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2010/02/22 Olds Rocket
Trivia Questions (answers below)
1. What was the LAST model year for the Oldsmobile ‘88’?
A. 1979
B. 1988
C. 1992
D. 1999?
2. What was the last model year for ANY Oldsmobile as the company closed its doors after more than century of American automobile manufacturing?
3. What model Oldsmobile was the last-off-the-line, before the lights went out in Lansing?
4. Oldsmobile’s headquarters and primary assembly location for most of the company’s history was in the city of Lansing. In what state is Lansing located?
5. The president of the United States in 1949 was:
A. Franklin D. Roosevelt
B. Harry S. Truman
C. Dwight D. Eisenhower
D. John F. Kennedy
6. The 1949 hit song, ‘Buttons and Bows’ was sung by what pop singer of the day?
A. Spike Jones
B. Dinah Shore
C. Vaughn Monroe
D. Perry Como
7. The first jet-powered commercial liner made its maiden flight on July 27, 1949. It was built by The de Havilland Aircraft Company. What was the model name of this historic aircraft and in what country was the de Havilland Company located?
8. This Austrian-born, now Los Angeles-based restaurateur, businessman and celebrity chef was born on July 8, 1949. What is his name?
A. 1979
B. 1988
C. 1992
D. 1999?
2. What was the last model year for ANY Oldsmobile as the company closed its doors after more than century of American automobile manufacturing?
3. What model Oldsmobile was the last-off-the-line, before the lights went out in Lansing?
4. Oldsmobile’s headquarters and primary assembly location for most of the company’s history was in the city of Lansing. In what state is Lansing located?
5. The president of the United States in 1949 was:
A. Franklin D. Roosevelt
B. Harry S. Truman
C. Dwight D. Eisenhower
D. John F. Kennedy
6. The 1949 hit song, ‘Buttons and Bows’ was sung by what pop singer of the day?
A. Spike Jones
B. Dinah Shore
C. Vaughn Monroe
D. Perry Como
7. The first jet-powered commercial liner made its maiden flight on July 27, 1949. It was built by The de Havilland Aircraft Company. What was the model name of this historic aircraft and in what country was the de Havilland Company located?
8. This Austrian-born, now Los Angeles-based restaurateur, businessman and celebrity chef was born on July 8, 1949. What is his name?
Maybe it’s time...(tm)
to reconsider buying American.
Check out the American brand automobiles offered by a great American dealership like Johnny Londoff Chevrolet in Florissant, Missouri... or Sunset Ford in Sunset Hills. Just a thought.
to reconsider buying American.
Check out the American brand automobiles offered by a great American dealership like Johnny Londoff Chevrolet in Florissant, Missouri... or Sunset Ford in Sunset Hills. Just a thought.
Trivia Answers
1. The last Olds 88 rolled off the assembly line as a 1999 model, ending a half century of Oldsmobile tradition.
(Answers for 2, 3 and 4.) The final production day for Oldsmobile was April 29, 2004. The division’s last car built was an Alero GLS 4-door sedan, which was signed by all of the Olds assembly line workers. It is on display at the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing, Michigan.
5. The president of the United States in 1949 was Harry S. Truman.
6. The 1949 hit song, ‘Buttons and Bows’ was sung by Dinah Shore.
7. The first jet-powered commercial liner was the ‘Comet’, built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company of England.
8. Wolfgang Puck
(Answers for 2, 3 and 4.) The final production day for Oldsmobile was April 29, 2004. The division’s last car built was an Alero GLS 4-door sedan, which was signed by all of the Olds assembly line workers. It is on display at the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing, Michigan.
5. The president of the United States in 1949 was Harry S. Truman.
6. The 1949 hit song, ‘Buttons and Bows’ was sung by Dinah Shore.
7. The first jet-powered commercial liner was the ‘Comet’, built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company of England.
8. Wolfgang Puck
"88" Rocketed to the top for Oldsmobile in 1949Talk about ‘family values’, the 1949 Oldsmobile 88 was, arguably, the epitome of the familiar political and social buzzword when it came to family transportation.
Anyone living today who ever followed the brand, whether because of direct experience (i.e. your ‘father’s Oldsmobile) or just as an admirer of this once proud line of automobiles, knows that the ‘88’ was for years a staple of the Oldsmobile family... the bread and butter wage earner for one of GM’s oldest brands.
This was the sort of car my aunt Dorothy could really appreciate. It had style and grace, offered plenty of room for my three cousins, Mark, Terry and Tommy... plus, thanks to its Rocket V-8 engine, it produced enough power to handle the roller coaster hills of old Highway 40 and just about anything else that might challenge drivers back in the early fifties.
My father was, for most of my early life, an Oldsmobile man... having owned a number of them and in his later years, being a successful Oldsmobile salesman for three St. Louis area Oldsmobile ‘agencies’.
That term by the way (agency), may sound strange, but that’s what auto ‘dealerships’ were called back in ‘the day’. As a matter of fact, if you look at a Yellow Pages directory from the mid 1900s, that’s what the heading for automobile dealers was titled.
Nineteen forty-nine was the first year for the model designation ‘88’... a model name that would be perhaps the most successful in Oldsmobile history as far as total sales. Oldsmobile had the distinction of being the first mass-produced, post war OHV (overhead valve) V-8 powered automobile. The smooth, powerful ‘Rocket’ engines were really something ad execs could sink their creative teeth into and sales were enthusiastic.
The engine was designed by Oldsmobile’s chief engineer Charles Kettering, and was in fact supposed to be named the ‘Kettering’ engine. Company policy, however, forbid attaching an employee name to any product, so the new power plant was dubbed the Rocket V-8. With a displacement of 303 cubic inches (that’s 5.0 liters rounded out, for all the ‘gen-xers’ in my audience), the first Rocket V-8 produced a modest 135 horsepower... but that was 35 percent more than the popular Ford flat head V-8 of the same year. A Carter two barrel carburetor, fitted with automatic choke, supplied the fuel which was running roughly twenty-five cents per gallon at the time.
Standard equipment on all Oldsmobiles included
- safety glass
- bumper guards
- dual horns
- dual sun visors
- cigarette lighter and
- solenoid starter
Typical options for the day included an AM radio for $88.00 (hm-m-m... do you think that was intentional??); Condition-Air heater and defroster (yes, they were optional back then) $67.00; windshield washer, a bargain at just $9.00 and even a ‘traffic light viewer’ for an additional $5.00. ("A WHAT?" Pablo asked. I’ll explain it at the end of this story.)
Nearly all of the options for 1949 were of the basic-essential comfort and convenience sort, plus a selection of appearance ‘dress up’ items such as chrome license plate surrounds, exhaust tips, etc.
The 88 and 98 series came with Oldsmobile’s venerable Hydra-Matic transmission as standard equipment, so buyers didn’t want for much, save the aforementioned short list of amenities.
Oldsmobile’s palette offered thirteen tantalizing tones for 1949 including:
- Nankeen Cream, a buttery soft yellow
- Sea Foam Green Metallic
- Ivy Green Metallic
- Serge Blue Metallic
- Almond Green
- Crest Blue
- Tawnee Buff
- Praline Brown Metallic
- Garnet Maroon Metallic
- Silver Gray
- Metal Gray Metallic
- Black and
- Chariot Red (the hue gracing this week’s feature car shown in the illustration above)
Eight two-tone combinations were available for a slight additional charge.
The joyful (and why wouldn’t they be?) couple you see cruising the valley in their rocket-powered, Olds 88 four-door sedan, would have paid just a skoche over two thousand dollars for their new ride. That may sound like a paltry amount, but based on the Consumer Price Index inflation calculator, that works out to just under twenty G’s in today’s market... still not bad considering it was a high-line GM product. (Pablo said, "They could have bought a CHEV’-ee for $1,400.00".)
That red rocket 88 would have been assembled in one of SEVEN great American cities... Atlanta, Georgia; Boston, Massachusetts; Kansas City, Missouri; Lansing, Michigan; Linden, New Jersey; Los Angeles, California or Wilmington, Delaware.
Okay, so Pablo asked "what is a
traffic light viewer?" For those of you in the Gen-X, Y and later
generations... a traffic light viewer was a dash-mounted device with a
specially designed glass lens that allowed viewing of traffic lights
which were centrally positioned above intersections, hanging from a
wire stretched across the intersection from corner to corner. Many of
the late forties, early fifties automobiles had metal sun visors
mounted externally, above the windshield. When so equipped, the
driver’s view of those traffic lights was seriously compromised by the
broad metal visors... making them difficult to see. The traffic light
viewer allowed drivers to easily watch the signal light while waiting
for it to turn from red to green.If you have a burning desire to learn all you can about the wonderful cars of Oldsmobile, I suggest you visit www.oldsclub.org, the web site for the Oldsmobile Club of America. There you will find a link to the local chapter, the Archway Oldsmobile Club. This is a group of dedicated Oldsmobile lovers that has monthly meetings and conducts various events throughout the year. Membership numbers approximately sixty or so and they are a real fun bunch of car folks.
Thanks for this link, Beatle Bob!
Not only is this a great car song but it's historical significance is very meaningful. 'Rocket 88 is considered by most music historians and rock & roll fanatics as being the very first rock & roll song ever!
Always,
Beatle Bob
Content copyright . Bruce Kunz. All rights reserved.
