GM's growing empire in the 1920s. The ad for the unusual air-cooled Franklin here is the first full color car ad that I've found. In this year GM under Alfred Sloan's leadership was challenging Ford's leadership.




    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    1926....I've started reading Alfred Sloan's book My Years with General Motors, which details how in 1920 GM was a total mess that was struggling for survival. In 1920 a triple whammy of chaotic and unrealistic management inside GM, a severe recession after the Great War, and brutal competition from Ford in 1920 (the price of the Model T was cut c. 25% in that year) left GM reeling. But in the early 1920s Sloan and a whole new team took over GM, and they started instituting a much better management system. Unlike Ford, which was basically a dictatorship, GM believed in a team approach, and in systematically, scientifically, and in a fact-based way examining the engineering of cars, the building of cars, and the marketing of cars. GM's market share as mentioned above grew from 12% in 1921 to an amazing 27% in 1926. By 1926 GM felt confident enough to invent whole new brands out of thin air, like the for many decades very successful Pontiac. Chrysler was the new kid on the block in 1926, and the Chrysler Imperial was an impressive machine for the time.



    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    1926....In Sloan's book he says that in 1920 and 1921 the only divisions keeping GM from collapse were Cadillac and Buick. Sloan says that GM's own internal studies showed that the Chevrolet model of 1920 not only cost significantly more than a Model T, but didn't have nearly as good quality as the Model T. Some people in GM suggested to Sloan that GM's top management force Buick's successful management and engineering team to other brands, and Sloan said, more or less, "Are you insane?" Sloan then went on to say that the loyalty of Buick's customers to Buick, because Buick built a very good car, was the only reason any of them at GM had jobs at all. Sloan said let's learn from Buick how to do things right and make the customer happy, but we need to keep that winning team intact, and in fact reinforce it and reward them for their success with more resources. Soon the management of Chevy was also quite good, and although they never meant to beat Ford on price, they wanted to get close enough that people would say that for a bit more money I'm getting a much better car. Cadillac was also a huge profit center for GM, and Sloan and the GM rewarded them with big research, engineering, and advertising budgets.




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  • omarmanomarman Member Posts: 2,702
    I've started reading Alfred Sloan's book My Years with General Motors...
    Amazing slice of life shown by all these ads and brochure visuals from era between the Great War and the next one after that. I should find time to read that book too. I'm wondering what Sloan may have said in his own words regarding the GM business relationship with [non-permissible content removed] Germany. Particularly Opel.

    I've seen a quote from Sloan in a letter to a stockholder in 1939 which stated that in the interest of making a profit, GM shouldn’t intrude into the affairs of [non-permissible content removed] Germany. “In other words, to put the proposition rather bluntly, such matters should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors.” According to Wiki: The original logo for the Opel Blitz, two stripes arranged loosely like a lightning symbol in the form of a horizontally stretched letter "Z", still appears in the current Opel logo.

    Wow. There's no Z in Opel!
    A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    Seems to be pretty much be true today as well, whether companies or government.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    That's generally true. Most corporations have no loyalty to the sovereign state.

    Sloane pretty much invented the modern corporation. It went from intuitive to institutional.

    RE: Women and 1920s cars: I have to say, I'm impressed. I've driven quite a few 20s-era cars and they require a fair amount of arm strength and leg power. Since most women probably didn't go to the gym back then, I can only presume they were pretty resilient, and up to the challenge. Muscling a Hupmobile out of a tight parking space on 33X3 tires could not have been easy. No power steering. No power brakes. Limited visibility.

  • omarmanomarman Member Posts: 2,702
    If that quote attributed to Sloan is accurate then he's writing a movie script.
    “I am shocked — shocked — to find out gambling is going on here.”
    “Your winnings, sir.”

    The profitable business of [non-permissible content removed] war production should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors?
    “Your winnings, sir.”
    To be sure, "such matters" as affairs of state, domestic and foreign, war and peace seem to have always held great interest to captains of industry. Henry Ford included. Celebs included.

    ("HAVE YOU SEEN OUR 1916 MODEL?" Lol!)

    Speaking of women and cars of the 1920's, I found a pic of Grace Valentine at the wheel of a 1920 PACKARD TWIN 6 which makes her look like a little kid at the wheel.



    A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    Love that Packard!++




    Early on in Sloan's book "My Years at GM" about 20 pages is spent on a big GM project I'd never heard of before, which lasted from 1921 to 1923, for an air-cooled engine masterminded by engineering star Charles Kettering.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_F._Kettering

    Kettering became the head of GM research in 1920, and before that had already had an impressive career at NCR, as well as with Delco inventing the electric starter, etc. He once said, "I didn't hang around much with other inventors and the executive fellows. I lived with the sales gang. They had some real notion of what people wanted." He also helped invent freon, the Duco paint system, etc.

    Anyway, when Kettering said in late 1920 that an air cooled engine would be a great project to do and was something he really wanted to do, GM—including Sloan—backed him. But, to make a long story somewhat shorter there were all kinds of technical problems and performance problems, plus no division at GM actually wanted the engine. Sloan basically had to order Chevy to take the engine, and a few hundred cars were actually built. In 1921-22, when the air cooled engine project was at full blast and costing millions of dollars, GM was just then short on funds. This meant that other things were neglected, such as better water cooled engines for Chevy, Olds, etc.

    In 1922 the economy started to come back to life after the severe postwar recession—and by early 1923 car sales were soaring. Sloan realized GM didn't have the time or money to realize Kettering's dream, and that they needed focus on and fund fundamentals. And so Sloan and GM's Executive Committee mothballed Kettering's air-cooled engine. Kettering was hurt and almost resigned, but Sloan patiently soothed K's ego and did whatever it took to keep him at GM. Thanks in part to Sloan K stayed as head GM research until 1947. It's clear Sloan has great admiration for Kettering as an engineering star, and admiration for him as a human being as well.
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  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    Sloan felt early on that better advertising was important to GM's success. Quoting now Alfred Sloan:

    "I had had some consumer studies made in 1922, and we found that people throughout the United States, except at the corner of Wall and Broad streets, didn't know anything about General Motors. So I thought we should publicize the parent company. A plan submitted to me by Barton, Durstine, and Osborn, now BBDO, was approved by the Finance Committee and our top executives....Bruce Barton was given full responsibility for conducting the campaign. We then formed the Institutional Advertising Committee, consisting of car-division managers and staff men, to assist Mr. Barton."

    So all those big ads we've been seeing with GENERAL MOTORS in huge letters were part of this giant campaign that started running in 1923 and went on for many years. Each division had primary responsibility for their own advertising, but all ads were coordinated to some degree so they could work in harmony, and each car division as we know also had to say in all their ads starting around 1923 "a product of General Motions" and/or "division of General Motors."

    Sloan says that the campaign was a success, and also had the effect of creating a greater group identity and esprit de corps within General Motors. GM employees saw the ads too, in other words, and thought of themselves more as GM people in addition to whatever division they worked for.
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  • ab348ab348 Member Posts: 19,027
    I read Sloan's book many years ago. I seem to remember it was a bit of a slog to get through.

    On the copper-cooled fiasco, I read that when GM recalled the cars from the hands of customers and those produced but unsold, they dumped the majority of them into Lake Erie.

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  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    Sometimes the Sloan book is a slog, but the granular nature of some of the details are at times interesting to me. When he was working on the book with an assistant in the late 1950s and early 60s, apparently the GM brass at the time wasn't too happy about Sloan poking around in the company files, and sometimes in the book he gives copies of letters and memos written at the time. I wonder if those files from those years are now mostly in a landfill somewhere, or else in storage so buried that no one is likely ever to see them again....
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  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    I remember some cash registers similar to the model in this set in a few small towns when I was a kid. And I still remember the sounds they made! Notice the official uniform with red cap, jacket, and red boots for Texaco gas station attendants of that time. Texaco was a very rich company, and was obsessed with its corporate identity, and so I'm guessing that those uniforms were not advertising fancy, but were uniforms that Texaco bought by the thousands and had their employees wear. I think almost every gas station was full service until maybe c. 1970?



    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    In 1926 as stoplights were slowly being phased in I guess it was a common sight to see a traffic cop with a sign like this. The humor I guess is that he's sitting down? Oh, now I see the jug. There's an article on the taxi biz showing traffic at the time, with the text readable if anyone wants to magnify it enough. Take a look at the traffic in NYC, including the multiple double-decker tourbuses with open tops filled with people. In the GM ad it says "What does GM mean to you?"—and answers the question by saying that because of GM's volume and buying power—800,000 tons of steel or whatever—that they can get the best grades of steel at the lowest prices, and then pass the savings on to the retail customer of a car. By 1926 Cadillac was offering 500 color combinations!




    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    1926. As Chevy begins to challenge Ford "Chevrolet" is pictured in this ad as looming as a giant on the horizon. In 1925 a completely new Chevy had been introduced that was much better than the Model T—and Chevy sales had soared in 1925 and went even higher in 1926. As Sloan says, "On the the quality side we proposed to demonstrate to the buyer that, although our car cost X dollars more, it was X plus Y dollars better. Too, we proposed to improve our product regularly. We expected Ford, generally speaking, to stay put. We set this plan in motion and it worked as forecast." In the GM corporate ad it is GM's own Charles Kettering that they are promoting as the person who got all Americans—except those still driving the now antique and potentially arm breaking Model T—away from the starter crank and to electric starting.




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  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    The 1927 Buick released in late 1926 was indeed as advertised the greatest Buick ever built up to that time, and GM advertised the heck out of it. In terms of smoothness and quality the 1927 Buick was better than most other cars then—even many that cost more. Vibration was a big issue for most cars in the 1920s, and from what I've read a Model T could almost make you feel like you were being shaken apart at times. Anyway, sales at Buick continued steadily higher throughout this decade. Even with the added quality engineering Buick was so profitable it was like a money machine in the 1920s, but until about 1926 Sloan says Buick—operating as a company within a company—mostly had control over their own finances. When GM wanted some of Buick's profits for another division, or to start a new brand like Pontiac, they literally had send people over to Buick and painfully extract the money from them. Buick had ways of hiding their money from GM—in special accounts and inventory—but in the end still had to turn over most of what GM wanted. Around this time Sloan and the GM team centralized and modernized GM's accounting and financial practices, and Buick lost most of the ability to hide and keep its profits from the parent company.



    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    And here's a photo of a restored 1927 Buick to show what they looked like in color. Starting in 1927 in the Post I think Cadillac started doing some full-color ads, and by 1928 probably Buick went full-color for most of their ads too.


    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • omarmanomarman Member Posts: 2,702
    edited January 2019
    You gotta like that Willys Overland Whippet. Rakish and low gravity center at a mere 5 ft 8 inches height! And there's the European style body 30 years before the Granada! 30 mpg and stopping in only 51 feet from 40 mph with mechanical brakes? Holy Toledo!
    A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    The connection between National Cash Register and the electric starter motor is pretty direct. Prior to 1912, there were many attempts at making a practical starter motor for a car---the emphasis is on "practical". They tried compressed air, and I think even some kind of gunpowder charge, and electric motors were fitted after a fashion, but they were much too big and drew too much power.

    Kettering, working for NCR, invented an electric motor to operate cash registers. Later on, he was the inspiration for a group of inventors/tinkerers, who later became part of DELCO.

    Henry Leland, head of Cadillac, commissioned Kettering's "gang" to come up with a practical self-starter. Kettering did it one better, combining the self-starter with a generator, thereby providing not only starting, but also a non-magneto ignition system AND a charging system--all in one. Brilliant!

    Kettering's insight was inspired by the cash register, when he deduced that a starter motor doesn't have to be heavy-duty, because it only needs to operate for a very short period of time.

    The self-starter pretty much killed off the steam car forever.
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    With this 1926 Packard advertisement we finally get another one that's in full color. Full color ads were clearly very expensive at this time, because at first only a few premium makes got full color—but personally I think the full color is beautiful, especially because of the wonderful paint work of that era. This Packard is green and black with yellow wheels. Quite a few cars had three colors of paint back then! And since Chrysler had boasted in an earlier ad that as many as 800 Chryslers were leaving the factory each day, competitor Buick claimed 1200 Buicks could be made each working day. As mentioned, GM's market share soared from 12% in 1921 to over 25% in 1926—and in 1927 GM's market share would go higher still. In 1921 Ford was dominating with a 60% share of the market, but by late 1926 Ford was about to be toppled because of a major miscalculation that was an example of epic mismanagement.




    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
  • benjaminhbenjaminh Member Posts: 6,311
    edited January 2019
    Apparently before 1926 cars didn't have crankcase ventilation? And even in 1926 was this was an exclusive engine feature for GM? So people without crankcase ventilation had cars that were maybe poisoning them a little? Yikes.




    2018 Acura TLX 2.4 Tech 4WS (mine), 2018 Honda CR-V EX AWD (wife's)
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