Word: cars
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Today no one lifts an eyebrow when his neighbor shows up in a foreign car, and no one need explain or apologize for driving one. With thousands of war babies coming of driving age and crying for their own cars, countless families have found the foreign car an inexpensive playmate for Junior-and a less precious article to entrust to freewheeling Mom. The number of two-car families has grown to 17% of all car owners. Now the three-car family is coming along; there are an estimated 375,000 such families...
Detroit had always brushed off demands for a lower-priced small car with the remark that motorists could buy a good secondhand big car for about the same price. But the purchase price proved not the chief factor. The secondhand car usually burned more gas and oil, needed more repairs, was less economical than the foreign car...
What caused the Big Three to make up their minds was the take-off of Rambler sales in 1958. Belatedly, Detroit's Big Three (and little Studebaker-Packard) saw that there was a big market for the kind of car they themselves could make in the U.S. Dubbed a "compact" car to distinguish it from the tiny imports, the Rambler had offered the economy and easy handling of the foreign car plus much of the comfort, power and durability of the U.S. big car...
...Three quizzed Rambler buyers, discovered that economy of operation was twice as important in their choice as initial price, that the Rambler was bought no oftener as a second car (one in three sales) than Big Three low-priced cars. George Romney became a prophet with honor in his own country. In 1955 he had predicted: "By 1960, the compact car will be a top contender with present-type cars for the bulk of the market...
...smitten that he followed Lenore whenever she went out with another boy, sat behind them in a movie or trailed their car. When she starred in a high-school play that involved kissing a boy, he insisted that there be no kiss at rehearsals, stuck around to make sure. "Sometimes I wondered if he was right for me," says Lenore, "but gradually I understood. He really cared...