If you spend any time at all on Facebook, you may have noticed
that random stories, or ads, pop up all the time.
This morning, my inbox included a link to a trio of 1948
Oldsmobile ads. What I found interesting about these ads are that they showed
that an automatic transmission, power windows, power sears, and a power top
were available way back in 1948. Although not shown in the ads, the 1948 model
also offered power steering and brakes, but the mighty Rocket V-8 was not
offered until the 1949 model year. (Like my dad’s 1948 Chevrolet, the cars had
a dimmer switch on the floor, and they also probably had a manual choke).
The Oldsmobile brand had a good run, since it lasted from 1897
until it was shut down in 2004. For a couple of years in the mid-1970’s, the
Oldsmobile Cutlass was the best-selling car in America, hitting a high of 632,742 units in 1977, and the balance of the
Oldsmobile lineup that year pushed the total over 1,000,000.
To my knowledge, Oldsmobile is the first car model to be
commemorated in song, since “In My Merry Oldsmobile” was released in 1905:
When the ads shown above were produced, not very many people
in the country owned televisions. Although television played a part in the 1948
presidential election, there were only 35,000 sets in use in the entire
country, and only 37 channels were on the air.
BY 1950, the number of televisions in use had soared to 6,000,000,
and a decade later, had jumped up to 52,000 – but most of them were still black
and white televisions. By 1997, the total number of televisions was 219,000,000, and
by 2005, the number had increased to 285 million, In that year, the population
of the United States was 296 million.
In my lifetime, I have owned three Oldsmobiles. The first was
a 1960 88 model that I bought to get me
around until my new 1971 Charger came from the factory. Next was a 1974 Cutlass
that I bought from my employer for below invoice, hoping to make a quick buck (I
ultimately lost $1200). The third (and final) Oldsmobile was a 1979 station
wagon that stayed in our family for 15 years, and was eventually sold to a
Toastmaster friend, who drove it for at least another 5.
The reasons that guys my age buy cars from the 1950’s and 1960’s
are that they remind them of a time when they were much younger. If I wanted to
buy a 1948 Chevrolet like the one my dad owned, a nice vehicle can be picked up
for around $25,000, roughly what you would pay for a new car today
I was just a few months old when the 1948 Oldsmobiles hit the
showroom, but watching the ads shown above took me back in a time a while, and
made me feel like a much younger man.
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