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Turkey

          Orphan Cars from the big 3

Here are some orphans from the big 3
Ten Years ago nobody thought they would discontinue Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Plymouths and Mercurys. They are not true orphans however, their manufactures are still producing other makes of automobiles.
Below is an illustration of some discontinued makes
The tracks in the street aren’t used for motor vehicles, there is a branch line running down the street.

 

Motor-Orphan

From left to right.
1953 Pontiac Sedan-delivery from Brooklin


1958 Plymouth Fury from Franklin


1954 Pontiac Chieftain from Premium-X


1955 Imperial South Hampton from USA Models


1953 DeSoto Fire Dome from Franklin Mint


1956 Oldsmobile 98 from Franklin Mint


1954 Mercury Sun Valley from Collector Classics (Buby).

 

Not Illustrated are Edsals or Saturns


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Here’s wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

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Hard to imagine, isn't it?  No more Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Mercury!  Gee those used to be staples of their companies.  Think of the people that were let go, the dealers that lost generations of business.

 

I spent several years working for Oldsmobile (after the demise of Studebaker) and thought that we were an invincible maker of cars.  They lasted for over 100 years before the present management and present government forced them to close a really great line of cars.  In those days, General Motors produced about 57% of the cars sold in the United States and the government was getting ready to apply anti-trust legislation on us.  GM needed to have not worried:  They were able to shoot themselves in the foot without government assistance.  After those days in the mid 1960's, GM sold off Fridgidaire, GMC Coach and Truck, Allison Transmission, GMAC financing as well as Detroit Diesel.  And then they let Electromotive lapse into it's own hole.  Today, General Motors is a mere shadow of it's former self, achieving less than 12% of the Nation's automobile market, no longer making large trucks of buses, any locomotives at all, no appliances and financing nothing of it's product line for customers.  What a waste!

 

And this is because top management is no longer automobile people, train people, or heavy duty people, but instead the  top offices are filled with lawyers, bean counters and profiteers.  All this can be blamed on these new age idiots that we allow to move into the decision making positions in their company's.  What a loss for this country!  Things will never be the same.

 

Paul Fischer

I most cases, it's not as simple as idiot suits axing loved brands.

Most times, lagging sales is what kills a product. Only a fool would quit making something that's still making you a product.

But in many people's eyes, they loved said product, so they don't see that not everyone else did (with their wallets, anyway)...

GM already had other orphans in the past...Oakland related to Pontiac, Viking related

to Olds, LaSalle to Cadillac, Marquette to Buick, as well as Mclaughlin to Buick. Chrysler, of course, soon gave up the Maxwell.  And these are just those from the 1920's-'30's...prior to that, other acquisitions of Billy Durant, putting together GM, had bit the dust.

All you can do is wring yours hands...we bought two new Olds that were lemons

with a capital L, this after the 1949 Olds started the OHV V-8 revolution.  My brother

would drive nothing but GM, other relatives swore by Chevrolet.  I used to bad mouth

imports...now they build the only things close to what I want.  This after dozens and

dozens of makes made here when we built the best cars in the world.  The U.S. makers, only two now, can't seem to get it on quality and fuel efficiency.

p51: The point here is, that the suits overruled the car people on product decisions. Everything was focused on cost-cutting, nothing on product quality or customer appeal. The division structure was broken down to the point where there was hardly any difference between brands except styling. Engines were all the same, and as many parts as possible were made common-issue. That's the way the military does it, and the public wasn't ready for GI cars instead of GM. In this case, the "idiot suits" not only killed beloved brands, they came pretty close to killing the biggest automobile company in the world. A relative of mine was a very senior engineering executive at Chevrolet, and the story he tells is the same as Paul's - lawyers and bean counters telling the engineers how to make cars. It doesn't work that way. Do you want the general counsel and the bookkeeper for the hospital telling your surgeon how to operate on you?

The Studebaker started life as a wagon in 1857. Their first car appeared in 1902, and was an electric.

Oldsmoble was founded in 1897. The 1901 "curved dash" was the first mass produced car.

 

It is said that the reason Packard made it through the Depression was what killed it in later years...the "Highest Quality" image reduced to "Mid-Price". They never were able to compete with Cadillac again after that.

Last edited by Joe Hohmann

My dad's last car was a Packard, a 110, and one of those 110-120 cheaper, medium-priced Packards that MAYBE should have been, like the LaSalle for Cadillac, rebadged as another make,  which it seemed like Packard half-heartedly tried, with the Clipper.

Not soon enough, and not distinctive enough.

It certainly appears to me that Ford and Chrysler practiced that rebadging long before

GM went to it, with very similar side valve engines in Ford and Mercury, and Plymouth,

Dodge, Desoto, and Chrysler, with little mechanical difference, long after the technology was outdated.  That finally changed, in the mid 1950's.

One interesting thing about Packard is that they kept a ongoing styling "cue" from the teens, right on to 1954..the "sweep" on the top of the grill. While many cars looked similar though the teens-'30s, you could always pick out the Packard if you could see the grill.

A more modern-day styling "cue" would be the split grill of the BMW, which has been around since at least the '50s. And of course there is the VW Beetle from the late '30s to the present day. Can anyone come up with others that lasted at least 50 years?

Originally Posted by colorado hirailer:

Lasting at least 50 years?  Rolls-Royce....dunno about now under new ownership.

Good one! Interesting that Rolls had tried to "streamline" their classic grill into the body, but the new 2016 model looks more like their upright classic grill. Bentley, on the other hand, has done a great job on styling overall...even though their upright grill is no more. Back in the old days, the Bentley was a Rolls with a slightly different grill.

Originally Posted by fisch330:

And this is because top management is no longer automobile people, train people, or heavy duty people, but instead the  top offices are filled with lawyers, bean counters and profiteers.  All this can be blamed on these new age idiots that we allow to move into the decision making positions in their company's.  What a loss for this country!  Things will never be the same.

 

 

I'm afraid this is pretty common in other industries as well.  There is a misconception in the business world that good managers can manage anything.  That is rarely true.  While good management practices are important, so is industry knowledge.  IMHO, the best managers have both.

 

George

Originally Posted by Southwest Hiawatha:

A relative of mine was a very senior engineering executive at Chevrolet, and the story he tells is the same as Paul's - lawyers and bean counters telling the engineers how to make cars. It doesn't work that way.

I'm not sure how familiar you with the history of American auto companies, but that actually been the case for a very long time. One only needs to look at the history of several auto makers in the 40s and 50s to see plenty of examples of this.

 

 

Originally Posted by Southwest Hiawatha:

Do you want the general counsel and the bookkeeper for the hospital telling your surgeon how to operate on you?

 

For the most part, that's also been going on for a long time now. Once health insurance company involvement got to be commonplace, hospitals saw there was finally real money to make and started forming companies. That is when things started getting very expensive for health care, much more so than in an era where it was common for a patient to pay out of pocket for the same care.

Walter P. Chrysler, when a railroad employee, took apart a Winton so see how it worked, and put it back together, and decided he could make cars.  Henry Ford built

one in 1896, and some later ones, with failures, until finally success.....now Billy Durant, founder of GM, was a salesman, not a hands on guy, but he did put together a team of them to build his cars.  Henry Ford did micromanage his company into the

1940's (as long as he lived).  Certainly the Great Depression made bean counters out

of all the management of companies that survived.  And then with no cars produced

during WWII, and the boom market afterwards, for any heap that would make it off the lot, the attitude was formed for what we have now. (except that WWII boom market

was short lived, long over, but if the mentality did not change....enter the imports)

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