Word: carly
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Henry Ford put the nation on wheels with his model T has such a great and sweeping change hit the auto industry. Out from Detroit and into 7,200 Chevrolet showrooms this week rolled the radically designed Corvair, first of the Big Three's new generation of compact cars. Smaller and simpler than Detroit's chromespun standards, the Corvair is like no other model ever mass-produced in the U.S.; its engine is made of aluminum and cooled by air, and it is mounted in the rear. To Chevrolet's folksy, brilliant General Manager Edward N. Cole...
Many of the nation's drivers are just as excited. No sooner had Chevrolet announced the Corvair than it began to write orders. Hertz Rent-A-Car signed up for 3,000. Chicago Dealer Zollie Frank wanted 10,000, but Chevy turned him down to spread the supply. St. Louis Dealer Gene Jantzen has a unique ringside seat in the small-car derby; his showroom is right across from a Chevy assembly plant. Says he: "People toured that plant and peeked through the knotholes at the Corvair. Some even climbed atop their cars outside the plant...
Chevy's Ed Cole predicts that the 1960 compact cars will ring up 1,100,000 sales, lead the industry to within a bumper's reach of a 7,000,000-car year, the second biggest (first: 1955) in U.S. history. "A market of this size," says Cole, "should see sales of 300,000 Corvairs, 250,000 Falcons, 150,000 Valiants, 400,000 Studebaker Larks and American Ramblers, not counting bigger Rambler Ambassadors...
...Specific Needs." What the auto industry is rolling into now, says Ed Cole, is "the era of specific driving needs." More and more Americans want a big car for big driving jobs, a small runabout for short hops. Thus, having long since realized the dream of a car for almost every family, the U.S. now is sweeping toward two cars in every garage. The compacts are speeding up the trend, since two Corvairs can be bought for the price of the biggest dressed-up Chevy...
Four years ago 4,800,000 U.S. families owned two cars or more. Today 7,000,000 do-and there are 350,000 three-car families. By 1965, more than 10 million families will have at least two cars. With the population growing fast, and the demand for special-purpose, personal transportation growing even faster, Ed Cole believes that auto sales in the U.S. will ride up steadily to 8,000,000 in the mid-1960s. More than that, in at least one year before 1970, the U.S. will sell an awesome 10 million cars...