GM CARS FOR 1958 Classic TV Commercial
Posted by: admin Post date: September 10th, 2009Here’s a breathless, big budget TV commercial for the 1958 range of shiny, huge, General Motors cars (sorry, Autos), as broadcast on NBC. Could a vocal chorus sing any louder, bigger, higher??
June 20th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
And yes, I do admit that the streetcar conspiracy was extremely low-handed, but that was really how business worked in those days. For example, look at the United Fruit Company. They would send teams to stage revolutions in Latin American countries, just so they could export fruit back to the United States.
But honestly, the past is behind us. GM is learning, and I certainly believe- nay hope- that they will be able to build quality cars in the future.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:10 am
This was the year GM went crazy in the styling department, Excess, Gaud, Flash, Wider, Longer, Lower, and let’s not forget the engineering staff–More Power Too!. Awesome, wasn’t it! I would do anything to go back and relive this blip of Automobility!
July 5th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
GM should make this Cars Again
as Collector’s
for their 100th Annivierasary
July 13th, 2009 at 12:40 am
this commercial is awesome
July 14th, 2009 at 2:57 am
but that would cost more money and they would have to lower their profits.. that would make the exectutives very sad cus they would not be deepingin thier pockets…
July 17th, 2009 at 2:40 am
Ah Yes! The days when cars were stylish and built to last. Those days are long behind us now. I still have my grandparents ’64 Chevy and she gets thumbs up and turns heads when I drive her.
July 26th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Well maybe if American companies chose to make quality products we wouldnt have to buy products from overseas. Vizio, one of the only american flat scream tv assembles their parts in China. If they stoppped being cheap and brought their jobs to America then they could generate thousands of jobs. If you are so pro domestic then you should be the one telling GM to get off their ass and start making quality cars again!
July 26th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
My telling GM or any other American firm to make quality product at home will not change a thing. It is the cheap mentality of the public looking at saving a buck; instead of buying a quality product at a reasonable price they would rather have junk on the cheap.
Things like TVs, phones, and appliances used to be all American made and world class in quality.
You thought made in Taiwan was bad in the 1980s….it was like world class quality compared to made in China these days.
July 26th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
The public saving a buck? The last I checked it was big corporations like Dell exporting jobs to India not the public. Toyota and Honda do make quality products. I think cars like the Civic and Camry are ugly but they can last over 300,000 miles. Compare that to any american car made in the last 20 years (expect the Buick brand). The truth is everyone wants to see the big three do well but we are not willing to buy a lesser domestic product when the imports basically drive circles around them.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Inmate527, you’re damn right, I’m not willing to buy a lesser product. I work hard for my money, and I don’t want a car whose instrument panel knobs fall of after a year, window motors that wear out after 2 yrs, water pumps.. etc. (GM)
All I do to my Honda Accord is change the oil and put gas in it and it’s 9 years old – never any problems with that car.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Sorry, but a name like Vizio doesn’t even factor to me when I shop for a TV. Vizio screams cheap. It’s either Sony or Panasonic for me when it comes to TVs, or it’s nothing. And there are many customers like that
July 27th, 2009 at 7:06 am
ledwardprince, I’m a gen X’er here, and we know exactly what we missed – BUTT ugly, overweight, fat, inefficiently engineered cars
To me those cars are just as hideous as they always were – fat, gluttonous, overweight, pretentious fins (design from aeronautics), and exemplify the kind of waste that was rampant in the 1950′s
July 27th, 2009 at 7:12 am
Chris if it wasn’t profitable then why did they develop the EV1 in the first place? More scatterbrained behavior from GM. What’s new? Maybe they should get their act together and stop using the USA as their text track and the USA public as guinea pigs
July 27th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I am also a young person as yourself, but these cars were ART, they weren’t fast, but back then cars were sculpted. I doubt that you study cars and engines like I do, but notice how GM started ‘badge engineering’, just like they do today, if you squint, you can see that they are all the same…
July 27th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Well, I certainly respect your view on the matter…there’s just one problem I see…the one with the experience is never at the mercy of the one with the argument…I drove those cars, and yes, they were boats…but gas was cheap and no one (including you if you had been alive then) could have possibly imagined the futre we are living in today. Cars are engineered differnetly today and I love them too. They just all look like used bars of soap! You have to read the insignia to know what it is.
July 27th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
I totally agree with you. A huge amount of care went into the design of these cars, nowadays they’ll just stick a Pontiac badge on a Holden and call it done.
July 27th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
It’s my understanding that the EV1 came after GM developed a car for Australia’s SunRacer competition.
After winning the competition the continued engineering and developed the EV1, more for everyday use. As with many cars, the allowed the public to lease them for testing purposes.
Now I agree 100% that it was a bad move for them to reclaim the cars and crush them, that decision came from some executives who caused the problems leading to bankruptcy.
Let’s hope the new GM will be better…
August 7th, 2009 at 12:43 am
You can tell how smug and complacent that GM possesses, and it shows in this commercial!
August 9th, 2009 at 6:34 am
’58 were beasts compared to the goodlooking 1957s. GM greatly improved their line-up in the early 1960s.
August 19th, 2009 at 4:47 am
Wow!
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:24 am
The commercial was more thoughtfully constructed than the product it was pushing. The GM 5 were created quickly for the sake of model year change, and to hell with logic or quality control. By the early ’60′s these cars looked hideous on the road. if you could find one still running. But the commercial is great, those singers are getting a workout.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I would have to agree with you at least 100%! This was perhaps the worst period (or one of the worst periods) of motordom.
September 6th, 2009 at 12:33 am
CRAP THEN, CRAP NOW
September 6th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
The Chevy and the Bonneville werent that bad.
September 8th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Actually, quality from GM in 58 was pretty high. And as far as they way they looked, I think they look better than anything on the road today. I have seen several 58 Buick, Cadillac, and Chevrolets with hundreds of thousand of miles on them that are still going strong. So on top of the fact that they run at least as long as any modern Honda, they are still running over half a century after they were built. they were, however, built at a time when The big 3 took building cars to heart.