Car Guy your video is so informative. This can only happen with commitment and thorough research. Details are precise, can only give you full credit. Keep the great work comin.
Great video, as always! I took my drivers test in 1969 in my mom's 1954 Chevrolet Bel-Air with the Powerglide transmission. My mom bought it used in 1968 from a lady where she worked as HER first car to learn to drive! The car was a pastel yellow with a dark green top. Because of this color combination and its roundish body, we called it the "Easter egg" LOL! When taking the road course test for my license, I had to back into a street and turn around. I pulled just past the street I was to back in to, backed up, and when I applied the brakes the heavy chrome glove compartment lid fell open and whacked the State Police trooper hard in the knees! I thought he would fail me right then and there, but he laughed and asked if that was a feature of the old car; to open the glove box you had to put it in reverse and apply the brakes? Boy was I embarrassed! But I passed anyway!
I appreciate the inclusion of European makes in these retrospectives. Some of them are absolutely gorgeous, and they're all interesting. All the thought and effort you put into your superb videos really shows up on the screen.
Car Guy, You need some kind of award or prize for putting this video together showing dozens of American cars and some European. Just to do the research with detailed information about each car had to take days and editing it all together with the photo sequence hours and hours, how do you manage to do it. Did you have a lot of help do the research with you.?
It is fascinating to hear of all these cars from different markets described in the same terms. It gives you a new insight into the relative values of dissimilar marques. Cars that I always regarded as pretty hot turn out to be a bit average and the boring home market stuff (UK in my case) probably weren’t as bad as I thought. Biggest surprise for me was that the Renault Fregatte scored very low on the performance chart. My Dad bought one in Kenya in the early 1960’s. We were happy with it and I always thought it was a pretty cool car, it as only when he came to sell it that he realised that he was the only fan in the whole of East Africa, Sa la vie.
American cars at the time were all pretty identical underneath the skin at the time. The development budget was spent on styling. This situation did not change much for decades.
@@JackF99 Not so. Chrysler products came out with torsion-bar front suspension for 1957, Packard with 4 wheel torsion-bar suspension in 55. Chrysler came out with HEMI engines in 1951, Buick had their Dynaslow transmission that was very different from other automatics, and Chrysler's Fluid Drive was completely different from other automatics of the early 50s. It was in the 60s and 70s that cars were very similar among the Big Three.
WAS Born in 1944 and SAW FRIST HAND. And ALL the WONDERFUL VEHICLES THAT FOLLOWED AFTER . THANKS FOR GETTING THIS OUT TO THOSE TO YOUNG TO KNOW THE WONDERFUL VEHICLES THAT FOLLOWED! ! !
Why this business on the Internet of giving the engine size in litters for American-made cars of the 70s and before? We always used CUBIC INCHES, NOT LITTERS. Yes, a few cars used Litres in their advertising and badging, but exceptions are just that - EXCEPTIONS.
THE MAJORITY OF THE WORLD USES METRIC USA BEING THE ONLY EXCEPTION , AMERICA REMINDS ME OF A STORY OF THIS MOTHER WATCHING A MILITARY PARADE GOING BY AND ALONG COMES HER SO MARCHING WHEN THE MOTHER HOLLERS OUT. LOOK. EVERYBODY IS OUT OF STEP EXCEPT MY SON JOHN , WHEN WERE AT IT WHATS TRUMP ALL ABOUT ???🐵
Yes it was. There were no standards for mpg at the time so factory claims could be based on anything. Often things like a sustained 60 mph. Presuming the car could do that. I would think the road tests would be more accurate, but I also suspect those road tests included a lot of aggressive driving.
It seems like the up to $3000 prices for these 50's cars were off a bit since I bought a brand new 1965 Pontiac GTO for $3150 in 1965. I don't normally remember car prices, but I remember that one!
Prices were slow to rise until the late 70s, and then they shot up quick. I did an automotive evolution video that covered how prices went up and down.
Aside from the safety problems especially for the driver, lackluster milesge, poor traction in snow and the lack of rust control , these were great cars. Easy to work on which was a good thing considering the constant breakdowns leaky engines that would overheat and tires always going flats. Ash trays all around, hot in the summer, cold in the winter. They did look good with chrome in abundance, plenty of curves . Easy to recognize going down the road.
The top speed of a 1954 Hudson Hornet was a lot higher than the stated 90mph at 9:15. It must have been at least 110 mph although higher figures were reported for its 7X racing engine. And in like manner, the top speed for a 1954 Chrysler with a 235 hp powerflite hemi-engine in it was definitely quite a bit higher than 95mph, more like 115 mph at least.
Anyone who has ever compared road tests knows they can vary quite a bit, based on the driver, road and weather conditions and how the car is optioned. Just yesterday I saw two different ones for a 56 Holden that had 0-60 times more than 2 seconds apart. Which is why I try to use a single source for the stats I use, so they are more directly compatible, instead of searching for the best ones. Particularly considering some have been known to be ringers. Even testers have complained that two supposedly identical test cars will sometimes get very different results for undefined reasons. I also tend to use the top trim level unless referring to a specific package, which isn't always the fastest version. Which is going to make things really messy when I get into the 60s. So in short, individual results may vary.
@@thehopelesscarguy I agree with what you say but that Hudson Hornet was the "King of Speed" in the early '50's and cleaned up at the race track. It's offical speed accoding to reliable stats was 106 mph, so I think you should have said at least 105 mph instead of just 90mph. A 1940 Hudson Super 6 had a top speed of 90 mph. As for that '54 Chysler, it too had an official time of 106 mph, a little bit less than what I thought, but those hemi engines were very fast and within a year or two certain Chryslers and DeSotos were clocking times at over 140 mph.
Fun and Fascinating look back at what was available in the early ’50s. American cars compared to European cars. Often wondered about horses and torque for ‘em so thanks for those stats!! Now I understand why GM was number one, not just because they made great looking cars!👊🏻😀👍🏻
@HOPELESS CAR GUY=THANKS!!! And NEVER HEARD of RECALLS RECALLS RECALLS!!! NOTE= Cars seen here are around 3,500 pounds And less than $1:00 a POUND in PRICE and plenty of STAINLESS STEEL!!!
Another great video. It is interesting what was considered large in the 1950's changed by definition for decades. I know by the 1970's midsized cars became as large as fullsized cars but by the early 1980's were smaller. There are cars in recent years that are as long as cars of the 1950's. My 1996 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight is as long as the 1954 Oldsmobile you shared. The 1950's car has longer wheelbase. The downsizing started in the 1970's and early 1980's and again in the 1980's ( GM) and then the cars went back up size in the 1990's. Then the line between and fullsized and midsized became blurred in the late 1990's and early 2000's. What is interesting in 2022 is the Europeans( BMW 7 Series and Mercedes Benz S-Class) and Koreans( Genesis 90 sedan) and Japanese( Lexus LS sedan) have the largest sedans in 2022. The Americans no longer hold that title. The biggest American sedan sold in the United States is the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger. GM techically has the biggest sedan with the Cadillac CT6, but that is sold in China and not in the United States.
You are right about the size lines blurring. I mean sure, back in the day a small American car was bigger than many a large import, but by the 90s supposedly different sized cars from the same brand were hardly distinguishable by size. Such as the Buick Lacrosse and Lucerne or Nissan Maxima and Altima.
@@thehopelesscarguy Indee true. The Pontiac Bonneville and Pontiac Grand Prix were too close in size, features and more towards the end of their run in the early 2000's.
A lot of the same cars actually. Canada would be starting to get their own version of American Cars, such as Meteor badged Fords, Mercury pickups and Plymouths dressed up as Dodges (Plodges). I don't know what India had outside the Hindustan models based on Morris models. I suspect imports. I also suspect VW was starting to establish itself in Brazil and it was just after this time that Kaiser would relocate to Brazil.
had a 57 Ford engine blew up got Caprie whit rear suicide doors for 150.00 put the big V8 engine and transmission in the 57 and it would smoke the tires, that was back in 1971
I love the comment about litre as CID is now old school. I had a educated lawyer tell me how big the motor was in his Camaro. So I asked him how many CID the was , he with his law degree said “ I don’t know” so when I gave him the standard American formula to calculate liters into CIDs he couldn’t do it. Flippin Ignorent Retch. R.F.S.
I listened to all the 0-60 times for the 6 cylinder american boats, and some of the V8's at 18-21 seconds... every body used to bitch about how slow the 36 hp vw was..which did in in 19 or 23 seconds I forget which. People went nuts in the late 50's with giant engines..and low rear end ratios.. which made acceleration fast..but really sucked gas. ( and they wallowed like pigs and smelled like shit ). even my flat head v8 ford from 1952 was modest and economical in comparison...but the 6cyl overdrive fords and plymouths and studebakers got 25mpg easily ..about as good as my 3000 lb toyota pickup with fuel injection !
@@thehopelesscarguy In 1952 the average U.K. wage per week was £10 and this at the then exchange rate was $24.50. A £1,500 car was therefore nearly 3 years wages for a working man before tax. Not many working men could afford a car.
Just about as soul-less and dry a narrative as you can get. A little anecdotal or enthusiastic delivery would have been welcome, but it was just not to be. I could not keep listening to hp and lb-ft, 60mph-in-so-many-secs, and top speed figures on and on and on and on and on... Thumbs down. Si Yo Nara.
Had to downvote this video for giving engine sizes in the metric system. That is not historically accurate for the 1950s. The sizes were always AMERICAN. 😎👎🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
@@thehopelesscarguy It is not "simple-minded." It is brilliance. I worked on those cars 8 hours every day and kept them running like a Swiss clock. All you have is photographs and stats.
@@Matthew_Loutner As a proud American you should be well aware of the fact that America was one of the first countries to adopt the metric system, they simply didn't force the change. And that cars have been sold in the U.S. with metric badging since the beginning. Suggesting historically accurate and brilliance clearly are not your forte'.
@@thehopelesscarguy And you would be more "historically accurate and brilliant" if your comment were anywhere close to accurate. In the 1970s my toolbox did not even have 1 metric wrench in it because I had no reason to buy one. Only foreign cars had metric anything and engine sizes of American produced cars were all stated in S.A.E. American STANDARD measurements. And who are you that you use the word "badging"? Some elite snob? The cars have NUTS and BOLTS. Badges are the plaques on the hood and fenders. The first American car with the engine size SPECIFIED in both S.A.E. and metric was the 500 cu. in. 1970 Cadillac El Dorado. It was not the cars in this video.
@@Matthew_Loutner You are the one trying to be an elitist snob. Being too good for metrics apparently, and then suggesting it is American to act so ignorant. And then being proud that you limit yourself to what vehicles you can work on. Perhaps you have never heard of Mercury Cougar 7-Liter, an actual metric model name, that predates your Eldorado, and yet didn't use metric nuts and bolts. As if that is relevant to the topic. Which is that metrics were used in America at the time. Used by even more Americans today, and overall the more common unit of measure. The issue in not my accuracy, but your own personal bias. Which you are welcome to, but don't pretend it is anything else.
All you do is repeat facts..not a single personal note or sense of nostalgia or warmth for the era....very cold fact rendering...won't shut up keeps reading from his info sheet...boring... Skip this channel...there are better ones.
2:17 The gold/yellow two door Studebaker it great looking, much more modern looking that those other 1950s cars by at least 20 years ahead of its time. This car has the basic body shape of a car from the 1970s. They were way ahead in the styling game with this car
![โจทย์โหดเหมือนโกรธเป็ดถีบ [อะไรอยู่บนหัวกูวะ ... EP.4]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Dqlb7EZ9PGk/mqdefault.jpg)
Car Guy your video is so informative. This can only happen with commitment and thorough research. Details are precise, can only give you full credit. Keep the great work comin.
Thank you much.
Thank you for another excellently researched video with awesome photos. These must take you hours and hours to produce.
Thanks. Videos like this do take a bit of time, but I enjoy doing them as I find it educational.
Great video, as always! I took my drivers test in 1969 in my mom's 1954 Chevrolet Bel-Air with the Powerglide transmission. My mom bought it used in 1968 from a lady where she worked as HER first car to learn to drive! The car was a pastel yellow with a dark green top. Because of this color combination and its roundish body, we called it the "Easter egg" LOL!
When taking the road course test for my license, I had to back into a street and turn around. I pulled just past the street I was to back in to, backed up, and when I applied the brakes the heavy chrome glove compartment lid fell open and whacked the State Police trooper hard in the knees! I thought he would fail me right then and there, but he laughed and asked if that was a feature of the old car; to open the glove box you had to put it in reverse and apply the brakes? Boy was I embarrassed! But I passed anyway!
That's great.
I appreciate the inclusion of European makes in these retrospectives. Some of them are absolutely gorgeous, and they're all interesting. All the thought and effort you put into your superb videos really shows up on the screen.
Thank you. I try to keep a balanced perspective on what was available at the time, which is not always easy and I always seem to leave something out.
Car Guy, You need some kind of award or prize for putting this video together showing dozens of American cars and some European. Just to do the research with detailed information about each car had to take days and editing it all together with the photo sequence hours and hours, how do you manage to do it. Did you have a lot of help do the research with you.?
I'm a solo act, but I do it out of my own interest.
It is fascinating to hear of all these cars from different markets described in the same terms. It gives you a new insight into the relative values of dissimilar marques. Cars that I always regarded as pretty hot turn out to be a bit average and the boring home market stuff (UK in my case) probably weren’t as bad as I thought. Biggest surprise for me was that the Renault Fregatte scored very low on the performance chart. My Dad bought one in Kenya in the early 1960’s. We were happy with it and I always thought it was a pretty cool car, it as only when he came to sell it that he realised that he was the only fan in the whole of East Africa, Sa la vie.
Hey, as long as you like it.
American cars at the time were all pretty identical underneath the skin at the time. The development budget was spent on styling. This situation did not change much for decades.
@@JackF99 Not so. Chrysler products came out with torsion-bar front suspension for 1957, Packard with 4 wheel torsion-bar suspension in 55. Chrysler came out with HEMI engines in 1951, Buick had their Dynaslow transmission that was very different from other automatics, and Chrysler's Fluid Drive was completely different from other automatics of the early 50s. It was in the 60s and 70s that cars were very similar among the Big Three.
G R E A T Video!! I had no idea some of these early 50s car had so much horsepower and great torque!
Thanks. That early Horsepower war moved things along quickly.
The 50s was not the dark ages.
Greetings from Tucson, Arizona USA.
LUV your presentation and I saw a number of cars in my family when I was 'coming of age' in the 1950's.
I really like the way you give the specs on the cars with the price, the pictures are great too! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for watching.
Back when a bumper did something 🤔
More great work
Terrific comprehensive compilation of model images
appreciate the rare inclusion of metric and imperial capacity descriptions.
Thanks again. With different periods and locations it helps comparatively.
WAS Born in 1944 and SAW FRIST HAND. And ALL
the WONDERFUL VEHICLES THAT FOLLOWED AFTER .
THANKS FOR GETTING THIS OUT TO THOSE TO
YOUNG TO KNOW THE
WONDERFUL VEHICLES THAT FOLLOWED! ! !
Glad you enjoyed.
Why this business on the Internet of giving the engine size in litters for American-made cars of the 70s and before? We always used CUBIC INCHES, NOT LITTERS. Yes, a few cars used Litres in their advertising and badging, but exceptions are just that - EXCEPTIONS.
"Used" being the key word, as apposed to uses.
@@thehopelesscarguy Make me.
@thehopelesscarguy it was enough to make me stop watching
THE MAJORITY OF THE WORLD USES METRIC USA BEING THE ONLY EXCEPTION , AMERICA REMINDS ME OF A STORY OF THIS MOTHER WATCHING A MILITARY PARADE GOING BY AND ALONG COMES HER SO MARCHING WHEN THE MOTHER HOLLERS OUT. LOOK. EVERYBODY IS OUT OF STEP EXCEPT MY SON JOHN , WHEN WERE AT IT WHATS TRUMP ALL ABOUT ???🐵
Very interesting to learn that some of these early 50s cars could make 60 in 11 seconds. Pretty darn fast!
Not bad for the day.
@@thehopelesscarguy Faster than most 70s cars.
When cars were CARS!!😎
loved this vidieo.i grew up in the 50,s
Great pictures
My dad had a 1950 Desoto carry all sedan and a 1955 Desoto station wagon we went fishing in. The back seats folded down to make a bed.
Really neat. Perhaps a vid on the host of American small cars to hit the market in 1960?
I will be getting to that eventually.
It's great to see a comparison of the World's automobiles in the 1950's. Great job !
Thanks.
That '53 Studebaker looks 20 years ahead of it's competitors in styling! How accurate were fuel mileage figures in the '50s?
Of all the cars of the early 50s, I’d most like to own a Studebaker. It still looks modern.
Yes it was.
There were no standards for mpg at the time so factory claims could be based on anything. Often things like a sustained 60 mph. Presuming the car could do that. I would think the road tests would be more accurate, but I also suspect those road tests included a lot of aggressive driving.
Studebaker was ahead of it’s time. I owned one, what a joy to drive. The gas mileage? Pretty bad.
@@thehopelesscarguy Most 50s cars have no problem with a sustained 60 MPG.
@@nickiemcnichols5397 A Stude that got bad mileage? Something wasn't right with it. Maybe it was running over-rich.
It seems like the up to $3000 prices for these 50's cars were off a bit since I bought a brand new 1965 Pontiac GTO for $3150 in 1965. I don't normally remember car prices, but I remember that one!
Prices were slow to rise until the late 70s, and then they shot up quick. I did an automotive evolution video that covered how prices went up and down.
Glenn, I paid about the same for a 1974 Dodge Dart with the slant 6.
Aside from the safety problems especially for the driver, lackluster milesge, poor traction in snow and the lack of rust control , these were great cars. Easy to work on which was a good thing considering the constant breakdowns leaky engines that would overheat and tires always going flats. Ash trays all around, hot in the summer, cold in the winter. They did look good with chrome in abundance, plenty of curves . Easy to recognize going down the road.
Wonder of the world..
How did these large cars of another era fit into the tiny garages of that era?
Good question.
The top speed of a 1954 Hudson Hornet was a lot higher than the stated 90mph at 9:15. It must have been at least 110 mph although higher figures were reported for its 7X racing engine. And in like manner, the top speed for a 1954 Chrysler with a 235 hp powerflite hemi-engine in it was definitely quite a bit higher than 95mph, more like 115 mph at least.
Anyone who has ever compared road tests knows they can vary quite a bit, based on the driver, road and weather conditions and how the car is optioned. Just yesterday I saw two different ones for a 56 Holden that had 0-60 times more than 2 seconds apart. Which is why I try to use a single source for the stats I use, so they are more directly compatible, instead of searching for the best ones. Particularly considering some have been known to be ringers. Even testers have complained that two supposedly identical test cars will sometimes get very different results for undefined reasons. I also tend to use the top trim level unless referring to a specific package, which isn't always the fastest version. Which is going to make things really messy when I get into the 60s. So in short, individual results may vary.
@@thehopelesscarguy I agree with what you say but that Hudson Hornet was the "King of Speed" in the early '50's and cleaned up at the race track. It's offical speed accoding to reliable stats was 106 mph, so I think you should have said at least 105 mph instead of just 90mph. A 1940 Hudson Super 6 had a top speed of 90 mph. As for that '54 Chysler, it too had an official time of 106 mph, a little bit less than what I thought, but those hemi engines were very fast and within a year or two certain Chryslers and DeSotos were clocking times at over 140 mph.
There is one source on the internet that is basing top speed on peak horsepower RPM, rather than the engine's redline, so their figures are too low.
Also, a brand new fresh engine will not give the top speed of a broken-in engine.
@@8176morgan And after the Chrysler and the Hudson were broken in, their top speeds would have been at least 5 MPH higher.
Superb video. I just discovered your website and subscribed. Thank you. What about Sweden?
Thanks. Sweden would have been in the smaller cars of early 50s video.
@@thehopelesscarguy That make sense. I'll check it out. Thank you.
Fun and Fascinating look back at what was available in the early ’50s. American cars compared to European cars.
Often wondered about horses and torque for ‘em so thanks for those stats!! Now I understand why GM was number one, not just because they made great looking cars!👊🏻😀👍🏻
Glad you enjoyed.
Nice looking cars.
I think so.
that red plymouth convertible looks like the one steve mcqueen drove in the blob.
I didn't remember that.
Boston born 1960 I remember those big cars, I still love those years.
Performance numbers are questionable. Example: a '51 Frazer 0-60 @ 11.5 seconds with an anemic 226 ci 115 hp six
I can't see a stock KF car reaching 60 in only 11.5 seconds. Must have been all downhill. A steep one at that!
Meanwhile, at that very period in time, Hudson owned NASCAR with their inline six. Not even the Oldsmobile Rocket V8 was as fast!
More like 51.1 seconds!
@@OldsVistaCruiserHudson was even selling SU, (severe usuage), crate engines that made 220 horsepower.
@HOPELESS CAR GUY=THANKS!!! And NEVER HEARD of RECALLS RECALLS RECALLS!!! NOTE= Cars seen here are around 3,500 pounds And less than $1:00 a POUND in PRICE and plenty of STAINLESS STEEL!!!
Another great video. It is interesting what was considered large in the 1950's changed by definition for decades. I know by the 1970's midsized cars became as large as fullsized cars but by the early 1980's were smaller. There are cars in recent years that are as long as cars of the 1950's. My 1996 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight is as long as the 1954 Oldsmobile you shared. The 1950's car has longer wheelbase. The downsizing started in the 1970's and early 1980's and again in the 1980's ( GM) and then the cars went back up size in the 1990's. Then the line between and fullsized and midsized became blurred in the late 1990's and early 2000's. What is interesting in 2022 is the Europeans( BMW 7 Series and Mercedes Benz S-Class) and Koreans( Genesis 90 sedan) and Japanese( Lexus LS sedan) have the largest sedans in 2022. The Americans no longer hold that title. The biggest American sedan sold in the United States is the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger. GM techically has the biggest sedan with the Cadillac CT6, but that is sold in China and not in the United States.
You are right about the size lines blurring. I mean sure, back in the day a small American car was bigger than many a large import, but by the 90s supposedly different sized cars from the same brand were hardly distinguishable by size. Such as the Buick Lacrosse and Lucerne or Nissan Maxima and Altima.
@@thehopelesscarguy Indee true. The Pontiac Bonneville and Pontiac Grand Prix were too close in size, features and more towards the end of their run in the early 2000's.
@@OLDS98 Exactly.
Why didn't you show a 1950 Buick or an Oldsmobile. To many foreign cars.
@@johnneves9580 I showed a 54 Buick and Oldsmobile, the 1950 models were to similar ones from the late 40s video.
I have a 1953 Buick special and a 1954 DeSoto firedome
Cool.
@@thehopelesscarguy I've been a 100 miles an hour in the DeSoto.
The Buick special was a "shine" car
You lucky guy!
I ❤ DeSotos😮!
@@marknewton6984 the old girl gots a power shift two speed semi automatic (along w the Hemi)
The meme was a Mercury which wasn’t all that big - our family had a ‘54 with a V8 - auto
18:50
4700 pounds.
Thats over $15,000 when the average American wage was $4,000.
What were they driving in Brazil, Canada and India?
A lot of the same cars actually.
Canada would be starting to get their own version of American Cars, such as Meteor badged Fords, Mercury pickups and Plymouths dressed up as Dodges (Plodges).
I don't know what India had outside the Hindustan models based on Morris models. I suspect imports.
I also suspect VW was starting to establish itself in Brazil and it was just after this time that Kaiser would relocate to Brazil.
1952 Lincoln is my favorite ❤
I miss the DeSoto😮!
@marknewton6984 nice car too.
had a 57 Ford engine blew up got Caprie whit rear suicide doors for 150.00 put the big V8 engine and transmission in the 57 and it would smoke the tires, that was back in 1971
Cool.
I worked at a walk up McDonald’s at greenwood and Lewis in Waukegan I’ll in the summer of 69 didn’t stay long went in the marines in sec of 69
I love the comment about litre as CID is now old school. I had a educated lawyer tell me how big the motor was in his Camaro. So I asked him how many CID the was , he with his law degree said “ I don’t know” so when I gave him the standard American formula to calculate liters into CIDs he couldn’t do it. Flippin Ignorent Retch. R.F.S.
What with liters I grew up in the 60 and 70s get it right and do it in cubic inches these where early American classic what was known in cubic inches
People back then didn't even know what a litre was? I still dont?
Or what a computer was.
A liter is just a hair bigger than a quart. It's equal to just over 61 cubic inches.
4:37 real car designed
It is an attractive car.
I listened to all the 0-60 times for the 6 cylinder american boats, and some of the V8's at 18-21 seconds... every body used to bitch about how slow the 36 hp vw was..which did in in 19 or 23 seconds I forget which. People went nuts in the late 50's with giant engines..and low rear end ratios.. which made acceleration fast..but really sucked gas. ( and they wallowed like pigs and smelled like shit ). even my flat head v8 ford from 1952 was modest and economical in comparison...but the 6cyl overdrive fords and plymouths and studebakers got 25mpg easily ..about as good as my 3000 lb toyota pickup with fuel injection !
the across the pond cars were cheap just 1500 lbs .
Seems so. Not sure about the exchange rate at the time, but the ones that were imported were certainly marked up.
@@thehopelesscarguy In 1952 the average U.K. wage per week was £10 and this at the then exchange rate was $24.50. A £1,500 car was therefore nearly 3 years wages for a working man before tax. Not many working men could afford a car.
❤ronny m,watched this video It uses Cubic inches And Liters,in decription ,,😂 Thank You!❤😊
My pleasure.
COULDA BEEN GOOD-You need to be more conversational-tell a story-or series of the--rattling off "just the facts, ma'am" is SOOOOOO BORING
Then I think you missed the point.
Just about as soul-less and dry a narrative as you can get. A little anecdotal or enthusiastic delivery would have been welcome, but it was just not to be. I could not keep listening to hp and lb-ft, 60mph-in-so-many-secs, and top speed figures on and on and on and on and on... Thumbs down. Si Yo Nara.
These cars are so ugly but they are beautiful
UGLY??? Japanese cars of today are the ones that are ugly.
@@jamesbosworth4191 🥴😉🤓
Nash was an ugly car.looked like a toad.
Had to downvote this video for giving engine sizes in the metric system. That is not historically accurate for the 1950s. The sizes were always AMERICAN. 😎👎🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
How very simple minded of you.
@@thehopelesscarguy It is not "simple-minded." It is brilliance.
I worked on those cars 8 hours every day and kept them running like a Swiss clock. All you have is photographs and stats.
@@Matthew_Loutner As a proud American you should be well aware of the fact that America was one of the first countries to adopt the metric system, they simply didn't force the change. And that cars have been sold in the U.S. with metric badging since the beginning. Suggesting historically accurate and brilliance clearly are not your forte'.
@@thehopelesscarguy And you would be more "historically accurate and brilliant" if your comment were anywhere close to accurate.
In the 1970s my toolbox did not even have 1 metric wrench in it because I had no reason to buy one. Only foreign cars had metric anything and engine sizes of American produced cars were all stated in S.A.E. American STANDARD measurements.
And who are you that you use the word "badging"? Some elite snob?
The cars have NUTS and BOLTS.
Badges are the plaques on the hood and fenders.
The first American car with the engine size SPECIFIED in both S.A.E. and metric was the 500 cu. in. 1970 Cadillac El Dorado. It was not the cars in this video.
@@Matthew_Loutner You are the one trying to be an elitist snob. Being too good for metrics apparently, and then suggesting it is American to act so ignorant. And then being proud that you limit yourself to what vehicles you can work on.
Perhaps you have never heard of Mercury Cougar 7-Liter, an actual metric model name, that predates your Eldorado, and yet didn't use metric nuts and bolts. As if that is relevant to the topic.
Which is that metrics were used in America at the time. Used by even more Americans today, and overall the more common unit of measure. The issue in not my accuracy, but your own personal bias. Which you are welcome to, but don't pretend it is anything else.
That was the decade I was born in. I do not have much knowledge about cars then so this was very educational
Glad to hear it.
All you do is repeat facts..not a single personal note or sense of nostalgia or warmth for the era....very cold fact rendering...won't shut up keeps reading from his info sheet...boring...
Skip this channel...there are better ones.
What an odd thing to do in a video about facts. And clearly you didn't actually look at my channel.
2:17 The gold/yellow two door Studebaker it great looking, much more modern looking that those other 1950s cars by at least 20 years ahead of its time. This car has the basic body shape of a car from the 1970s. They were way ahead in the styling game with this car
Agreed.
@The Hopeless Car Guy
General Motors production numbers from 1949-54:
1949 total numbers: 2,901,639
Chevrolet: 1,493,503
GMC: 86,016
Pontiac: 336,445
Oldsmobile: 282,885
Buick: 398,482
Cadillac: 81,545
Outside of the US: 222,765
GM Of Canada: 92,330
Holden: 7,724
Vauxhall: 45,032
Bedford: 38,115
Opel: 39,564
1950 total numbers: 3,999,212
Chevrolet: 2,015,158
GMC: 112,776
Pontiac: 469,813
Oldsmobile: 369,757
Buick: 552,827
Cadillac: 110,535
Outside of the US: 293,691
GM Of Canada: 160,164
Holden: 20,190
Vauxhall: 47,652
Bedford: 40,591
Opel: 72,746
1951 total numbers: 3,182,510
Chevrolet: 1,544,216
GMC: 131,814
Pontiac: 345,617
Oldsmobile: 285,634
Buick: 404,695
Cadillac: 103,266
Outside of the US: 367,268
GM Of Canada: 187,465
Holden: 25,249
Vauxhall: 34,922
Bedford: 42,677
Opel: 76,955
1952 total numbers: 2,656,793
Chevrolet: 1,210,100
GMC: 121,884
Pontiac: 278,140
Oldsmobile: 228,452
Buick: 321,048
Cadillac: 96,850
Outside of the US: 400,319
GM Of Canada: 200,310
Holden: 31,918
Vauxhall: 35,979
Bedford: 44,178
Opel: 87,934
1953 total numbers: 3,759,544
Chevrolet: 1,839,132
GMC: 116,654
Pontiac: 415,335
Oldsmobile: 319,414
Buick: 485,613
Cadillac: 103,538
Outside of the US: 480,088
GM Of Canada: 219,967
Holden: 44,201
Vauxhall: 61,545
Bedford: 48,613
Opel: 105,792
1954 total numbers: 3,785,135
Chevrolet: 1,739,880
GMC: 79,019
Pontiac: 370,887
Oldsmobile: 433,810
Buick: 531,463
Cadillac: 123,746
Outside of the US: 506,330
GM Of Canada: 153,476
Holden: 54,793
Vauxhall: 72,515
Bedford: 57,896
Opel: 167,650
Not exactly limited production.
@@thehopelesscarguy Well just sharing info. GM was a giant then and basically owned the market.
@@thehopelesscarguy Still interesting on how the divisions sold at the time.
@@PontiacFan68 They certainly did.
@@PontiacFan68 Agreed.
Thank you. A most interesting video. When I remember many of these iconic cars from the time when I was growing up.