My daughter made me a valentine card. It reads, " I love the Imperial and I
love you . . . And that's why I say cool dads gotta have cool cars." What
you might call a keeper.
On the other hand, I finally received, several months late, first through my
mistake and then the seller's, the May 12, 1958 edition of Time Magazine.
The cover is devoted to a swirl of chrome decorative pieces, which inside I
learned are termed jewelry by the automobile industry with three perplexed
faces amid them, GM's Curtice, Ford's Ford and Chrysler's Colbert. Inside,
almost at the back of the book, is a 120,000 word analysis of "Why the 1958
cars are not selling." Time correspondents interviewed dealers, mechanics,
gas station attendants and drivers in 21 cities, plus the heads of the big
three were also interviewed.
This was not what I was expecting. I guess I'd have to get the August or
September editions of 1957 to get a preview of all the cars in the
automotive journalist style we all have come to know. Instead, this is a
very in depth analytical piece on the situation the automobile industry
found itself in. Detroit was between a rock and a hard place. It was
almost a victim of its own success and excess. The funny thing is I think,
somehow, I have taken my interest in all things 1958 maybe beyond the realm
of interest of most on the list. There actually is a picture of an
convertible Imperial, third from the left in a row of neatly sandwiched
cars, all convertibles except the Packard, with a legend below it saying,
"The Look-Alikes." With a Buick on one side and a Continental on the other,
the picture argues that basically, despite some minor cosmetic differences,
in terms of size and power, all the cars are pretty much alike.
Chrysler was hurting the most, and Imperial the worst of their five brands.
Cadillac were selling at almost double the number of middle class Chryslers,
and Imperials were just an also ran, down 50% from the previous year's high
water mark. Overall the Corporations sales slumped by 53%, but Ford and GM
were facing a sea of red ink, too.
The only car company with growing sales, was American Motors with the
Rambler. They even outsold Dodge. The big three could not get a break.
They made stripper models and no one bought them. Foreign makes, which back
then were all European, as Toyota only sold 12 vehicles during this their
first year in the US market, were able to sell small, unadorned cars,
however. To buy a stripper American car implied that was all you could
afford. But buying foreign made you chic and cosmopolitan. And, to
compound matters, these foreign cars were not selling in poorer areas, but
in the wealthy ones.
The big three's customer research departments were highly developed even
back then. Their car clinics told them that they were making the cars that
the majority of people wanted. The recession was not their fault and next
year things would be better. American cars had to be a certain way. Big,
powerful and loaded with gadgets. Only upstarts and foreigners were allowed
to be different and after the recession they would not be an issue. Oh, and
people would buy more provided there was even more of the magical
ingredient: Chrome.
Hugh
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