In classic Motorama show-biz style, here’s the entire passenger-car lineup from General Motors for 1955.
This clip, which comes to us courtesy of the King Rose Archives, is actually an excerpt from a longer General Motors film entitled Change for the Better. All the extraneous material, if we may, has been left on the digital cutting room floor, to take us straight to the heart of the matter: the U.S. passenger car lineup from GM for 1955: Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac. Naturally, the presentation is in classic Motorama style, with plenty of show biz razzmatazz.
Indeed, GM had plenty to boast about in 1955. The corporation celebrated the production of 50 million automobiles from its founding in 1908, while dominating the U.S. automobile market. Three of the top five selling cars in the USA were GM products: Chevrolet, Buick, and Oldsmobile. Meanwhile, Cadillac led the luxury class by a mile, and with the total redesign of the Chevrolet and Pontiac platforms for ’55, GM had leading-edge products with V8 engines in every price category. In this segment, we noted there are no Motorama show cars—it’s strictly production models. Video below.
I was born about 30 years too late!
Some of the best designs from GM came in that 55-57 time period. Some of the upper field were a little heavy on the chrome and fins, but overall, much better designs than the stodgy 49-54 models. Then the 58-61 slump in design, followed by the wonderful 62-72 period. Too bad you can’t buy anything today with this much flair, everything looks like smoothed eggs or turtles….