57 Ford, as a 2nd Family Car?

[Skip]

I'm a '56 model year, from a blue collar one income family, my mom never worked after the kids came along. Not sure what came before but they drove a '50 Olds up until around 1962, when a '57 Ford Wagon joined the family. Olds was sold to an uncle, probably again because of a lame trade in offer.

They drove the '57 until they got a '66 Olds Vista Cruiser, 9 passenger no less! The Ford was another private sale, but the Olds was a year end Demo car probably half-year as was common then. They were still driving the Vista Cruiser when Dad finally broke down and got a second car which was a '61 VW Bug, a sunroof to boot.

I think that it was probably around '67 when the Bug joined the family from then on dad's work car was a Bug, he'd run them until they literally wore out. Don't think he ever paid over $500 for any of the Bugs he owned either.

The third vehicle in the fleet was pretty humorous when my dad got it was a '74 Chev Camper Special which had a 454 with headers, Edelbrock intake, Holley Double Pumper, RV cam and built up automatic, can you say Burn Out! Going from a Bug to a pickup without the camper must have been fun, he laid some pretty good Posi black marks out of the driveway, unitentional of course. (I can attest to that pickup's ability to churn the tires with it's Posi rear end, impressed a few of my friends, bought my first set of truck tires too.). They kept all their cars somewhat longer than most, they also paid cash for every car they owned.

[Yoda]

Don't forget the extent to which Cadillac *dominated* the upper-price segment, it was a good year for Lincoln if they had a quarter of Cadillac's volume. The "two-Ford" ads were probably an attempt to open a second front on GM's share of the high-end market.

[ChrisBcritter]

And Cadillac even had ads that suggested buying a used Caddy as the next best thing to buying a new one:

[John Goschke]

OK, now we have statistics - 300,000 American families have two Fords. Note it doesn't say two new Fords.

That's approximately 6.5% of American households at the time. Does that seem realistic?

[10thumbs]

That's approximately 6.5% of American households at the time. Does that seem realistic?

Which year is this from?

Michael

[Aaronw]

That's approximately 6.5% of American households at the time. Does that seem realistic?

John, I think you are off by a decimal, 300,000 families out of 44.2 million households (1958) is 0.6% of households.

[John Goschke]

Which year is this from?

Michael

1955

[John Goschke]

John, I think you are off by a decimal, 300,000 families out of 44.2 million households (1958) is 0.6% of households.

You're correct, sir! Thanks. That percentage should be 0.65% That seems more sensible given our anecdotal observations.

Doesn't take a genius copywriter to use the much more impressive sounding "300,000 families" than "less than 1%" of families!

[10thumbs]

John, that's a lot of families. But not many 2nd cars in 1955 either. Thanks for this valuable info!

As I posted earlier, from 1950 to 1957, one family car for 2.8 to 2.9 persons. In 1960, it was already 2.2. So not much change in the mid 50's concerning 2nd cars in families. After 1960, a different story started to unfold.

Michael

[DPNM]

I was born in 1955 so I am only going by my memory and a 8mm home movie we had. My dad had a 1956 Corvette that I know he purchased new (I mention it in a different thread). He had a 1958-1960 Thunderbird (it was in a 8mm home movie). I remember riding in it once as I put my hand out the window at a gas station and my Dad closed it. My hand got stuck as the window had to go all the way up before it would go back down. He wasn't happy. I also remember that he had a Chevy pick up at the same time. There were two instances I remember about it. One, he had thrown a match that he lit a cigarette with out the wing window and it went around the front and burned my brothers cheek when it came back in the passengers window. Also, I remember my Dad hitting the brakes hard once and my brothers face bounced off the dash and his front teeth went through his bottom lip. Come to think of it that truck must not have been fond of my brother :-)

It might not have been 1957 specifically but it had to be around that time period.