1949-Cadillac Coupe de Ville

The Cadillac Coupe deVille was first introduced in 1949 it was a two-door coupé, Cadillac's first pillarless hardtop. Selling for $3,497 it was one of the most expensive models of the Series 62 line. It had leather upholstery and chrome 'bows' in the headliner to simulate the ribs of a convertible top.In its first-year the Coupe deVille sold 2,150 cars becoming the company's most popular model.

Dave Burton
www.bargain-motors.com

The "Essex" Brand

The Essex car was produced by the Essex Motor Company and the Hudson Motor Company between 1918 and 1932.
The Essex cars were aimed at the average families pocket and proved to be a durable, reliable motor.
Initially Essex marketed a line of touring cars (open four door cars with canvas tops), which was the most popular body style of cars in production at the time. While Essex added an enclosed sedan in 1920, it was the introduction of the 1922 closed coach, priced at the (then) unheard of low price of $1,495 dollars, only $300 dollars above that of the touring car. By 1925 the coach was priced below that of the touring car.
Essex sales remained strong through the 1920s and into 1931 before sales began dip. For 1932 a redesigned Essex debuted and was named the Essex-Terraplane, a play on the word aeroplane.

Dave Burton
www.bargain-motors.com

The Cadillac Eldorado

The Eldorado started life in 1953 and derived its name from a competition run by the company and won by a secratary in the merchandising department,only 500(approx)were manufactured in '53,which were sold for around $7,500,In 1957 Cadillac brought out the Eldorado Brougham. This four-door hardtop with rear-hinged rear doors was an ultra-luxury car that cost an astonishing $13,074,which was selling for more than the British iconic Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.The Classic lines of the Eldorado filtered out in the mid '80s,and then after celebrating its 50th year anniversary GM announced that this would be its final year.

Dave Burton
www.bargain-motors.com

The Corvette "Stingray"

The Chevrolet Corvette has been manufactured by General Motors since 1953. The car was originally built in Michigan and Missouri, it is currently built at a General Motors assembly plant in Kentucky.
Taking its name from the corvette, a small, maneuverable fighting frigate, the first Corvettes were virtually hand-built in Flint, Michigan in Chevrolet's Customer Delivery Center. The outer body was made out of then-revolutionary fiberglass, selected in part because of steel quotas left over from the war. Underneath the new body material were standard Chevrolet components, including the "Blue Flame" inline six-cylinder truck engine, two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission, and drum brakes from Chevrolet's regular car line. Though the engine's output was increased somewhat, thanks to a triple-carburetor intake exclusive to the Corvette, performance of the car was decidedly lackluster. Compared to the British and Italian sports cars of the day, the Corvette was underpowered, required a great deal of effort as well as clear roadway to bring to a stop, and even lacked a "proper" manual transmission. Up until that time, the Chevrolet division was GM's entry-level marque, known for excellent but no-nonsense cars.[citation needed] Nowhere was that more evident than in the Corvette.[citation needed] A Paxton supercharger became available in 1954 as a dealer-installed option, greatly improving the Corvette's straight-line performance, but sales continued to decline.

GM was seriously considering shelving the project, leaving the Corvette to be little more than a footnote in automotive history, and would have done so if not for two important events. The first was the introduction in 1955 of Chevrolet's first V8 engine (a 265 CID [4.3 L]) since 1919, and the second was the influence of a Soviet émigré in GM's engineering department, Zora Arkus-Duntov. Arkus-Duntov simply took the new V8 and backed it with a three-speed manual transmission. That modification, probably the single most important in the car's history[citation needed], helped turn the Corvette from a two-seat curiosity into a genuine performer. It also earned Arkus-Duntov the rather inaccurate nickname "Father of the Corvette."

Another key factor in the Corvette's survival was Ford's introduction, in 1955, of the two-seat Thunderbird, which was billed as a "personal luxury car", not a sports car. Even so, the Ford-Chevrolet rivalry in those days demanded that GM not appear to back down from the challenge. The "T-Bird" was changed to a four-seater in 1958.

Dave Burton
www.bargain-motors.com

The 1967 AMC Ambassador

The Ambassador was the top-line automobile produced by the American Motors Corporation (AMC) from 1958 until 1974.
In 1967, AMC introduced a completely restyled Ambassador,the car once again looked completely new, with a more rounded appearance that sported sweeping rooflines, "coke-bottle" fenders, greater glass area, and a recessed grille that bowed forward less than that of the 1965-66 models. Taillights were wider, rectangular, and divided by one central vertical bar. The 880 two-door sedans sported the identical roofline as the hardtops, but had slim B-pillars that gave them a more open-air coupe appearance.
AMC's long-lived 327 CID V8 engine was finally replaced by an all-new 343 cu in. With a 4-barrel carburetor and dual exhaust,which produced 280 bhp.
Unfortunately, sales of the redesigned models were disappointly.

Dave Burton
www.bargain-motors.com