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N0KFQ > TODAY 12.12.15 16:02l 55 Lines 2433 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 77436_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Dec 12
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 151212/1501Z 77436@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.65
2000
GM announces phase-out of Oldsmobile
On this day in 2000, General Motors declares that it will begin
to phase out the 103-year-old Oldsmobile, the oldest automotive
brand in the United States. Oldsmobile had once been one of the
most venerable and innovative American brands-Olds cars were the
first to have decorative chrome trim, for example, and the first
to have fully automatic transmissions-but a GM reorganization in
the mid-1980s had drained the brand of most of its unique
identity.
Lansing native Ransom Eli Olds created the Olds Motor Works in
1897. Ten years before (reportedly because he did not like the
smell of horses), he had built a steam-powered car. After a
factory fire destroyed 10 of his 11 prototypes, Olds focused on
trying to perfect-and sell-the only car he had left: the small
Curved Dash runabout. He was successful: the runabout soon became
the nation's most popular automobile.
In 1904, the Curved Dash became the first mass-produced car in
the United States. That same year, Olds investors ousted the
company's founder. (Ransom Olds wanted to keep on mass-producing
inexpensive cars that ordinary people could buy, while the
investors wanted to build pricey luxury automobiles.) Four years
later, Olds Motor Works merged with Buick to become General
Motors. Within GM, Olds was known as the "technology division":
it pioneered V-8 engines in 1915, chrome plating in 1926, the
Hydra-Matic automatic transmission in 1937, and the Rocket V-8 in
1949.
Olds (it became Oldsmobile in 1942) was the most middlebrow of
the GM "ladder of brands," squeezed between mass-market Chevrolet
and Pontiac and luxury Cadillac and Buick. Despite a new
slogan-"This is not your father's Oldsmobile"-that debuted in the
1980s after the GM reorganization, buyers eventually began to
lose interest in the brand's offerings. The brand was also
notoriously slow to react to trends: for instance, it was one of
the last American carmakers to add sport utility vehicles-the
most popular and profitable cars of the 1990s-to its lineup.
In 2004, four years after GM made its announcement, the phase-out
of Oldsmobile was complete. That April, the last Oldsmobile-a
cherry-red Alero-rolled off the Lansing assembly line and went
straight to the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum nearby, where you
can see it today.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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