An awesome advertisement. Wish they still made films like these. Nowdays, everything looks almost exactly the same from the year before, and the year before that, and so on.
Chevrolet cars made a major change to the body style in 1949 (1.5 years later than the truck change). That car body style was not significantly changed through 1954 (1 year earlier than the truck change). Major car appearance changes between 49-53 were in the grill, bright-work trim, and the one-piece windshield in 1953. Major car mechanical changes were the Powerglide option in 1950 and high-pressure lubrication 235 engine in 1953/54.
Alfred Sloan and his GM designers did however try to make enough year-by-years changes (in appearance) so that owners/buyers would recognize the newer appearance vs the older "out-of-date" style.
Anybody remember these contests? How tough was it? In some years when GM mailed 100,000 sets of instructions as few as 600 models may be returned by the deadline! https://www.flickr.com/photos/advance-design_parts_co/15949164807/in/set-72157631872034068 https://www.flickr.com/photos/advance-design_parts_co/16134176382/in/set-72157631872034068 The Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild was created in 1930 as a way for the Fisher Body Division of General Motors to identify and recruit talented youngsters to become craftsmen for the company. The first competition consisted of constructing a model Napoleonic Coach that was the symbol for Fisher Body, which tested a youngster’s ability to meticulously follow a design. In 1937 the competition was revised requiring participants to actually design and construct model automobiles, usually with a futuristic theme. In 1940 the coach building competition was ended and the car modeling continued until the program was scuttled in 1968, except for a hiatus during WWII.
Denny your right he does look like old Fred. These guild kits (paper work) come up occasionally on eBay and the early coach builds were really tough as you can see by the dimensions (1:18 scale) and material requirements. There is a book written about this program, The Fisher Body Craftsman Guild an Illustrated History by John L. Jacobus.
That's really interesting and I'd really like to have that book for my reference library, but----not at fifty bucks plus S&H. I often wonder just what school of salesmanship people that write or publish books went to. You can choose to sell for a lower price, putting the product within reach of the average person, this automatically increases the volume and profit by leaps and bounds and is the reason why the big box stores have dominated the retail markets for the last half century. Or make an offering at an outrageous price putting it out of the reach of the average guy, and depend on a select few at the top of the pile to cover the cost, resulting in a small profit.
Denny enjoyed the G.M. film. It's a shame they had to mess it all up after the 60's & 70's . Now they use the finest tin foil and plastic . Then they put more sensors on them than Carter has liver pills . Or had liver pill. lol Then they make it almost impossible to work on them .
An uncle built two coaches for that competition. I wish I could recall the story for certain. One of them, I recall him telling me won, I think it was at the regional or district level(?) and he went to Detroit for the final(?). I remember seeing the two coaches in display cabinets at his or my grandparents houses for years. They were spectacular. I don't know what happened to them after his passing. If I find a photo of one or hopefully, both I'll post a link.
I collect horse drawn Coaches and Carriages as well, so this fits in both sides. GM made a limited edition of the coach in sterling silver. Here is the link to ours, it's about 14" long. http://i1375.photobucket.com/albums/ag462/rps2657/P1010052_zpslquehy9i.jpg There is a man in Eagle Point, Oregon, that his collection got to big, so he opened a museum. Here is the link, but you may need to paste it in your url to get it to work. http://web.archive.org/web/20091027080912/http://www.geocities.com/sponcom26/CoachMuseum1.html Hit the next button at the bottom of the page.
