The 1950s were pivotal for the American automobile industry. The post-World War II era brought a wide range of new technologies to the automobile consumer, and a host of problems for the independent automobile manufacturers. The industry was maturing in an era of rapid technological change; mass production and the benefits from economies of scale led to innovative designs and greater profits, but stiff competition between the automakers. By the end of the decade, the industry had reshaped itself into the Big Three, Studebaker, and AMC. The age of small independent automakers was nearly over, as most of them either consolidated or went out of business.
A number of innovations were either invented or improved sufficiently to allow for mass production during the decade: air conditioning, automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes, seat belts and arguably the most influential change in automotive history, the overhead-valve V8 engine. The horsepower race had begun, laying the foundation for the muscle car era.
Automobile manufacturing became the largest industry segment in the US, and the largest ever created; the US auto industry was many times larger than the automotive industries of the rest of the world combined. By 1960, one-sixth of working Americans were employed directly or indirectly by the industry, but automation and imports eroded the need for such a large workforce within a couple of decades. The 1950s were the pinnacle of American automotive manufacturing and helped shape the United States into an economic superpower.
Industry consolidation
At least 100 automobile companies had begun operations in Detroit by the beginning of the 20th century, but by the 1920s, the decade that gave rise to the Big Three, Ford was the largest.
In American automobile parlance, the Big Three refers to General Motors (GM), Ford and Chrysler, each of which had bought out other companies to become conglomerates earlier in the 20th century. Together they accounted for 70 percent of auto sales. Their combined market share grew over the following decades, declining only slightly after World War II, but the Big Three soon came to dominate the industry, claiming 94 percent of all automobile sales in 1955, 1956 and 1959. The industry grew at a pace never before seen, and the broader industry soon employed one-sixth of the entire American workforce.
In 1954, the smaller American Motors Corporation (AMC) was formed when Hudson merged with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation in a deal worth almost USD $200 million ($1.735 billion in 2013 dollars), the largest corporate merger in U.S. history at that time. Other mergers with smaller independent manufacturers followed. Although AMC was moderately successful it was never sufficiently large to challenge any of the Big Three, and was eventually bought by Chrysler in 1987.
Studebaker had enjoyed earlier success and was the first independent automaker to produce an overhead valve V8 engine, a 232.6 cubic inch, 120 hp unit, the first low-priced V8. The company's peak year was 1950, when it produced and sold 329,884 units. Studebaker struggled during the first half of the decade. The cars had styling ahead of their time but were overpriced when compared to the offerings of the Big Three. Low sales and financial difficulties led to a merger with Packard in 1954, itself in financial trouble. The new company, Studebaker-Packard Corporation, retired the Packard name in July 1958, but continued marketing automobiles under the Studebaker name until 1966.
Industry sales
This table shows the number of sales reported for each significant American automotive brand during the 1950s. Company Units Sold Chevrolet 13,419,048Ford12,282,492Plymouth5,653,874Buick4,858,961Oldsmobile3,745,648Pontiac3,706,959Mercury2,588,472Dodge2,413,239Studebaker1,374,967Packard ('50–'58)1,300,835Chrysler1,244,843Cadillac1,217,032Nash ('50–'57)974,031DeSoto972,704Rambler ('57–'59)641,068Hudson ('50–'57)525,683Lincoln317,371Kaiser ('50–'55)224,293Henry J ('51–'54)130,322Edsel ('58–'59)108,001Imperial ('55–'59)93,111Willys ('52–'55)91,841Continental ('56–'58)15,550Frazer ('50–'51)13,914Total (estimate)57,914,259 Some numbers are based on some estimates. Total does not count the figures from smaller independent automakers.
A total of almost 58 million cars were produced and sold during the 1950s by the American manufacturers. Compared to the total population of the United States by the end of the decade, 179,323,175.
Production by year
Production numbers are sometimes conflicting, depending on how they are calculated and how vehicles are classified, but according to Ward's, the number of actual autos and duty trucks manufactured in North America for each year, including domestic production intended for export, are represented below: Year Autos Trucks Total 1951 5,652,414 1,560,055 7,212,469 1952 4,652,275 1,384,372 6,036,647 1953 6,523,370 1,336,714 7,860,084 1954 5,815,945 1,101,773 6,917,718 1955 8,338,302 1,334,654 9,672,956 1956 6,203,027 1,213,948 7,416,975 1957 6,483,339 1,176,996 7,660,335 1958 4,567,518 943,275 5,510,793 1959 5,929,252 1,223,362 7,152,614 1960 7,055,293 1,286,466 8,341,759
Innovations Many innovations were introduced or refined in the 1950s to make driving safer and more comfortable. Combined with lower prices and the growth of the suburbs, car ownership became ubiquitous and more people were driving longer distances. The new innovations fueled the automaker's philosophy of "dynamic obsolescence", forcing buyers to upgrade every few years and guaranteeing future sales.
Automatic transmission
The first automatic transmissions were developed by General Motors during the 1930s and introduced in the 1940 Oldsmobile as the "Hydra-Matic" transmission. They were incorporated into GM-built tanks during WW-II and, after the war, GM marketed them as being "battle-tested". But it was not until the 1950s that they became dominant in American passenger cars. One of the most influential was the GM Powerglide, the first automatic transmission in a low-cost automobile. It was a two-speed automatic transmission that was in production from 1950 until 1973; variations are still used in drag racing owing to its simplicity and durability. Ford initially offered GM's Powerglide for its Lincoln cars, as its own were not capable of handling the torque of the large V8s used in the vehicles, but soon after began production of its own inexpensive automatics. Before the end of the decade, more than half of new cars sold in America had automatic transmissions.
Suspension and chassis design As more roads were built and average travel speeds increased, the inherent limitations of the pre-war suspension systems became obvious. Before the 1950s, most automobiles used a kingpin-based front suspension, which limited the degree of free movement and ultimately the smoothness of the ride, particularly at higher speeds. The transition to a ball joint type of suspension allowed greater flexibility in adjustment and the use of a variety of methods to support the weight of the car: leaf springs, coil springs and torsion bars. In combination with a shock absorber, the newer suspension designs made cars safer and more controllable at highway speeds, although at the cost of being slightly less durable than kingpin-based systems.
As the 1950s approached, solid front axles had been generally replaced with independent suspension, smoothing the ride considerably and allowing for safer highway speeds. Along with others, the 1950 Studebaker Champion introduced independent front suspension into its product line, with Cadillac marketing its new "Knee-Action" suspension in 1953 model year automobiles.
Unibody construction did not come into popular use until the 1950s. Unibody construction differs from the traditional "coachwork on chassis" design in that it integrates much of the framing into a single body using a number of pieces welded together into a single unit, thus distributing the load over the entire frame of the car. Chrysler claimed that unibody construction made its automobiles much stronger, more rigid, easy to handle, and quieter.
In 1958, Cadillac introduced air suspension as a $215 option, a first for an American manufacturer. This replaced the coil springs with an air-filled bladder, but proved troublesome and was discontinued. Later that same year, Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile, Ford, Mercury and Pontiac also introduced air suspension as an option for select models but it was unreliable and was soon dropped. For Buick, the unpopular "Air Poise Suspension" contributed to the division's decline to fifth place in industry sales for 1958. Decades later though it became a common and reliable method of suspension on luxury cars, buses, large transport trucks, and in some custom car applications.
V8 engine The V8 engine had been around for some time, but it became more commonplace in the newer and heavier cars being built in the 1950s. Of particular significance was the Chevrolet small block 265 cubic inch engine, released in the 1955 model year and still the basis for the V8 engines in use by General Motors today. The original 265 cubic inch engine with a two-barrel carburetor produced 162 hp, while the four-barrel version in the 1955 Corvette produced 195 hp, an amazing amount of power at the time. By 1957, the engine had been increased to 283 cubic inches, including a fuel-injected version that produced 283 hp, the first engine to have a ratio of 1:1 horse power versus cubic inches.
Ford used its V8 flathead engine in most of its line up through the beginning of the decade, even as it introduced the Ford Y-block engine and the similar but larger Lincoln Y-block V8 engine in 1952 for its luxury car lines. These were soon phased out with the Ford Windsor engine in 1962, which still forms the basis for the current engine line. The Lincoln Y-block 317 cubic inch motor was rated at 160 hp, only slightly higher than the 336 cubic inch "Invincible 8" flathead design that it replaced. The Lincoln also came in 341 and 368 cubic inch dispacement (CID) versions. Like the GM motor, it used an overhead-valve design.
Chrysler created its V-8 Firepower engine for the 1951 model year, using hemispherical combustion chambers. It featured 331.1 CID and produced an impressive 180 hp at 4000 rpm While the name "Firepower" is no longer used, the name "Hemi" is still synonymous with Chrysler as a trademarked name for its engines, although they no longer use hemispherical combustion. The engines were larger and heavier than competing designs from GM and Ford owing to the larger cylinder heads required for hemispherical combustion. By 1959 Chrysler was producing a 375 hp, 413 CID engine for its Chrysler 300, triple the average horsepower of just a decade earlier.
AMC also developed its own overhead-valve V8 engine called the Gen-I, in 1956. The original was a 250 CID design and within a few years, a 287 CID and a 255 hp 327 CID version was produced.
Seat belts
Nash offered optional seat belts in some models by 1949, and in all models the following year. Ford followed suit in 1955, but it was the Swedish company Saab who introduced seat belts as standard equipment, in the Saab GT 750 shown at the 1958 New York Motor Show.