Word: compacting
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Basically, the million-dollar collection was a broadening of the small-car trend. Leading the way were the U.S. compact cars which attracted so much interest that European car makers began to wonder about how much competition they would be. Show goers were fascinated by their comfort and big-car features. Said one prospective buyer: "They're simply bargain-priced luxury cars...
...greater worries plague the used-car dealers. They fear that the compacts, priced in the same range as late-model used cars, will wreck their market. If that happens, the market for new cars would be hard hit; if a motorist cannot get a fair price for his old car, he will not be eager to trade it in on a new car. On the other hand, some optimistic secondhand dealers argue that the buyer in the $2,000 class will prefer a roomy, late-model car to a compact. "The man who has been in the habit of buying...
American Motors' President George Romney, whose hot-selling Ramblers sped the entry of the Big Three into the compact race and now hold a commanding lead, argues that the big companies will be in trouble from the moment they jump into the smaller-car field. But not Rambler. "We will make and sell more than 500,000 Rambler '60s." Studebaker-Packard also expects a lift for Lark, up about a third to 200,000 sales. "Of one thing I'm certain," says Romney, "the one who is not going to be hurt is the customer...
...looked as if anyone who bucked the trend to bigness would get honked right out of the industry. Henry Kaiser's chromeless little Henry J. was a flop. Romney's Ramblers were losing money. Just a few years before, Chevy had started to tool for a compact model, the Cadet, then decided that the market was too small, and scrapped it. But Cole, at that time Chevy's chief engineer, saw farther. He figured that buyers would tire of size and flash. But since all the surveys were against him, Cole knew that...
...Listen!" Edward Nicholas Cole displayed his consuming love for cars-in a curious way-even as a farm boy back in compact Marne, Mich. (1959 pop. 300). At five, he hopped into the family's 1908 Buick, began toying with levers-and smashed it into a tree. He also showed a tremendous capacity for work. Rising by the dawn's early light, he milked 20 cows, bottled the milk and delivered it before school. The milk route taught him to hustle ("Because the load becomes lighter"), and it also taught him that a touch of extra service...