The scramble to purchase new autos after World War II demonstrated how firmly entrenched the automobile had already become. Before the war, more than 29 million cars traversed the roads, owned by slightly more than half of American families. During the years following Allied victory, with cars again rolling off the assembly lines, those ownership figures rose steadily. Many who had managed without a car throughout the Depression now felt deprived without one; and returning veterans typically put a brand-new vehicle high up on their lists of goals.
Not surprising, then, is the fact that 1950 was a record sales year. Better than 6.6 million new autos found their way into the hands of eager buyers, bringing the number of registrations over the 40-million mark. It had taken a couple of years for the industry to catch up with demand, but by 1950 most folks who craved a new model could get one - provided they could pay for it.
Sales dropped somewhat in the next couple of years, though remaining healthy enough. Not until 1955 did another boom arrive, setting sales records that would endure for the next decade. An astonishing 7,920,186 new cars were sold - up 42 percent from the previous year - with seven out of ten families now enjoying the pleasures of auto ownership and spreading joy throughout the offices of Detroit.
Changes in the new models for 1955 were a large part of the reason for the upsurge, of course. Today's collectors are well aware of the impact created by the '55 Chevrolet, in particular, with its brand-new 265 cubic-inch-displacement (cid) overhead-valve V-8 engine. The new eights offered by Plymouth and Pontiac, though less heralded in later years, were no less important at the time. Their inception made Willys the only manufacturer not offering a compact, short stroke, high-efficiency OHV V-8 in its lineup.
Not that six-cylinder motors had disappeared. L-head and OHV versions were still available in the lower-priced autos (with eight different horsepower ratings in the drastically-altered Hudson and its new corporate brother, Nash). The straight-eight, though, had gone the way of the V-12 and V-16 as both Packard and Pontiac turned to the V-8 configuration. With the demise of the little Henry J, the four-cylinder was gone too; and six-cylinder L-heads were no longer available from Chrysler and Pontiac.
Clearly, the emphasis shifted to the OHV V-8s - and on the leapfrogging "horsepower race" that had begun a few years earlier with Oldsmobile and Chrysler. Intensified in '55, that race would continue well into the Sixties. Manufacturers were offering a choice of V-8 displacements or, if nothing else, a few performance options: notably four-barrel carburetors and dual exhausts. An even greater variety would enter the marketplace as the decade (and the horsepower race) progressed.
Chevrolet's new motor came in conventional dress, with stick shift, rated at 162 horsepower. However, a 180-hp version with dual exhausts and four-barrel carburetion could be ordered by the performance-minded. Plymouth offered V-8s in 241- and 260-cid sizes. Fords delivered either 162 or 182 horsepower from the 272-cid engine.
Buick's Special included a 264-cid engine rated at 188 horsepower. But the Century, in the same body shell, tucked a 322-inch, 236-hp beast beneath its hood. With the new variable-pitch Dynaflow (a far cry from earlier, droning Buick automatics), the sedate family sedan became a machine to be reckoned with at stoplights.
Packard came up with the biggest engine in the industry - 352 cubic inches - rated at 275 horsepower in the Caribbean series. Chrysler's most notorious entry into the race, the super-powered 300, was the first to reach the 300-hp mark, from its 331-cid "Hemi" engine with solid valve lifters. Studebaker's Speedster derived 185 horsepower from its modestly-sized 259-inch engine. That was far short of the following year's Packard-powered Golden Hawk, but an interesting preliminary entry into the performance field from the newly-merged Studebaker-Packard Corporation.
Styling underwent major changes for 1955 on a number of makes. Chevrolet and Pontiac, sharing GM's "A" body, offered an all-new design. Buick, Ford and Mercury, without undergoing massive structural changes, nonetheless presented a dramatically different appearance from the 1954 models (though not viewed by everyone, then or later, as an improvement). Four-door hardtops were introduced by Buick and Oldsmobile, to be copied by most other makes in succeeding years.
Chrysler's fully restyled, long and sleek "Forward Look" was perhaps the most dramatic of all. That design trend played a large part in allowing that beleaguered company to increase its share of the market from a weak 11 percent in 1954, up to a far healthier 17 percent.
The year brought "panoramic vision" to most makes, in the form of wraparound windshields. Ball-joint front suspensions were generally viewed as a notable improvement in handling - though not by Studebaker fans, who seemed quite content with the fact that their favorites retained the traditional kingpins until the marque's demise a decade later. Suspended clutch and brake pedals, following Ford's lead, became standard on many others, allowing improved weathersealing and more accessible placement of brake master cylinders.
Improved torque converters increased the efficiency and reliability of several automatic transmissions. A few more autos went over to 12-volt electrical systems, and nearly all the rest would do so the following year - bringing cheers from motorists with cold-weather starting problems. Tubeless tires were now standard equipment, and brighter sealed-beam headlights would become so in mid-year.
Some of the "advances" were less substantive, but nonetheless had their impact on sales. Two-tone body colors gained in popularity, and the three-tone body - in some strange pastel shades - entered the field, notably among the Chrysler group. Color-coordinated interiors, matching or complementing the body paint, were becoming far more lavish and bright. Lincoln and Mercury offered pushbutton lubrication. Chrysler's automatic transmission selector, protruding from the dashboard, was much discussed - but not quite a harbinger of things to come on other makes.
Not everyone was totally impressed with the year's changes. Editors of periodicals as disparate as Motor and Consumer Reports expressed dismay at the increasing similarities among the various makes, and within family lines. The rapidity with which nearly every manufacturer turned to the wraparound windshield - after its debut on Buick, Olds and Cadillac a year earlier - was pointed out as a glaring example of the assertion that imitation, rather than innovation, had indeed become the norm.
Much of the criticism was, let's face it, not without justification. Really, the only unique and truly significant engineering advance of the year was Packard's self-leveling torsion-bar suspension. The crop of V-8 engines, with the exception of Chrysler's "hemi" - and to a lesser extent, Buick's vertical valves and Chevrolet's abandonment of the rocker shaft - had the same roots. Sure, some had solid valve lifters and others were hydraulic. Carburetors and camshafts varied. Yet, the basic structures were very much alike. Chassis design was even more so, as demonstrated dramatically by Motor magazine's challenge to its engineering-minded readers to identify a Ford, Plymouth and Chevrolet from photos of their respective chassis. It wasn't easy.
No longer did each automaker have as memorable a list of mechanical features to boast about: innovations that few or none of its competitors could supply. For a couple of decades, Ford had been the only automobile of the "low-priced three" to offer a V-8, and Chevrolet the only one with overhead valves. The variety of primitive automatic and semi-automatic transmission (and gear-changing mechanisms like Chevrolet's vacuum shift of the 1940s and Hudson's earlier Electric Hand) had, if nothing else, given each make at least one unique quality.
Now, advertising tended to stress styling, length, price and power; and to an increasing degree, even less tangible factors such as status, comfort and luxury. Manufacturers for the next few years would be leaping all over each other to offer a few more horsepower than the next guy. But except for the fuel-injection to come in 1957, and a handful or other real answers to automotive problems, not much of critical engineering significance was even in the works, much less in the showrooms in '55.
What, then, accounts for the massive increase in sales? New cars cost more in 1955, after all, ranging from a stripped Willys sedan at $1,663 through a loaded Cadillac Eldorado at $6,300-plus. All the new power options added even more to the prices. At least as important as the new V-8s, performance add-ons and tri-color bodies, then, was the introduction of one very special option: the 42-month payment plan.
Next: Part II will look at the rise of installment buying and the growing importance of the youth market in the mid-1950s.
Attention Editors: This 1955 story is available now for your publication. Please contact us at JF@tirekick.com for details. An early version of this story appeared in Car Exchange magazine in the late 1970s.