On December 29,1952, CBS television ran a documentary by iconic journalist Edward R. Murrow entitled “Christmas In Korea”. For an hour that evening, the few Americans that had TV sets watched as an unsanitized version of events in Korea was presented in stark black and white. That broadcast gave greater insight to millions of Americans of just how great our soldiers sacrifice was in that strange, unpopular conflict. The Korean War by that point had been raging for over two years. Back home, our “police action”, (in politicalspeak), imposed no great change in most Americans day to day lives. Nonetheless, the American automotive industry kept a worried eye on the conflict in Asia. The memory of no cars “for the duration” was still fresh from World War II. Unlike World War II, there was no rationing, no blackouts, no rush to join the service. It seemed a distant war that was being fought for unclear objectives in a strange land of which most Americans knew little. Today, our thoughts at CC are with our men in uniform in the strange places of the present day,and our remembrance will return us to the time when our carmakers faced and conquered challenges in the marketplace and the Cold War became very hot in one corner of the globe.
The Korean War years were an odd interregnum for the U.S. auto industry. The sellers market of the postwar years had just ended, but the horsepower race had yet to begin when North Korea invaded the South in June of 1950. The postwar boom had enabled the industry to support the Biggest 3 and half a dozen independent makes (as well as several minor operations that survived on the margins ),but smart executives knew that the way of the future would be consolidation and innovation.
Visionaries like Nash’s George Mason (above) surmised that when the “sell anything” era ended, the auto industry would be a game among giants, with little room for second tier competitors. To that end , Mason (and other independent managements) began looking at new market niches and financial arrangements that would allow their operations to survive the shakeout that they correctly foresaw. Within a half decade, their prediction had largely come true, with four independents (Nash, Hudson, Studebaker, Packard) becoming two ( American Motors and Studebaker- Packard respectively) and one independent leaving the market entirely (Kaiser Frazer-Willys). Niche player Crosley Motors vanished completely.
The cars themselves were making an evolutionary transition in these years from the art deco/bar of soap/inverted bathtub genre to the crisp, angular finned fantasies that they would become within just a half decade. Powertrains were just beginning the transition from low revving straight eights and sixes to high compression overhead valve mills. The dramatic new postwar designs from the Big 3 were just 18 months into their run when the hostilities commenced on June 25, 1950. Unlike the last war, there would be no government ordered production freeze this time. But there would be production cutbacks. This was due to a shortage of steel due to economic factors beyond the carmakers’ control.
The most immediate issue was runaway inflation that began when war mobilization began in earnest in the fall of 1950. Wages and prices were climbing, and with them, the cost of the industry’s most critical raw material-steel- was skyrocketing. Steel went into everything from tanks to toys and with a swelling demand for armaments, defense needs were given absolute priority through production quotas, beyond which steelmakers were free to sell to all comers. But as the war ground on, the steelmakers found that the government quotas meant that they could not sell enough product on the private market to make a profit.
To many steel executives, the government’s first call on their production looked a lot like the system that we had gone to war to oppose. The situation was starting to spin out of control before president Harry Truman declared a national emergency on December 16, 1950. This gave the government a lever to put a lid on wages and prices while the hostilities raged. It also started the process of assigning production quotas to carmakers for the duration. The quotas were backward looking: A 30 percent cut in allowed production meant that the producers’ market shares were more or less frozen while the conflict ground on. But government decrees don’t produce steel, and the big steel companies had to allocate their civilian output in rough proportion to manufacturers market share. Thus the age old maxim “the rich get richer” was never more true.
Our profile will cover the model years 1951-53, but our focus will be the ’52 and ’53 editions. By the outbreak of hostilities, the 1951 models were locked in and it would only be later in their production run when shortages would make themselves felt. The constraints of space prevent a model for model review, so I hope that you’ll indulge me if I miss a favorite sub series or specialty edition. But do feel free to contribute in the comments below.
General Motors-
As the nation’s largest carmaker, GM was also one of the world’s largest defense suppliers. The company turned out trucks, tanks and armaments of every type, just as it had in World War II. GM had begun the transition from low suds inline engines in the first wave of postwar models in that it released in 1949. The Olds Rocket engine bowed that year beside a similar new powerplant from Cadillac that would start the rush to higher revving, more powerful V-8’s across the entire corporate line by 1955. But for 1952-53, Olds and Cadillac retained their favored status as performance cars in the company price ladder. The rest of the company’s offerings would continue to make do with the proven technology of their inline sixes and eights.
1952-53 Chevrolet
Chevy’s first postwar body reached the end of its natural life cycle in 1952. The new for ’49 line had been a big winner for the company and a new body was planned for ’53. One style that had passed out of favor was shown the door when the last ‘52’s rolled off the line- the Fleetline series only retailed 37,000 units and Chevy wisely decided to free up production capacity for the latest marketplace fad- pillarless hardtops. The Bel Air hardtop was a market sensation when it went on sale in 1950, and other makes rushed to get a version of this body style in their showrooms. The Bel Air was a bargain at $1914 and Chevy could sell every one it could build. The Bel Air gave GM almost total market price point coverage for hardtops. Buick and Olds also added the model to their lineups, but both retailed for over $2800- almost a thousand dollars more than Chevy.
Chevy’s conventional passenger car line was broad and deep in these years. The company was almost a “GM within GM”. The model hierarchy ranged from low buck business coupe ($1416) to the station wagon ($2191) and just about every body type in between. The 1951 Chevy was the last year for the new-for-’49 A body (shared with Pontiac) and new sheetmetal was offered (along with a couple of new model names) for ’52-’53.
One change dictated by the war was the use of so called “Korean Chrome” on bumpers, grilles and pot metal trim pieces. The name referred to the practice of skipping the nickel in the process of binding the chrome to a flash of copper and then the steel and coating the whole thing with clear lacquer. The result was rust covered trim pieces after just a year or two (even faster in the midwest) Nickel was tightly controlled by the government as a strategic defense material and the problem persisted until 1954.
The big news from Chevy was the introduction of the snazzy new Corvette in late summer 1953, just six months after a concept car was shown in public for the first time. For all of the ballyhoo that it later generated, the first edition Corvette was a pretty conventional car. A Chevy straight six engine and Powerglide transmission , along with a conventional rear axle meant that performance and handling would be commendable, but not radical. The use of fiberglass bodies caused no small amount of buzz, but the car was more of an image builder than practical business proposition in those days. The car’s $3513 price made it the most expensive Chevrolet in the lineup-if you could get one. Production was only about 300 (mostly hand built) copies.
Pontiac
Pontiac was a cleverly slotted buy up option for Chevy customers in these years. While sticking with its straight eight and six cylinder engines, upper make options like Hydramatic were available for buyers willing to pay just a little more money for a flashier, better equipped car. Pontiac carefully covered the ground between Chevy and Oldsmobile with a wide price range and two trim levels (Standard and DeLuxe) that included a hardtop, convertible and even a sedan delivery model. Pontiacs sold well enough to keep the division in the top five of industry sales in all three war years. Production rocketed from about 270,000 units to almost 420,000 in 1953.
Oldsmobile
Olds had gotten a new body and a new engine in the first postwar models released in 1949. For 1951-’53 , GM didn’t tinker with the formula that was so obviously working. The “Rocket V-8” was a real sales advantage in these days of twenty five cent gasoline and Olds never missed an opportunity to play up the Rocket’s performance edge. In fact, the company dropped six cylinder engines from the lineup altogether to concentrate on the Rocket.
Oldsmobile was positioned perfectly dead center in the GM “ladder”. Aspirational buyers could drive an Olds based on a GM “A” body for a little as $2262 and move up to a “B” platform (shared with Buick) for just a few hundred dollars more. The top of the line Olds 98 Fiesta Convertible would set you back $5717 in 1953.
Buick
Buick almost perfectly mirrored the times during the early 50’s-a rising tide lifting all boats. GM’s near luxury division had fielded boring (but dependable) straight engines since the thirties and had added its Dynaflow automatic to the drivetrain options list for 1948. The new postwar model lineup had created some overlap with Oldsmobile on the upper end of the mid price scale. Buick shared a “ B” body with Olds and edged into Cadillac territory with it’s more expensive offerings . The Buick Roadmaster identified its owners as part of the successful professional class in these days. It’s pricetag ($3977) was considered nouveau riche for 1952.
Buick proudly celebrated its golden anniversary in 1953.
Cadillac
Cadillac had staked its claim to luxury after World War II and never looked back. In the Korean war years, (with Joe McCarthy chasing invisible communist spies throughout government), Cadillac almost assumed the mantle of patriotism as it signified the difference between poverty and prosperity brought on by the capitalist system. To own a Caddy was to confirm that hard work and thrift could pay off in America.
Cadillac had been provided with its own modern high compression engine in its first postwar redesign of 1949 and continued to offer roadable high performance in a package that included models from $2900 (1951 Series 62) to $7750 ( 1953 Eldorado).
Ford Motor Co.
FoMoCo did defense work for the government during the Korean War, but its role was not nearly as extensive as in World War II. Partly, this was because the permanent Cold War defense establishment was beginning to make industrial mobilization as we had known it obsolete. There would be no more mile long assembly lines of heavy bombers being built by car companies in the jet age.
Giant “military-industrial” contractors would be a permanent fixture of the economy that produced arms even in peacetime. Ford adapted well to this new reality. Not well remembered today is that FoMoCo and Chrysler were in a battle for second place in the industry in these years. It was only in 1952-53 that Ford Motor’s market share again exceeded Chrysler’s and stayed there more or less permanently.
Ford
The Korean War years saw the continued resurgence of the Ford Motor Company after a near death experience in the late forties. The revolutionary 1949 Ford literally saved the company and it would see only minor refinements through 1951. The 1952 models were new, but not radically so: modern, but not flashy. The old flathead V-8 was the one constant in these years, even if the body that it was wrapped in changed substantially.
Ford, like every other make, could only produce the cars that it could get the steel to build, so sales showed a dramatic decline for ’52-’53. After the armistice was signed in 1953, the company would engage in an attritional price war with arch rival Chevrolet. Neither giant harmed the other, but their salvoes inflicted mortal wounds on the independents, which began merging in order to survive. Ford blanketed the market with two and four door sedans, a line of wagons, convertibles and coupes. Low buck, straight six strippers were the value leaders in these years as Ford didn’t attempt to field a compact car.
Mercury
Mercury reverted back to its traditional role as a premium Ford in 1952-53. The Merc had been a junior Lincoln during its first postwar design iteration in 1949-51 and cribbed the Ford bodyshell when that model got a new look. The only difference was a three inch longer wheelbase and much flashier detail work. The Mercury also got a stroked version of the Ford flathead engine that bumped stated horsepower up by 10 over the cheaper mill. Prices ranged from $2200 to $2900 in these years.
Lincoln
Lincoln shared the Ford and Mercury styling idiom of 1952. In fact, the Lincoln lost a lot of its unique styling from the previous cycle and the market was not kind. Sales for 1952 were just under 19,000 and Cadillac was running away in the competition at the top of the market. Lincoln would sell many more cars in 1953 (about 41,000), but was slipping relative to its old rival from GM. It would take the next generation of Lincolns (and the rapid fall of Packard) to make real progress against the Standard Of The World.
Chrysler Motors
Chrysler Motors was still a relatively young corporation in these years. The influence of Walter P. Chrysler had faded and the company was now guided by the technocratic business school types that were averse to risk taking and loathe to innovate if the existing technology could get the job done. Thus, the old fashioned Fluid Drive would hang around until 1954, by which time it was a real liability in the sales race to the Ford-O-Matic and GM’s Hydromatic. This plus a confusing and poorly focused gaggle of models and sub models made these years a trying time for dealers, shareholders and customers.
Chrysler
Mopar’s flagship line had one huge advantage in any head to head matchup with competing cars in these years: The magnificent Hemispherical Combustion Head engine. We call it a Hemi these days and it helped Chrysler overcome dullard styling in those years. The 331 inch engine was expensive to assemble, but it packed a punch that could stand comparison with any powerplant on offer from GM or Ford.
Chrysler’s lineup included the new Custom Imperial Limousine for 1953. Chryslers $2495 starting price put the car in direct competition with the likes of Packard ($2494) and Kaiser ($2313) .
Desoto
DeSoto got its own hi-po V-8 for 1952, but even a hemi couldn’t push sales back above 100,000 units. The make was hard to slot after changing positions in the market with Dodge after World War II. The 276 cubic inch “Firedome” V-8 was capable, but was mated to the old fashioned Fluid Drive transmission, which was looking more and more dated as the years went by.
Styling was likewise a sticking point in these years (as was the case with Mopar’s entire lineup). The car finally got a one piece windshield (above) in 1953 to go along with more brightwork. The base Desoto listed for $2339 for 1952 and $2364 for ’53.
Dodge
Dodge was deadly dull during the early 50’s. The division offered the same flathead six cylinder engine that had been standard since the thirties and plans were under way to replace the mill with its new “Red ram” unit in 1953.
This engine would be the first really high performance powerplant installed in Dodges and its also made use of big brother Chrysler’s Hemi technology. Despite not being exciting to look at, Dodge sold well in these years. Prices ranged from $1900-$2600.
Plymouth
ChryCo’s popular priced make ( $1600-$2200) was a large part of the reason that the company surrendered second place in industry sales to Ford in these years. The 97 HP six (the only engine on offer) in all models of Plymouth dated to the mid thirties and was becoming a millstone that was hard to disguise. Plymouth sales dropped by over 200,000 units in 1952 and by ’53 was less than half of Ford and Chevy. It would take the Exner “forward look” models of 1955 to reverse its sales decline.
Independents
Dark clouds were gathering for the independents in these years and several makes would not live to see 1960. Feeble management and simple economics were wrecking the balance sheets at Kaiser and Hudson, while Nash and Packard desperately sought merger partners that could keep the game going a little longer. The largest independent, Studebaker, was battling dangerously high fixed costs and an aging, unproductive workforce while trying to fend off the big three and keep shareholders happy. Studebaker celebrated its centennial in 1952 and boldly plotted a course for a second century. But within just a decade and a half, the company was out of the auto business for good. Indeed, by the end of the 1960’s,only one independent automaker would survive to challenge the Big 3 for market supremacy.
Studebaker
Studebaker squeezed one more season out of its 1947 body for 1952. A new grille and some minor trim changes were the only real differences that year. The company celebrated its centennial with parades, books and even keepsake medallions for employees. But management knew the truth, even as they put on a brave face for the public.
But all of that changed for 1953. This was the year that South Bend came to market with a true landmark design that still looks good today. The Raymond Loewy designed Studebakers had their shortcomings (insta-rust coachwork, flex frames) but no one could deny that they were a styling coup.
Studebaker would hang on to the ’53 body shell for way too long, but for the moment, the company fielded one of the best received cars on the market.
Packard
Packard was in terminal decline in these years. Every monthly sales report showed that the company’s move out of the luxury field and into the middle market after World War II was a disastrous downward brand extension. A new body for 1951 had been followed by a boardroom shakeup in 1952 as the company brought in turnaround specialist James J. Nance to try to salvage something of the business before it was too late.
Nance shuffled models and marketing strategies, but sales continued to collapse. By 1954, Packard would buy Studebaker in a desperate effort to survive, but by then the marque was too far gone to save. Nance had correctly recognized that Packard had squandered its luxury image after World War II and set about trying to recapture the exclusivity that the brand had once enjoyed. Packard would continually retrench, but when the last “true” Packards rolled off the line in 1956, the brand ceased to be and expired as a tarted up Studebaker.
Hudson
If there was a company in worse condition than Packard in these years, it was venerable old line producer Hudson. The company’s last original full size design had come in 1948 with the step down models that proved almost impossible to restyle economically. Thus, for ’52-’53, Hudson was fielding the same basic car that had appeared five model years earlier.
To make matters worse, Hudson management essentially staked the company’s future on the new compact Jet for 1953.
The Jet was a sales disaster and burned corporate funds that would have been better spent to restyle the full size cars. Within 18 months, Hudson would cease to be an independent company and by the end of 1957, the Hudson brand would be relegated to the dustbin of automotive history.
Nash
Nash was still relatively healthy in the Korean War years. The company had been a pioneer in the compact market with its successful Rambler in 1950 and its full size cars still made a profit. But the enormous capital demands to create new models was forcing the company to look at a merger partner in order to stay in the game. The company was in the consumer field with its Kelvinator line of appliances, and the shortage of steel affected its operations there as well. For 1952, Nash introduced a striking original design as the Pinin Farina designed Nash debuted.
The basic bodyshell would carry Nash until AMC phased out of the brand in 1957. Nashes covered the upper middle market in these years. Prices ranged from $2150 for a basic Statesman to $2830 for a snazzy Ambassador.
The company dabbled with a true sports tourer in these years by offering the magnificent Nash Healy roadster (also styled by Pinin Farina). The cars $4000 and up price tag meant that production was miniscule. Just over 300 N-H copies were sold. They became instant collectibles.
Kaiser
After a falling out with business partner Joseph Frazer, Henry J. Kaiser pressed on with the handsome 1951 restyle of his company’s big cars for 1952 and ’53. The Frazer was history. It had been discontinued after the last 1951 models were sold.
The company still offered the Henry J as its compact entry, but sales for that model were dropping like a stone and corporate cash reserves were melting away. One of the biggest issues was the lack of a decent engine for the big Kaisers. The old Continental straight six could only produce 115 horsepower and this made the 3100-3400 pound curb weight models feel weak kneed and underpowered.
Any potential buyer that drove an Olds with a Rocket engine wasn’t going to look twice at a Kaiser that felt like a slug and sold in the same general price range. Sales slumped badly for ’52 (just 32,000 units) and even worse for ’53 (28,000) and it was becoming clear that Kaiser was a goner. The company would purchase Willys in 1954, but its future in North America was sealed by that point. Kaiser would find success with his eponymous cars-but that success would come in South America.
Willys
Willys jumped back into the conventional passenger car market in 1952 with its Aero line. The Aero was the company’s first purpose built passenger car effort since the 1942 Americar. Four series (Wing, Ace, Eagle,Lark) combined for just over 31,000 sales in the debut year. The Aero was a clean sheet design that owed nothing to previous models, yet found itself in a crowded niche when three other independents tried to market compact cars. Sales would peak in 1953 after a minor model reshuffling,but then fell sharply. the car would live out its days in America as part of the by now mortally wounded Kaiser empire.The company still built its CJ line of jeeps for home consumption,but the car-like Jeepster had been discontinued after a small number of 1951 models were sold.
Willys still produced the most loved and well known vehicle of the previous war-the Jeep. In 1952, the company brought the CJ 3 to another stage of military development by introducing the M38A1 model for the Army. The M38 A1 proved to be rugged and dependable just like the original and would lead to the development of the CJ 5 in 1954.
Crosley
The Crosley story came to its end in 1952. The car had benefitted enormously from the sellers market in the postwar years, but by the early 50’s , it looked strange and out of place among the ever bigger, ever flashier mainstream offerings from Detroit. By the end of 1951, founder Powel Crosley realized that his dream of building a spartan, basic everymans car was dead.
In the spring of 1952, he began the process of selling the company to General Tire and by mid year, the Crosley was off the market. Sales in the last year barely amounted to 2000 copies. Prices ranged from $943 to $1077.
Before we close the books on the cars of the Korean war, let’s take a moment to consider the legacies of that unsettled time. How did we get from there to here?
The Korean War itself is still technically ongoing. The warring parties only signed an armistice in July 1953 and have remained at battle stations since then. Grim faced border guards stare across barbed wire and tank traps with guns at port arms in case of renewed conflict.
The war itself was a tactical draw but a strategic victory for the U.S., UN and South Korea. The north’s attempt to conquer the south was thwarted and the south became one of Asia’s strongest economies.North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung maintained an iron grip over his half of the country until his death in 1994. His strange, psychotic son Kim Jong Il inherited his title and offices and died December 17, reportedly of a heart attack.
Today, the Korean auto industry is rapidly supplanting the Japanese as one of the most dynamic in the world. Meanwhile, North Korea endures periodic famines, industrial obsolescence and political isolation even from its former allies.
The Big 3 are with us today of course, but they would be unrecognizable to a car buyer of that era. Pontiac and Oldsmobile have disappeared from showrooms as have DeSoto and Mercury. GM and Chrysler have gone bankrupt and Ford makes most of its money on large pickup trucks. Ford has cemented its place as the number two automaker behind GM
The independents days were numbered after the sellers market of the postwar period ended in 1949-50. After a series of mergers, consolidations and financial engineering failed to save their businesses, the indies began winding up their days as stand alone automakers. Kaiser was the weakest of the group and decamped for South America (taking Willys with it) in 1955. Nash and Hudson combined to become American Motors in 1954 and Studebaker and Packard became Studebaker -Packard that same year. S-P dropped Packard after a small run of 1958 models and became simply Studebaker. The company finally surrendered and stopped building cars in 1966.
One of the big beneficiaries of the Korean War was, oddly enough, Japan. Strategically located across the Sea of Japan from the Korean peninsula, Japan began to re-industrialize to supply vehicles to American occupation troops. This provided the capital for the country’s carmakers to learn the techniques that they would later use to capture the bottom, middle and later a goodly piece of the top of the American market.
They would learn and refine a method of production that would allow quantum leaps in quality called Statistical Process Control. The teacher was an American- W. Edwards Deming.
So 58 years later, we find America involved in another abstract struggle that has sent our troops to distant lands for complex objectives. I hope that you will take a moment today to remember their sacrifices and keep them in your thoughts.
I always intrigued by this era’s Nash, with covered-up front wheels. How do the wheel turn then? Do they have some trick steering mechanism that allow the wheels to turn without hitting the fender? Or the front wheel simply didn’t turn much, so the car has horrible turning radius?
Funnily, if the Korean peninsula flared up again today, Americans will feel its impact far more than back then, they’ll miss all those Samsungs and LGs and Hyundai and Kia automobiles they could buy!
I believe that the only tricks employed by Nash for steering with low-cut wheelwells were a narrow front track (in relationship with the body) and a wide turning circle. I suspect a long suspension travel as well, so that there would be clearance for changing a tire.
I think the Nash Healy may have been the only Nash-badged car from 1949 on that did not have front fenders. It would gain fame for its placement in “The Adventures of Superman” TV series, though one has to wonder how Clark Kent could have afforded a Nash Healy on a reporter’s salary of the time. Granted, he probably startled Daily Planet beancounters by never submitting any travel expense reports, or for being at stories half way around the world barely after the stories passed the news wire networks the Daily Planet that it presumably worked with.
For that big, ponderous, body the Nash had relatively narrow tyres. They easily turned within the bodyshell. However, they were a bit of a PITA to change a flat on the side of the road.
The Nashes (including the Ramblers) were notorious for having an extremely wide turning circle. The enclosed front wheels were a fetish of George Mason – he thought it gave brand identity to Nash, and made the cars look streamlined.
The 1955 Rambler eliminated the enclosed front wheels, while retaining the basic 1953 body shell. I’ve always read that Romney pushed for this change after the sudden, unexpected death of George Mason. But given that Mason died in late 1954, I doubt that there would have been sufficient time to make this change between his death and the debut of the 1955 models.
Thoughtful analysis and an enjoyable read!
The cars of that era all stunk to me, with the standouts being – are you ready? – FORD! That Buick would run a close second, as it wore the design well. The Studebaker? Yes, that too. The rest? Nope.
My first car was a 1952 Chevy DeLuxe rust bucket bought from a friend’s dad in August 1968 for $75.00. Too bad the car was shot, as the 216 ran beautifully! I owned the car for three months until I bought an equally rusted-out 1961 Chevy Bel-Air two-door sedan for $300.00 – $200.00 too much!
“The 1951 Chevy was the last year for the new-for-’49 A body (shared with Pontiac)…Aspirational buyers could drive an Olds based on a GM “A” body for a little as $2262 and move up to a “B” platform (shared with Buick) for just a few hundred dollars more…Buick shared a “ B” body with Olds and edged into Cadillac territory with it’s more expensive offerings.”
Can anyone provide a detailed explanation of which GM models used which bodies in this era?
When I hear A/B/F bodies I can easily get confused. I do not think they directly translate. The ladder you climbed at GM, Ford, or Chrysler was primarily between brands and not within a brand.
Chevy to Pontiac to Olds to Buick to Cadillac. From smallest to biggest. Don’t get hung up on designations unless you are a pro. I am not. They got bigger and they cost more is all I had to know. It’s still all I know except now each GM brand seems to do that within brand.
“Can anyone provide a detailed explanation of which GM models used which bodies in this era?”
A shout out to the excellent resource Old Car Manual Project.Truly one of the best stops on the internet for old car fans.
An invaluable aid is here:
http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/models/1950models.htm
Also, Restoration Assistant has a nifty section:
http://www.restorationassistant.com/gmbodycodes.html
The constants were Chevy and Pontiac on the A body and Cadillac on the C body. The regular Olds and Buicks were B body cars. There were always some wheelbase variations, often ahead of the windshield, and there could be some longer bodies with extensions out back where added length was fairly inexpensive.
It was always fuzzy at the margins. The original Olds 88 was so fast because it was the Rocket V8 engine in the little Chevy A body. But by 1951 (I think) the 88 was a B body car, where it stayed. Also, the biggest Buicks were usually on the C body with the Caddy, and the Olds 98 was there part of the time (although I think that there were some B body 98s in the 50s). The greenhouse area was always the giveaway, as it was the one area that stayed pretty constant between models on any given body.
For 1959 the A body was dropped, and all of GM’s models were either B or C bodies. The A body came back as the 1964 intermediate body, and the big cars were either B body (Chevy, Pontiac, Olds 88 and Buick LeSabre) or C body (Olds 98, Buick Electra and Cadillac.)
To add to your confusion, I’m pretty certain that the 1949 A-bodies were carried on (with significant revision for ’53 and ’54) thru 1954. The ’49 thru ’51’s were clearly the same body, original for ’49, a couple of hashes on the downward trim pieces from the turn signals for ’50, a more horizontal grille for ’51, and teeth added to the horizontal element for ’52. However, these four are clearly the same body (only the fastbacks went away over that four year period). ’53 and ’54 were cosmetically very different, and their lines were as appreciably different as you could get without going to a new body.
Written using my ’53 and ’54 dealer promotional models for references – unfortunately, I don’t have any earlier ones, as dad would have never thought of bringing home such cars since his kid hadn’t turned 3 yet.
One thing I found out recently about the GM body codes is that the D-body was used on the Cadillac Fleetwood 75 sedans and limousines. The prewar long-wheelbase Buick Limiteds may also have used this body. The last Series 75 Fleetwoods were made in 1987, although I’m not sure if they were designated D-bodys all the way to the end of production.
I think the Limited used a stretched C body off the top of my head and the last 75s were refered to as D bodies, but the whole alphabet soup of the 1980s is quite confusing, due to downsized bodies being produced at the same time as their predecessors.
Well my mom was born in 1905 and died about 2007. I used to marvel at her memories. If I didn’t realize it before I certainly do now. I have become her. I was 10 years old when that war ended. I already knew I was destined for a career in the Military. Strange that the story comes out now just a couple days after the little crackpot expired.
Great story Jeff. Lots of time put in here and an excellent result from one who remembers this happening. Even as a youngster I was a car nut. I have owned a couple dozen cars from this era from Studebaker to Chevy and Ford. They were affordable when I became a driver. They still ran when they were old. Disagree strongly with Zackman. They weren’t modern and the babbit rod bearings on the Chevy were terrible. However, with pertronix and modern lubricants they would (mostly excluding freeways) do ok today. In Cuba they still do.
Go look at some of the early editions of Hot Rod or Car Craft and you will see that the industry was alive and well with pioneers still running SCCA and other events. I don’t want to go back but I remember very fondly.
Thanks for the memory Jeff.
@wstarvingteacher:
My remarks were, to me, based solely on looks alone, and the cars I personally experienced. For example:
A friend of my mom had owned a very nice blue and white example of the bronze Ford shown above. It was always clean and looked very nice, but for the life of me, I have no idea what model year it was.
The 1952 Chevy babbitt-beater 216? I agree, but the one I had ran extremely well even though the rest of the car body was gone.
I do have a soft spot for my dad’s 1950 Plymouth, however. He owned it ten years and the reason he had to trade it was the front seat was literally falling through the floor! The 1953 Dodge he replaced it with? Ready for the junkyard when he brought it home and mom almost killed him for buying such a piece of junk!
So, my opinions on old cars are mostly emotional, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes not. The mechanics I was never concerned about, as long as it ran well. Pretty much still feel that way.
Pre-1959 model year, from what I’ve read.
A – Chevy, Pontiac, Olds 88, Buick Special
B – other Olds, Buick
C- Caddy
Please clarify, correct.
I thought that, after 1950, all Oldsmobiles were based on the B-body. The Buick Special (and later Century) were always on the B-body, while the Super and Roadmaster were on the C-body.
Wonderful article. Thanks so much for writing. We had the exact 53 Ford shown – V-8. Radio was only option unless heater was not standard. Gave 100,000 miles service. Some rust but not much. Paint chalked up pretty quickly. Wish I knew then what I know now. Flathead had overheating problems that never were really corrected.
Merry Christmas to all!!
The sad thing was that by 1952-53, the flathead was as good as it was going to get. It had been extensively re-worked for the 1949 models by Harold Youngren who went to Ford engineering from Oldsmobile after the war. The engine always had horrible cooling problems and used absolutely massive radiators. Henry Ford had a thing for thermo-siphon cooling, and I think that the flathead still used some variation on it (albeit with a water pump).
If I were going to buy a Ford of this vintage, I would be hard pressed to decide between a 52-53 flathead or a 54 Y block, and would probably go with the flathead. As my grandfather would say, “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know.”
If I recall correctly, Henry Ford I insisted on a design that routed the coolant too close to the exhaust system, which was the root of the problem. This was never corrected.
Thanks Jeff, for this excellent and detailed trip down memory lane. It really was a pivotal era in the industry. It’s hard to imagine now all those independent makers.
The cars from this era were still very common when we arrived in 1960, and our first car was a ’54 Ford.
Paul, did the Vietnam War have any effect on the automakers? Any strategic metal shortages? Military innovations bought home like the higher compression engines after WW2?
My recollection is the Vietnam War era’s major impact on automakers was not industrial or technical, it was cultural. Among the generation that was drafted into that war, there was strong feeling against “the establishment”. Not well defined, but certainly including big US corporations, overconsumption and bloated cars, like this Ron Cobb drawing.
Fairly or not, it turned the tables against Detroit and for imported cars. VW took hold then obviously, followed quickly by Toyota, Datsun and Honda. Then Mercedes, Lexus, etc., among those who got wealthy after all.
The Vietnam War was waged under Johnson’s “guns and butter” approach. The United States was more prosperous, and the war less of a cost in terms of materiel, that there was no need to ration steel or allocate manufacturing capacity.
It was, in fact, a sort of heyday for American steel. In terms of automotive manufacturing, Kaiser and defense-oriented companies such as General Dynamics filled the demand.
There was adequate manufacturing capacity, and it was paid for, mostly, with deficit spending. Which made the Vietnam War only uncomfortable in social ways; but gave us a horrific delayed cost in the 1970s: high inflation.
Thanks for the history lesson, Jeff. It is timely on so many levels – the death of North Korean dictator No. 2 and our pullout from Iraq.
Cars became so conservative in this era, but I suppose a lot of things did. Just as there were not that many automotive keepers, this era’s popular music has also been pretty largely forgotten (much of it for good reason).
GM was at the top of its game in those years. And as noted, Ford was displacing Chrysler as No. 2. It is amazing how long Chrysler coasted on the legacy of Walter Chrysler, who died in 1940. Even though the cars were stodgy to the extreme, there was some first rate engineering going on. Chrysler pioneered the Safety Rim wheel (so the tire would not flop off the rim in a blowout) and Oriflow shocks that varied their resistance. Chrysler also beat GM to market with power steering by a year.
Imagine how Chrysler would have performed had that Hemi been mated to a Hydra Matic. Chrysler’s Fluid Drive and semi-automatic transmissions hampered these cars performance quite a bit.
A friend who started working at the Ford Motor Company in the early 1950s told me that, during that time, Chrysler products had the best overall quality, primarily because they didn’t change all that much during those years.
Chrysler really fumbled with Plymouth. In 1940, Plymouth came close to ousting Ford Division from second place. But the corporation favored Dodge in the postwar years, while Ford made a strong comeback. If Chrysler had given Plymouth the attention it deserved, the race for second place (among corporations, not just divisions) wouldn’t have been won so easily by the Ford Motor Company.
1953 marked the 50th year of Vauxhall to celebrate this milestone every New Zealand dealer recieved free of charge one copy of a thin book 50 years of Vauxhall accompanied by a letter from the NZ manager appologizing for the only one copy due to a shortage of books. I have Rodney Motors copy and the letter its a pretty meagre effort compared to what goes on now to celebrate anything.
Pontiac and Oldsmobile have disappeared from showrooms as have DeSoto and Mercury.
…and Plymouth.
My grandad’s first car was a 1950 Plymouth. He bought it new. I guess he was one of those stodgy people that was Chrysler’s target market, because the ability to enter and exit the car while wearing a hat was a selling feature for him.
One of my great aunts had a bathtub-styled Nash. My dad said that it was such a lemon that Nash took it back and gave her a replacement.
“…because the ability to enter and exit the car while wearing a hat was a selling feature for him.”
I get a kick out of every time I see and read this statement! I wear hats and I get in and out of my Impala just fine. My MX5? A bit of a challenge, but I can wear my hat inside with the top up very well – plenty of head room.
Quoting from allpar.com: “It was the dictum of Chrysler’s president at the time, K.T. Keller, that his company’s cars be practical transportation pieces in which one could sit bolt-upright wearing a hat. Styling based on such a philosophy ran counter to the sleek, straight lines seen on the competition.”
As for newer cars, I find it impossible to wear a hat with a brim in our Honda CR-V, even though there’s adequate headroom inside. The door jamb knocks that hat off your head during ingress/egress, and the headrest is so tall and close to the back of your head that it knocks the hat down over your eyes unless you lean forward.
Headroom was the issue that kept me from the Miata, until I sat in Mark Clark’s car at the TTAC/CC get-together. As it is, I usually wear a baseball cap or similar fleece cap outside, and the button on top does graze the ceiling of the hardtop.
So I take off my hat in the car, what’s so hard about that Mr. Keller? Maybe his head was cold before the heater warmed up.
Wearing a fedora was fashionable from the depression through the 50’s. Since the purpose of a fedora was as an article of dress as much as it was to keep the elements off your head, people would not want to remove them when driving. Baseball caps are not fashionable. You probably don’t care so much if someone accidentally sits on a baseball cap or it gets tossed in the back seat and the kids mess it up either.
Interestingly, wikipedia blames part of the fall in popularity of the fedora on the changing styles of cars in the 50s: “Also playing a part in the unpopularity of the fedora was the shrinking automobiles of the mid-1950s, which often made it difficult to wear a hat while driving.”
I recall reading K.T. Keller’s cruder version of the hat-wearing comment. He is reported to have said “We build cars to sit in, not to piss over.”
I wear hats and I get in and out of my Impala just fine. My MX5? A bit of a challenge, but I can wear my hat inside with the top up very well – plenty of head room.
Having thought about this some more, I’m guessing you are fairly short. My grandad was tall (and he liked wearing a hat). I’m also tall (6’3″) and broad-shouldered. About 10 years ago I was at a new-car show and for fun I tried to get in a Miata that had the top in place. Let’s just say that headroom was the least of my worries, especially when I tried to extricate myself from around the steering wheel to get out.
Yeah, this is pre-Rock n Roll, when songs like “How much is that Doggie in the window?” were big hits.
To my young mind in the 60s and 70s, pre-1955 cars were ancient bathtubs. I hardly saw any, and those still running were rust buckets in mid 60’s. [Of course now I appreciate them more]
I still can hardly tell some of them apart, but my father loves these cars since he can id them easily. He graduated HS in 1951, so it was his ‘day’.
These cars were on the streets when I was a toddler, and they made a big impression on my growing little brain. I could ID anything on the road at a glance, from age 3 on up. One of my earliest memories is riding in a Nash Airflyte.
I was thinking the same thing, the 1955 Model year is still THE year American Cars really get interesting to me, and it always has been.
Funny Coincidence or IS IT that this is when ROCK & Roll changed the Music heard in Popular Culture.
Is this when we became such a Youth Oriented Society?
Even our own 54 Bel Air never measured up to the cars that have come after, it was Ancient when it became the teenage car after 1963.
I also remember there was 1 very elderly woman who drove the old 52 Chevrolet Fastback that seemed ancient and UTTERLY lacing in style or much personality compared to the new cars of the 60s.
+1 on 1955 American cars.A golden age of American cars til 1971.
Wow, Jeff, what an article! I’m looking forward to gobbling it all up this evening – too much to read at work!
Never thought of the fiberglass Corvette in the context of steel shortages. Its volume was too small to make any real difference in GM’s steel consumption, but surely they wanted to experiment with non-steel bodies. I wonder if the Corvette would have happened when it did, if not for the Korean War?
“I wonder if the Corvette would have happened when it did, if not for the Korean War?”
I tend to think it would. GM was willing to innovate and think outside the box (as their Motorama shows of that era would attest) and I think that the ‘Vette was a logical extension of that.You didn’t have to be a seer to know that a young,upwardly mobile and aspirational generation was going to have money to spend,and GM rightly wanted them to spend it with GM.
I don’t think Chevy’s decision to use fiberglass was driven by any steel shortage. This was the golden era of fiberglass, and there were two reasons Chevy used it: to gain experience with it, and to minimize tooling costs. It takes very little to create molds for fiberglass, unlike tooling up for an all-steel body. But the trade-off is higher labor costs, as it’s more labor-intensive.
Fiberglass is advantageous for small production runs, and Chevy was certainly (and rightly) a bit nervous about the Corvette’s sales expectations.
Using fiberglass was a way to minimize the capital costs in case it was a dud.
Chevrolet initially had planned to build the Corvette in steel according to some sources. The show models were done in fibreglass simply because it was quicker, easier and cheaper than doing it in metal, much the same as a modern show car.
I think they went for fibreglass in production because it ultimately became cheaper to tool up for, and gave the car a futuristic edge as a selling position.
Whenever I see an early (C1) Vette all I can think of is Tony the mechanic and Mike Hammer’s Corvette in Kiss me Deadly.
(Somehow I deleted the rest of that post before submitting. I’ll try again.)
For some reason pre 1960 cars never really interested me much with a few exceptions. I’ve never really looked at the bigger picture though. Guess I have some catching up to do!
In 1952 television in England was for childrens programmes until 6pm, then it would shut down until 7 or 8. (after bedtime ) I wasn’t really aware there had been a war in Korea until the movie “Mash” arrived in the 60’s.
fantastic history lesson, thanks!
Articles like this one fire up the old “what-if” again: George Mason survives through the 1950s and succeeds in building an American Motors with the full brand ladder:
* Rambler (Chevy)
* Studebaker (Pontiac)
* Nash (Olds)
* Hudson (Buick)
* Packard (better than Caddy).
Plus Jeep. Three bodies across the five, with Packard’s V8 and automatic, and a full set of dealers.
Could it have prospered? If it had, would Chrysler have survived their 1955-65 fiascos? Would a full-line AMC have committed the same deadly sins later on as the others? A Chrysler-AMC merger at some point? Fun to think about.
Mason did present a merger proposal to Packard.(http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2007/10/01/hmn_feature10.html)
As a huge fan of 1950s and up cars, (and owner of the coffee table book “Fifties Flashback…) this is still one of my favorite pieces of mental masturabation. WHAT IF… unite the independents. Many will throw water on my parade but I still love the idea.
No, I don’t think so. After all, American Motors was formed with two storied brands, Hudson and Nash – which were both quickly jettisoned.
Had Studebaker and Packard made it into the fold, I believe the following would have happened:
–Studebaker closed almost immediately as there was no way to stem the red ink. The cars were obsolete; the engines troublesome. Perhaps AMC would have saved the V8; perhaps not.
–Packard is the question-mark. The problem Packard had was they depended on Briggs for their carbodies; and Chrysler had just purchased Briggs. Their plant did not have room for body construction.
Would they have been able to have Packard bodies and/or whole cars manufactured in Kenosha? Would it have been worth it? Packard had no debt; but they had tried to increase sales by moving the marque downscale. The results were disastrous; that was why they were searching for a partner. Purchasing Studebaker was supposed to provide that, but unfortunately for them, Studebaker had been cooking the books.
Then there was the “Not Invented Here” mindset. American Motors did everything differently; proudly so. They manufactured outside of Detroit. They stressed smaller, not larger. Styling changes were gradual – against the trend of the times.
Would they have had a use for Packard? Luxury customers, they neither knew nor understood.
Does anyone know what makes and models of cars were used by the US Army and US Air Force as staff cars during the Korean War?
Korean krome something just clicked in my memory banks Ive owned a few early 50s British cars Vauxhalls Austins Hillmans etc the Hillmans all had chrome plated brass trim grilles hubcaps etc pressed from brass same with Vauxhalls the hubcaps were brass I tremember because I took a big heap of Humber10 trim in for scrap it was quite valueable and I had lots of it.
I’ve seen pictures of Korean war era Harley Davidson big twins with black painted bars and wheels but strangely all pictures I’ve seen of the smaller and cheaper K model had chromed items.
Kim Jong-un. Every day is a bad hair day.
This is a great overview, the 1952 Buick is a high point of US styling. So is the Hawk.
It was a warm and sunny weekend in San Antonio….
Nice article .
I never was much impressed by Buick’s ‘ DynaSquish ‘ slushbox tranny ~ it sucked gas as well as driving ability .
-Nate
Thank you for the great article. It is interesting how history changed things. The domestics are not what they used to be and the Koreans are changing the automotive landscape right now. I enjoyed learning the interesting aspects from the other automakers. It is interesting to note who is still here today in 2014. Automotive tastes have changed too. I still feel Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Mercury should be here.
Buick Roadmaster: $3977
Cadillac Series 62: $2900
Even with the prices a year apart, that’s some substantial Buick/Caddy price overlap.
this was excellent, thank you
What the article didn’t mention was the impact of the end of the Korean War on the independants.
By the end of the Korean War, many automakers had large defense contracts. Kaiser had revised it’s auto production line at Willow Run to clear 1M sqft for building C-119s for the Air Force. Studebaker was building deuce and a halfs for the Army and J-47 jet engines for the Air Force. Packard was also making J-47s, and diesel engines for the Navy.
Kaiser was making so much money on defense contracts, and losing so much on the auto operation that some stockholders were demanding the company abandon autos and rely on defense contracts excusively.
Packard was reporting 50% of sales and 85% of profits were from defense contracts.
Eisenhower took office in January 53. His SecDef, and former GM honcho Charlie Wilson seemed to find a reason to yank defense contracts from automakers other than GM, as soon as the cease fire was signed.
Kaiser’s C-119 contract became a major scandal due to cost overruns (Kaiser contended the problem was due to lack of cooperation by the 119’s designer, Fairchild), and all Air Force contracts were cancelled effective immediatly in June 53.
Studebaker’s J-47 contract was cancelled and production wrapped up by the end of 53. When another deuce and a half contract was to be let, Studebaker was not allowed to bid. The contract went to GM
Packard’s J-47 contract was cut from 300 engines a month to 25 by October 53, and that last pilot line was closed in 55.
With the prospect of Studebaker-Packard collapsing in 56, an election year, Eisenhower organized a bailout by promising Curtiss-Wright a pile of defense contracts if C-W would inject cash into S-P by buying Studie’s Chippewa Ave truck plant and Packard’s Utica engine plant.
C-W bought the plants, dubbing the operaton “Utica-Bend” and the deuce and a half and jet engine contracts that Charlie Wilson would not give to S-P, flowed to C-W.
A few years later, with Lark profits flowing, Studebaker bought back Chippewa Ave. C-W, the S-P bailout contracts having run out, sold the Utica plant to Ford in 61, which operated it as a trim plant until it’s closure and demolition just a couple years ago.
In the pic, you can see the remains of the Packard proving grounds on the left.
My Dad has vivid memories of hearing about the start of the Korean war, as he was on manuvers in Ft. Indiantown Gap (near Harrisburgh) …they had the radio on, resting on the hood of a half track, and one of the oldtimers told them right away that they would soon be Federalized…sure enough, that’s what happened. As it turns out, my Dad didn’t go to Korea (there was a bad train accident in 1950 in Ohio where a passenger train reareded the troop train headed for Indiana, and killed many people in my Dad’s unit, may have had something to do with it, but he went to Germany during this time instead).
He remembers some of the trucks being made by REO, and having automatic transmissions (which I think would have stood out in the early 50’s). He also remembers driving some of the early 50’s VWs while in Germany…later on he bought his own 1959 Beetle.
If you came of draft age during the Korean War, then you were born at a time when people weren’t having many children because of the Depression. So the pool of draft age men was small, and the chances of your number coming up were good. One of my high school teachers, born in 1918, had the rotten luck to be called up for both WWII and Korea.
Hudson would have had little trouble doing major redesign on the Stepdown body. From 1948-1953 nothing visible on the outside except the roof panel and cowl was structural.
Take off the fenders, doors and quarter panels and what you see are the mounting surfaces are flat planes. Hudson could have made any shape of panels to bolt on to radically alter the shape.
They did alter it quite a bit, but not enough, in 1954.
The roof panel was flattened some, the back end got a complete re-do with the quarter panels welded on and the trunk lids squared up a bit.
Going forward, the rocker panels were completely different.
The bottom edges of the doors lost their screwed on retainers and snapped on trim to match the same treatment on the quarter panels.
The front fenders were largely the same as previous years, except for the bottom behind and ahead of the wheel.
The grille was all new and the hood got major changes.
The final bit of big alteration was the one piece windshield.
Where Hudson didn’t go far enough was the back edge of the hood. It’s the same pointed shape as every other Stepdown year. They pulled the back edge of the cowl vent rearward to match up with the middle of the new one piece windshield being farther back. All the other companies had gone to one piece, curved, windshields in 1952 and 1953 while Hudson was way late in 1954.
The other detail Hudson didn’t change was the angled side crease. On the doors its in the same place as previous years. Leveling it out, moving it, doing *anything* to make it very visibly not identical to what came before would have helped.
The back of the hood and the side crease were dead giveaways that 1954 was ‘just’ a massive restyle of the 1948 design.
For 1955, American Motors made the decision to restyle the Nash to make a Hudson. Their design was years newer (1952) than Hudson’s aging 1948 car. A new, wider track, front suspension was made for the Hudson while Nash stuck with skirted fenders and its narrow front track through 1956, then adopted the Hudson suspension for 1957 along with the open front fenders.
I assume as a bit of a tradeoff for the new front suspension, Hudson got stuck with the old 1952 Nash quarter panels and giant oval taillight mounting faces on the rear, which the stylists attempted to disguise with a couple of tons of diecast parts. Nash got newly designed quarter panels along with other redesigned sheetmetal.
It wasn’t just the government’s pinch on steel allotments and production quotas that hurt Hudson. One of the top men in the company pulled his money out of their accounts to invest in land. That left Hudson short on the funds they could have used to restyle the Stepdown significantly sooner. Had they dropped the 54 design in 52 (along with better hiding the old underpinnings at the cowl and side crease) it would’ve wowed the crowds.
Didn’t Ford still own coal mines, a steel mill and other sources of raw materials through the mid 1950’s? Henry had long pursued total vertical integration to own as much of the production process as possible in order to keep costs as low as possible.
If Ford still had their own steel production, then I wouldn’t be surprised if they were selling steel to GM and Chrysler under the table during the Korean War.
Ford’s failure to create his own source of rubber has been the subject of many articles. He figured that establishing a rubber plantation in South America could dramatically increase supply and boost costs – and he wouldn’t have to buy it from someone else. The mission he sent did not include anyone knowledgeable about rubber trees, not even a single botanist. After obtaining a bunch of rubber trees and setting them out in rows, they promptly caught a fungus that spread through the crop and they all died.
The various species of rubber trees (and bananas and some other South American plants) simply cannot be planted in close proximity to the same species / variety. A disease infests one tree then quickly spreads to all nearby trees of the same type. That fragility making rubber harvesting take huge amounts of land and labor spurred the development of synthetic rubbers. Henry Ford would have been better off buying one of the companies working on synthetic rubber instead of throwing money away on a doomed rubber plantation.
Unusual price for the 1953 Anniversary Buick – $2525 and 88 cents. Why was 88 cents part of the price?