Word: buick
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...Buick has jolted along a rough road in the last few years. After banner 1955, when it sold 737,879 cars and held third place, Buick skidded steadily to 263,890 sales and fifth place last year. Trying desperately to arrest this slump, Buick Boss Edward Tillottson Ragsdale, 61, radically remodeled the 1959 Buick. But in this year's first quarter, when all other General Motors models rode up, Buick sunk to seventh place as sales slipped another 11%, and its market share dipped from...
Word went round Detroit that G.M. was ready to scrap well-liked Ed Ragsdale. Finding a replacement was not easy: few of G.M.'s success-conscious comers wanted to take on Buick's woes. One G.M. veep, so the story went, was offered Ragsdale's job, nervously said no: "This is a promotion I don't deserve. Can't you please find somebody else to reward...
...Lockport, N.Y. Like Ragsdale, Engineer Rollert moved up via manufacturing instead of sales. He joined G.M. out of Purdue ('33), rose in the AC Spark Plug Division as metallurgist, chief tool-and-die designer, assistant works manager. During the Korean war he managed the Kansas City, Kans., Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac plant, made his mark by converting it into G.M.'s first dual-purpose plant, turning out cars and F-84F Thunderstreak jet fighters at the same time. For his good work, he was made chief of Harrison...
Rollert, who likes to play chess or golf in his spare time, is faced with a real puzzler in Buick. No one knows why the '59 Buick has done poorly. Automen guess that it is too radically styled, too low and hard to get into, has a cramped back seat. In any case, Rollert starts with one big advantage over Ragsdale. Ed Ragsdale took over when Buick was at its peak. Ed Rollert's Buick has hardly any place...
...Three competitors toward mass-producing a small car, G.M. will have ready for introduction in the fall a compact, six-cylinder auto with a part-aluminum engine in the rear. Last week the trade magazine Motor Life reported that G.M. is also considering manufacturing several models (e.g., Pontiac, Buick) using one basic body shell, will sell them through its separate dealers...