It's a fun-looking ad with the great clip art at the top.
The ad demonstrates how auto dealers used to go all out to draw in customers. There are live broadcasts by W-WIZ, with 100 free records given away at each broadcast; a 10 piece Dixieland Band performing one night; free gifts and free refreshments; and a Grand Prize of a General Electric Console Color TV. And of course a searchlight was used to create a dramatic effect.
It's kind of clever that the new 1964 Plymouth was selling for – what else? – $1964.
Today the former Lorain Chrysler Plymouth location (just east of the former McDonald's) is home to Rapid Auto Body.
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Before my parents began their love affair with the Oldsmobile brand that began in the 1960s and concluded with the last car they bought in the mid-1990s, they had a 1958 Plymouth Savoy.
I wrote about it and posted a few photos back here on this post.
While watching Batman on TV in the mid-1960s (remember the two-part episodes that ran on two consecutive nights?), my brothers and I decided that our Plymouth Savoy resembled the Caped Crusader's wheels. Thus for many years we referred to that Brady car as the Batmobile.
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| My parents' 1958 Plymouth Savoy looked pretty much like this one |
I remember that place used to be an Aamco transmission shop in the 1980's-early 1990's.I also remember my father saying that when it was the Chrysler dealer that they always had super cheap good used cars for sale.I'm talking $15-$20 dollar type cars.He bought a couple to drive to work at the Lorain Ford Plant in the winter.I remember him specifically stating he bought a "52 Mercury 2 dr hardtop with a flathead V8 for $17.50.He drove it for 2 or 3 years then sold it to a junkyard for $25.00.He kept the rear fender skirts in his garage and still has them to this day.Then he bought a "48 Ford 2 dr coupe with a flathead V8 for $15.00 and drove it for a couple years then later sold it for $100.I don't think anybody will be getting that kind of value out of one of the new electric throwaway vehicles that are being pushed down people's throats today.
ReplyDeleteI remember that searchlight; I used to wonder if they'd ever shine the Bat-Signal across the night Lorain skies.
ReplyDelete$1,964 dollars is a little over 10 grand, today. That's a pretty good deal.
ReplyDelete20 bucks in 1964 is $202, today. I suppose you could find a used car for that.
But I suspect we won't see *any* of our "modern" cars tooling around in 2084. Too many e-lectronical parts in all of them, battery-driven or no. You might see a 1964 Pontiac, though, or a 1931 Model A.
I had forgotten all about the "Imperial" brand.
My grandfather only bought Chrysler Imperials his whole life.In 1964 when Lorain-Chrysler-Plymouth opened my grandfather owned a 1961 Imperial LeBaron.He took his LeBaron there once for a problem with the window regulator in one of its doors.He didn't get much satisfaction from them though as they couldn't get it to roll up and down any better than it did before he took it there.So he didn't frequent them for anything since after that incident.I don't think the dealer stayed there that long either.I think by the early 1970s they were gone,or maybe earlier.
ReplyDeleteI was watching "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" the other night (for the 1,000th time). Early in the movie, when the main characters are in their cars and the merry chase is just getting started, the Ethel Merman character is berating her son-in-law Milton Berle for his driving skills. "We're the ones in the Imperial and we're running last?" she exclaims.
ReplyDeleteThat is a 1962 Imperial with its classic flashlight taillights in Mad,Mad,Mad World.Here is a little bit of useless automotive trivia for any of you auto buffs out there in Dan's Land.The 1961 Imperial has the tallest fins of any car from Detroit.Taller than a 1959 Cadillac even.My grandfather,whom I posted about above,knew a friend with a "59 Cadillac back in the day.Well his friend would rag on him about the height of the fins on his Cadillac being taller than my grandfathers "61 Imperial.So naturally my grandfather took the bait and backed his Imperial up to the back of his friends Caddy.The Imperial was taller by a good 3/4 inch to 1 inch.My grandfather even took a Polaroid which my mother wound up getting after my grandfather passed.This was all done on a flat service with factory suspensions with no helper springs or air shocks installed.Now granted,the "59 Cadillac had better looking, iconically styled fins,especially since they had chrome generously applied all over them to dress them up.Whereas the "61 Imperial just had the painted body color fin itself sticking up like a shark fin with its taillight mounted like a chandelier below the actual fin.But that wasn't the point according to my grandfather.The point was that his Imperial had the tallest fins,ever.But by the late "60s my grandfather had decided that having the tallest fins were passe so he traded his "61 in on a brand new "67 Imperial LeBaron.His friend with the "59 Caddy got out of the finned car business altogether soon after my grandfather showed him up as it really did hurt his pride.
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