Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile, founded by Ransom Olds in 1897, produced 35.2 million cars, at least 14 million at its Lansing, Michigan factory, in its 107-year history. When it ended in 2004, Oldsmobile was the oldest American brand and the oldest in the world after Daimler, Peugeot, and Tatra.
After Ransom Olds left in 1899 to form the REO Motor Car Company, the Olds Motor Works in 1901 produced 425 cars , which made it the first high-volume, gasoline-powered automobile manufacturer. Oldsmobile was the top-selling car in the USA for a few years. General Motors acquired the Olds Motor Works in 1908.
The Oldsmobile Curved Dash was from 1901 to 1904 the first car mass-produced from an assembly line. Henry Ford later was the first to use a moving assembly line. The car was officially an “Olds automobile” but colloquially an “Oldsmobile,” and so the name caught on and became the corporate brand.
For the 1940 model year, Oldsmobile was the first to offer a fully automatic transmission, the Hydramatic, with four speeds. It had a gas pedal, a brake, no clutch pedal, and a gear selector on the steering column. From 1941 through 1996, Oldsmobile used two-digit model designations. The first digit, 6, 7, 8, or 9, signified the body size, the second the number of cylinders, 6 or 8. Thus, Oldsmobile had eight model designations, two for each of four body sizes.
For the 1949 model, Oldsmobile introduced its Rocket V8 engine, an overhead valve rather than the flathead or side-valve design prevalent at the time. This far more powerful engine endured with minor changes until Oldsmobile redesigned their eight-cylinder engines in the mid-1960s. Oldsmobiles in the 1950s were the fastest mass-production cars on the market with grille styling like an intake for jet propulsion.
The 1960s brought the first turbocharged engine in 1962, the first modern front-wheel drive car (1966 Toronado) produced in the USA, the Vista Cruiser station wagon, and the 442 muscle car, which began as an option package of a four-barrel carburetor, a four-speed manual transmission, and two exhausts on the F-85/Cutlass. In 1968 the 442 became its own model with a larger 7,500-cubic centimeter, eight-cylinder engine.
The Oldsmobile Cutlass, a mid-size car, was Oldsmobile’s best seller in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1966 the Cutlass Supreme launched as a four-door sedan with a 5,500-cubic centimeter, eight-cylinder, 320-horsepower Jetfire Rocket V8, a luxurious interior, and other trimmings. The Cutlass was at first the top of the F-85 line but became a separate model with the F-85 nameplate on only the lowest-priced models through 1972, after which all Oldsmobile intermediates were Cutlasses.
The Oldsmobile Toronado, at the time the largest and most powerful front-wheel-drive car ever produced and one of the first with an automatic transmission, had a 7,000-cubic centimeter, eight-cylinder, 385-horsepower Rocket V8 engine and a three-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission. The Toronado was Motor Trend magazine’s 1966 Car of the Year.
After the success of the 1980s, Oldsmobile lost market identity as rebadged models of other GM cars. Then in 1995, Oldsmobile introduced the Aurora, which inspired Oldsmobile designs from that point. But despite Oldsmobile successes in the mid-’90s, perceived shortfalls in sales and profits drove General Motors to shut down the division. Oldsmobile production ended in April 2004.
