Tag: 1954

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The “Big Three” and “Little Three” Car Companies of 1954

I found this blurb in a 1954 newspaper:

If you’ve been watching the automobile news, you know that there are now only six passenger car manufacturers in the U.S. – the “big three” and the “little three.”

So, can you name the six surviving car companies of 1954?

The Big Three are easy to identify:

Ford

General Motors

1954 Chevy Corvette

1954 Chevy Bel Air

Chrysler

Recalling the Little Three is more problematic as there was a lot going on in the way of mergers and acquisitions. In no particular order, they are:

Studebaker-Packard – Detroit’s Packard Motor Car Company bought Indiana-based Studebaker in 1954 and became Studebaker-Packard.

1954 Studebaker Station Wagon

1954 Packard Clipper Super Touring Sedan

Kaiser-Willys – Kaiser-Frazer had started up after WWII, riding high on the post-war boom. The company struggled in the early 1950s after a series of missteps, and the Frazer name was dropped. In 1953, Kaiser purchased Willys-Overland and, in 1954, the companies merged into Willys Motors, Inc.

1954 Kaiser Darrin

1954 Kaiser

1954 Willys M38A1

American Motors – AMC was formed in 1954 when the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation merged with Hudson.

1954 Hudson Hornet with Twin H-Power

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Kaiser Darrin

This unusual front end belongs to a rare automobile, a 1954 Kaiser Darrin:

1954 Kaiser Darrin (Classic Car Collection, Kearney, Nebraska)

The brochure for this unique machine boasts that it was designed by “Darrin of Paris,” also known as Howard “Dutch” Darrin.  Darrin was an interesting character who flew combat missions over France as a member of the U.S. Air Service during World War I.  He designed luxury automobiles for movie stars like Clark Gable and Errol Flynn, and his gravestone in Santa Monica  simply reads “AUTOMOTIVE ARCHITECT.”  A thoroughly interesting 3-part article about his life was written by Richard Langworth and can be read here.  Although Darrin had some successes designing automobiles, the Kaiser Darrin  wasn’t one of them and only 435 were produced.

The Darrin was a product of the struggling Kaiser Motors Corporation, and it just beat the Corvette to be the first car with a fiberglass body.  It also featured sliding doors that retracted into the front fenders when opened as seen in this picture from the sales brochure:

The grille has been said to look like pursed lips, but I think it looks more like Tweety Bird.  Think about it.

Design preferences aside, the Darrin was not cheap.  It was priced at $3,668 (compared to $2,774 for a Corvette) and, although it cost more, its 90-hp engine was completely out-classed by the Vette’s 150 horses.

Another problem may have been the sales pitch for the Darrin.  This is an excerpt from an article dated February 13, 1954, that featured an interview with a model, Pat Matteson, who had been hired to demonstrate the Darrin at the International Sports Show in New York City:

Cars with plastic bodies are still a mystery to most motorists.  They want to know if the plastic will dent if people lean on it, whether snow will melt the plastic, whether hot water will make a hole in it, or whether insects will become permanently embedded in it.

“No. . .No. . .No. . .No,” says Pat.  “But a motorist can repair a fender dent in the same way he’d patch a tire.  And he can fix it so it doesn’t show.

“If a lady wants to change the color of the plastic body to match her hat, gloves or a new dress, she can do so by spraying on a new paint with a vacuum cleaner.  But it would take her three hours.”