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OK, car buffs, lets see what you know about American auto manufacture during the noble dinosaur era, circa 1940-1949. Try this quiz. Answers at the end.
1. This American auto manufacturer was forced to merge with Hudson in 1954.
2. As a result of WW II, the American government shut down motor car production in what three year period?
3. There's a museum for this make of defunct American vehicle in Chile.
4. The manufacturer of this short-lived model was a millionaire who billed himself "the smiling salesman."
5. Two extremely strong men could pick up and carry off this 925 pound American miniature.
While foreign auto-makers were as rare in the U.S. in the 1940s as a cow giving ice cream, there was, in fact, a tremendous diversity in American auto manufacturing during the same decade. American auto buyers could choose from all the current reigning American champions, plus a variety of soon-to-be-dead challengers, including Crosley, De Soto (a Chrysler Motors line), Nash, Packard, La Salle, Kaiser-Frazer, Hudson, Packard, and Studebaker among others.
Crosley was probably the most unique of those doomed-to-failure models that rolled off the assembly line in the 40's. Introduced in 1939 as America's lowest priced car, selling for as little as $210, the Crosley was a spin-off of the successful Crosley radio and refrigerator corporation.
Styled with all the comic flair of a cardboard box, the Crosley was uniquely, at first, sold out of hardware and appliance stores. These first Crosleys, weighing only 925 pounds, gave way in 1942 to a 1,550 pound model that could generate 26 horse power and sold for $905.
After the late 1942 ban on domestic auto manufacture was lifted in 1946, Crosley moved beyond its air-cooled 12 horse engine to an overhead cam 26.5 horsepower motor that had been used successfully during WWII to power truck refrigerators and a tiny experimental airplane. Alas, the copper-steel block was subject to electrolysis, resulting in holes in the cylinders.
Despite that, as the car became slightly larger and more powerful, Crosley sales peaked in 1948, with sales of 29,000 vehicles. However, a growing reputation for engine problems developed, and sales plummeted in 1949 to 7,341. Ironically, this valiant Chihuahua was rapidly improving mechanically after the war years, so much so, that the '51 Hotshot won Index of Performance at Sebring, but the mistakes of yesteryear were too much to overcome--the maverick little critter was doomed.
Nash, styled along the curvaceous, generous lines of a Victorian bathtub, was another doomed vehicle. This line of autos, first manufactured in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1917 in a converted bicycle factory, was soon bought out by Charles Nash, a former president of Buick. A hot seller in the 1920s (7th in national sales that decade), by the 1940s Nash was on the skids, and by 1954 would be forced to merge with Hudson, another soon-to-be-extinct, buxom, but aging glamour-girl.
Speaking of buxom, at the beginning of the 40's, the huge, stately Packard outsold luxury competitors Cadillac and LaSalle combined, but when the war put the brakes on auto manufacture, Packard turned to aircraft engines.
The post-war Packard, wider than it was tall, was a gadget freak's delight with a gas tank that whistled when full, and a one-piece hood that could be raised from either side of the car.
However, sales of this pricey behemoth slowed and in 1952 Packard would merge with another doomed giant, Studebaker.
Kaiser-Frazer, the brainchild of industrial magnate Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of Kaiser shipbuilding, Kaiser aluminum, and a dozen other successful ventures, was designed to appeal to an auto-starved nation emerging from the constraints of war. These sleek offering were unique in that Kaiser and Frazer were as similar looking as Siamese twins. However ruined by lackluster advertising themes: "You Should Drive One," "Unquestioned Style Leadership," and finally, the lame boast of a "handcrafted body," the Kaiser-Frazer plummeted from nearly 117,000 sales in 1947-1948 to 7,000 in 1950. Doom was only staved off temporarily by the mini-variant Henry J. that enjoyed modest success in the early 50s.
Perhaps, though, the strangest offering of all was the brainchild of Preston Tucker, a builder of Indy race cars. Drawing upon the vision of a gifted design engineer in his employ, who eventually had inputs into the styling of the space shuttle, Tucker's dream or the "Torpedo," as it was called, was a four-door sedan with a rear mounted flat-six engine, weighing only 300 pounds.
Capable of generating 166 horse power, the futuristic Tucker had a fully-sealed water-cooled engine, could do 0-60 in 10 seconds, and could shake, rattle, and roll at a top speed of 120 miles per hour, not bad even today.
Only 60 inches high, this sleek muscular panther had a third headlight or "Cyclops' eye" and could get a then healthy 20 miles per gallon.
Despite the great promise of the Tucker, only 51 ever rolled off the assembly line as Preston Tucker sold a questionable amount of stock, which, in turn, led to criminal charges that dragged on for years, but were never proved. Sadly, though, as a result of the legal debacle, this futuristic sedan died hardly beyond in-utero.
Luckily, however, many of the original Tuckers, as well as many of the other cars mentioned here, have been preserved in museums, and have generated loyal bands of followers who have frequently created internet shrines to these majestic and sometime comic vehicles, so that those of us lucky enough to be too young to remember the 1940s, need not be denied some of the decade's most lovely artifacts.
Answers to quiz
1. Nash
2. 1943-1945
3. Studebaker
4. Kaiser-Frazer
5. Crosley
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