My Families' Cars And Industry Pivots: End of the Depression
I thought this car was a 1939 Buick Special, but Buick Forum members of the Antique Auto Club showed me it was actually a 1940 Chevrolet Special Deluxe series KA. Thanks to them, post revised 1/4/23.
I had always assumed my father’s family had struggled through the depression years - 1930’s - like so many others during those dark years. I heard stories of separate envelopes for groceries, electricity, clothing that my grandmother would divide my grandfather’s weekly cash salary into and day old bread etc.
Then when I was digitizing very old family 16 mm movies I noticed the car that the Dalys (my father’s family) were driving.
in film….
It looked fairly well equipped and new and it turned out to be a 1939 Buick Century. a NEW 1940 Chevrolet Special Deluxe KA. This car would cost new in the 1939 market about $770 or about $16,500 in 2022 dollars.
Here’s the way U.S. cars prices stacked up in 1939
My grand father, I was told, brought his family through the depression with 3 square meals, a home and education for his children by selling cigars to smoke shops and Pharmacies for the JP Manning company. I also learned that economic downturns, like the Great Depression, moved people to substitute smaller, less expensive pleasures or treats in place of more expensive traditional ones, e.g. a bus trip to New York City instead of a trip to Paris, or, more realistically, a cigar instead of a steak dinner out. So economists would qualify cigars as counter-cyclical or “recession proof.” My grandfather earned a solid upper middle class salary selling these simple, counter-cyclical cigars. His car reflected that success and probably helped him sell more.
The car was singularly successful in the market. But back in 1933 Buick, once GM’s most profitable division had faced years of declining sales. GM management talked seriously about liquidation. But, according to Aaron Serverson, Ate up with Motor, Harlow “Red” Curtice took over Buick in October 1933 and began to turn Buick around and Sloan gave him a great deal of latitude to try.
Under Curtice Buick renamed its entire model lineup for the 1936 model year to celebrate the engineering improvements and design advancements and a new "streamlined" appearance. Buick's Series 60 model range became the “Century.” He designed these 1936 to 1942 Century’s for speed and power by mating its shorter wheelbase body to the Roadmaster's larger displacement straight-eight engine - a 320 cubic inch engine delivering 120 horse power. Then for the 1938 he added even more speed “For 1938, , renamed “Dynaflash 8,” got new combustion chambers, relocated valves and spark plugs, and a higher compression ratio that boosted advertised output from 130 to 141 horsepower (97 to 105 kW). The new Buick Century could reach 60 mph (97 km/h) in a little over 13 seconds and hit speeds of up to 103 mph (165 km/h).
The Century offered four different types of 2-door body styles to include convertibles and only one 4-door Sedan, with the ratio remaining coupes over sedans until 1938 when there were three coupe and three sedan choices.[2] The 1940 Series 50 Super combined the longer Roadmaster body with the smaller displacement Special engine.
Buick named their former Model 60 the “Century” to promote the fact that it could reach a speed of 100 miles per hour. Mr… had opted to put the very large …. motor of the Buick RoadMaster into the smaller and lighter Century. This left the Century with a very powerful … hp engine that propelled it from zero to 60 in nnn seconds and marked it as one of the fastest cars on the road. Auto historians have called it the “First Muscle Car”.
Little did I know my grandfather, like most car buffs in his day, had a “need for speed.” So that’s where it comes from
My grandfather provided a good living and a deluxe new Chevrolet for his quickly maturing family.