In 1950, Cadillac passed the 100,000 mark in annual sales for the first time in its history, launching a long string of boom years for GM’s luxury brand.
The scene in the photo above is the Cadillac Clark Street plant on the Southwest side of Detroit, November 19, 1950. The car is a new Fleetwood Sixty Special Sedan and the men are Cadillac general manager John F. Gordon (left) and sales manager James M. Roche, both of whom would rise to top leadership at General Motors. They are celebrating the production of 100,000 cars in a single model year, a first for the automaker since it was founded in 1902. It was a remarkable achievement for the pure luxury brand, nearly doubling its sales in two years.
It’s easy to identify the product developments that propelled the sales bonanza for Cadillac. Each one is famous in its own right:
+ The industry’s first fully automatic transmission, Hydra-Matic, introduced by Oldsmobile in 1940 and offered by Cadillac starting in 1941.
+ The sensational, P-38-inspired tail fins of 1948, conceived by stylist Frank Hershey under the direction of design chief Harley Earl, kicking off a trend that would dominate auto design in the Motor City for the next decade.
+ Cadillac’s 1949 overhead-valve V8, a short-stroke, high-compression design that would set the pattern for all the V8s from Detroit for decades to come.
+ The convertible-look, pillarless two-door hardtop body style introduced in 1949, another highly influential styling trend that would sweep throughout the industry.
These product innovations represented an embarrassment of riches for GM’s premium car division, generating a powerful surge in demand that was pushed along by the USA’s booming postwar economy. Cadillac had always been the flagship of the GM car divisions, the top of the line in prestige, but its sales volume had always been relatively small. In 1950, Cadillac broke through and became a true volume automaker in the luxury car field.
While the two-door hardtop was the showroom draw, the Series 62 four-door sedan was the actual volume leader with more than 42,000 cars sold, representing 40 percent of the 1950 total of 103,857. The long-wheelbase Sixty Special, which ithat year received its first major redesign in more than a decade, also enjoyed a leap in sales, doubling its volume to nearly 14,000 cars.
With Cadillac’s newfound success, it seems, the old Clark Street plant in Detroit became a nexus of power and influence at GM that soon reached to the executive suites on the 14th floor of the General Motors Building. Gordon, who started at Clark Street as a lab technician in 1923, became president and CEO of GM in 1958. Roche also served as CEO and as chairman from 1965 to 1971. Chief engineer Ed Cole, the architect of the Cadillac OHV V8, directed the creation of the 1955 Chevy V8, appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1959, and served as president of GM from 1967 to 1974.
Firstly, thank you for this site, I come here almost daily for your wonderful and eclectic stories and truly appreciate your efforts and tastes in both the cars and automotive histories. Secondly, being an Australian, our model years were always counted as calendar years, not that we were lucky enough to have new models every year, which brings me to my question. I thought your new models came out at the start of what you call fall(autumn to us), weren’t these models due for replacement before November, or would they have held on to crack the 100k mark? Thanks again and will check for replies
That’s a great question. Model year introductions were often in the autumn, but could come anytime between mid-August and December. Sometimes even earlier — 1965 Mustang in April 1964, etc. At Cadillac in these years, model year rollouts were typically late in the calendar year. I don’t have a precise intro date for the 1950 Cadillac handy, but production started sometime after Nov 25, 1949.
Cheers for the reply. Guess 12 months is a year regardless start date and in that era at least Cadillac was a leader not a follower. What I didn’t mention, man I love their tailfins of that era, seen plenty that were bigger and bolder but none more elegant and understated
During the summer of 1950 between high school graduation and beginning college in the fall, I worked on the engine assembly line at the Clark St. plant. My first job was installing the right hand exhaust manifold and then, within a short time, I was moved to the left side of the line and installed the primary wire between the coil and distributor and also the left side spark plug wires. I loved seeing those beautiful new Cadillacs roll off the line.
Enjoyed the article for sure. But felt that the comment about the 1950 Fleetwood 60 Special ‘which that year received its first major redesign in more than a decade’ may have been stretching it just a tad as the ’42 and ’48 seemingly had all new sheet metal. But, perhaps the former were built on the same frame…?
It was clear that Cadillac had firmly planted their boot on Packards neck, and rightfully so. Packard management had not paid attention to what a good and well styled car the competition, Cadillac, offered . So Packard was well and truly going down the drain, arcihitects of their own demise !
The miserable looking Packard and Lincoln shoved Caddy to 100K.
It’s a shame Cadillac has deteriorated to the mere shell of itself that it once was. At one time they owned the luxury market, now they aren’t much more than fancied up Chevys and Buicks. But then again, Chevy and Buick aren’t what they used to be, either. GM was well respected until the late 70’s early 80’s. After that they seemed to lose their way.