Vintage PR Shot: My Yellow Frigidaire Has Arrived!
– Posted on April 12, 2023
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Well this was time when ‘trucks’ had styling and class. Note the wide white side wall tyres, full cover polished stainless steel wheel covers, two tone paint etc. The Frigidaire brand (once owned by General Motors) is nothing short of legendary.
Even today no automotive A/C compressor comes close to the exceptional quality of the legendary GM Frigidaire A6 compressor and Frigidaire lead the way in refrigeration for most of the last 100 years.
Today trucks are square shaped shoe boxes with black wall tyres and refrigerators are designed to fail after 6-8 years with spare parts available.
OK, all I see in this picture is that side-by-side refrigerator. Did Frigidaire make those? I got sucked down a small rabbit hole of early side-by-side fridge/freezer designs and the main one that pops up was the Kelvinator Foodarama.
I was at the tail end of kitchens with those bright, colorful appliances. Down the street, my friend’s mother loved turquoise, so their 1959 house was built with all turquoise appliances in the kitchen. Our 1959 house was stuck with appliances in chocolate-milk brown.
I can only imagine what the woman in the scene is thinking. “I hope there are ice cubes by 5 pm.” Also, why is someone in what is clearly a freshly built home doing getting a refrigerator delivered? Warranty? Or maybe these are the repo men.
This image was part of an ad, and in the original ad, there’s text below the picture that notes:
“Refrigerator – Imperial 150 by Frigidaire — Furnishings by the Baker Furniture Company of Holland, Mich.”
Rollfast posted a good Youtube link below about a side-by-side Frigidaire Imperial.
Foodarama, that’s a great name for a fridge, or a grocery store. Or a theme park.
Good call! Apparently, all we need to do is to go to Texas…and we can go shopping at Foodarama! (until some corporate takeover changes the name)
Scale seems off or that is one heck of a big picture window!
Yes, Frigidaire did make them!
Pastel colors were popular in Fifties kitchens…mint green, robin’s egg blue, yellow, pink.
In the Czech Republic, a side by side fridge is called “American”
A mate’s parents had pastel pink Frigidaire By Holden well into the 1980s. Not quite a square cornered cabinet, but not rounded either,
In the same era, my doctor had a Fiat fridge. Here’s an oven. A Caprice, no less!
Correction, that refrigerator was not manufactured by “Holden”, it was manufactured by General Motors Holden (GMH). The humble Holden was just one of the brands assembled by General Motors Holden.
Until at least 1970, GMH assembled in Australia, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Vauxhall and of course the working class Holden.
It annoys me, that people increasingly refer to GMH as simply being “Holden” or “Holdens” and even incorrectly suggest that in the 1950s and 1960s Australia had “Holden dealers”. We actually had GMH dealers who sold Pontiac, Chevrolet, Vauxhall as well as the entry class main stream Holden.
Sadly, history is often recorded in correctly because of these errors. More recently in Australia, the now former GMH has been replaced with General Motors Special Vehicles (GMSV).
The Holden brand has joined Pontiac, Saturn, La Salle in retirement and I think GM was wise to go in this direction. GM should also retire Buick, focus on Chevrolet for the mass world market and Cadillac for the premium market.
I love the lady sitting there in the kitchen dressed not for housework. Obviously, she is saying to herself, “Oh, wonderful! I’ll still make it to my Garden Club on time. Hmmmm…, that one guy looks pretty good.”
At one time, GE had a fridge that mounted on the wall, just like upper kitchen cabinets. Weighing close to 300 lbs, how many fell off the wall due to weak attachments?!?!
https://kenbooth.net/ge-wall-mounted-refrigerator.html
Yes, the woman in that picture (perched at a classic mid-century kitchen “desk”) does seem a bit preoccupied that she’s going to be crushed by that thing when it falls off the wall.
I’ve never actually seen one of those wall-mounted fridges, just like I’ve not seen one of those pull-out ranges that were the height of fashion at one time. But man…I would really really love to have one. Really.
No, I have never seen the wall mount fridge either.
However, I stayed at a friends house over night and his mom had one of those pull out ranges which fascinated me. I believe Frigidaire made them. Her’s was in Robin’s Egg Blue as was the rest of the kitchen. Talk about a time warp to the early 60’s.
Those were made by GM and called Frigidaire Flair; do a Google image search on Frigidaire Flair (after scrolling down past the unrelated sponsored links) and you’ll see the several configurations that were available. The oven was up high and the glass door lifted vertically; single and dual oven widths were available. The stovetop burners/hobs slid out when needed, slid back in to be flush with the cabinets. At least one burner was super-fast at heating up or could maintain a set temperature. Underneath was plenty of cabinet storage.
We always had white appliances. They must have been cheaper. But my parents bathroom had matching maroon toilet and sink, with a maroon toilet seat, probably of pre-WW2 vintage. I think my mom liked those because you could put off cleaning them; with the dark color it took a long time for stains to show. Around 1965 my Dad tossed a smoldering cigarette butt in a trash basket which burst into flame. He threw the contents of the bin in the toilet and closed the lid. Replacement maroon toilet seats and lids were either too expensive, or just not available by then, so it was mismatched white until I inherited the house 45 years later. And my Dad quit smoking soon after the incident.
Colored toilets have become very hard to find – only a few companies still make them – yet toilet seats are still available in hundreds of colors. A company called Bemis has somehow cornered this market ( https://www.toiletseats.com/how-to-choose-a-toilet-seat/shop-toilet-seats-by-color/redpink/ ); either Raspberry or Loganberry probably would have worked for your dad. But then again, nothing will spur you to quit smoking like a mismatched toilet seat cover, lol. Whatever works!
There is no doubt a book to be written – probably has been written – that discourses on why things like brightly-colored appliances, home interiors, and cars (to name just a few aspects of daily life) are no longer in fashion. I know the topic comes up all of the time (here and elsewhere) in relation to cars. But as this PR shot illustrates, cars weren’t the only thing available in bright yellow back then.
Yes, there’s certainly the “Gwad! Remember those awful avocado green/gold/brown kitchens??!” effect…which is basically people who are now in their 60s (like me) remembering the questionable color tastes of the 1970s and being put off. This seems much like the “Gawd! Remember those barge like station wagons with the fake wood grain on the sides??!!” which is supposedly why my generation decided to kill the station wagon and replace it with minivans (I know…debatable).
But the argument against color goes beyond painted metal. For example, I recently had the interior of my house painted, and the exterior is being painted as I type. We haven’t for the most part chosen bold colors, but there is easily discernible color…and I have had several people (including the painter) mention to me “Wow, it’s so rare to see color in room painting nowadays! I like it, but you know if you ever go to sell….”. There just seems to be a common sensibility that everything needs to be as impersonal as possible so that everything can be sold.
I just don’t get it. 🙁
/rant
That GMC looks awfully well-optioned for a mid-50s delivery truck. Whitewalls, full wheel covers, two-tone!
And the wraparound rear window, which was an extra-cost option on most models.
Frigidaire was such a popular brand in the fifties that its name became generic with refrigerators. I can still hear my elderly aunts telling me to “put the milk back in the Frigidaire”. Our family never had a refrigerator in yellow, but we did have a nice avocado green. It was a GE and it had a semi-automatic ice maker. It filled a tray with water automatically, but you would then have to manually flip it over into a bin when the cubes froze.
My family has the same GE fridge with the semi-automatic ice maker. But ours was in Coppertone. It lasted for 20 years with a family of 6 kids and my parents. I was a bit irritated when she remodeled the kitchen and she gave it away to my irritating brother.
Just try getting a fridge out of one of today’s trucks. Would have needed a lift to get it in and then there is the drop to get it out. So much easier in days past…
Back when appliances weren’t appliances!
That must be the world’s most gigantic one piece of glass living room window. (I know, it didn’t really exist.)
This sent me down a little memory/internet research trail.
1957 is the year that Frigidaire led the industry with their new line of squared off refrigerators replacing the last gasp of the postwar version of streamline moderne style with the beginning of the pre-New Frontier versions. Of course, they are still square today. Also the thin door with door shelves projecting which means less room required for opening clearance. The photos with a glamourous model holding her begloved hands at right angles was in ads all over the place.
The one in the photo looks a bit rounded and not anything like the 1957 models. But it doesn’t look like 1956 Frigidaires either. Maybe the ad agency didn’t think of that.
Yes, the ’75 Seville or the ’77 B/C body was not the first “sheer look” product from General Motors, not by a long shot!
High end 1956 Frigidaire.
If you are doing the 1950’s and don’t want to find an ancient refrigerator that uses three or four times more electricity than a new one American free enterprise capitalism has solved your problem. Here’s a 18 cubic foot model. Sure it costs about twice as much as a regular one, but what the heck. Only in white, black (?? – that was definitely not a thing then), Summer Mint Green, and Ocean Mist Turquoise. And no, just like back then you can’t reverse the door (although it won’t have a kid smothering latch like they used to have). Other major appliances also available.
Back to cars.
Available in white, black, and “that color”…that color being the one that for some reason we are all told to associate with the mid-1940s through 1950s nowadays. I think I prefer the actual colors of the mid-century. 🙂
The house my parents built in 52 was designed before fridges became virtually compulsory so the cream coloured Fridgidaire never really fitted but there it was to be walked around instead of built in.
The fridge arrived before I was born but like every large appliance since my birth it would have been brought home by my dad in something he borrowed from his work.