The Birth of a Wildcat (Chevrolet in the post-war years)

19.12.2010

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Until the start of World War II, Chevrolet reported good sales and in this sense it was on a par with Ford, the “perpetual” and strongest competitor. The shock of the war and the social and economic vacuum it created set the market clock back to zero.

When the economy finally took an upswing at the beginning of the 1950s, the first post-war trends became apparent: the new generation of consumers demanded a fresh look, freedom and more driving pleasure. Chevrolet’s general manager, Thomas Keating, reacted with the introduction of the power-glide transmission (1950), the first fully automatic transmission as an option in the low-priced segment. Chevrolet launched the Corvette in 1953 in response to the demand for more speed. It was the first mass-produced sports car ever!

While engineers captured the mood of the time with the launch of the Corvette, they had not yet updated the popular models. Keating sensed that a style revolution would hit Ford hardest. He convinced GM’s board that Chevrolet was too focused on the V6, and he instructed former Cadillac engineer Edward N. Cole to develop a new V8 engine. At the same time he had the body completely redesigned. The new car was to look entirely different, but still be identifiable as a Chevrolet.

In 1955, Chevrolet presented the “pièce de resistance” of its designers and engineers – and the success was unbelievable. “Mechanix Illustrated” compared the V8 with a wildcat: “A wildcat – truly sensational”. In an acceleration test, the vehicle reached a top speed of 181 km/h, and critic Tom McCahill considered it “one of the biggest sensations of the year”.

Chevrolet’s post-war masterpiece was then introduced with a gigantic marketing blitz. When the 1955 Chevrolet models came into the showrooms, dealers distributed 2,131,000 balloons, 1,016,920 perfume bottles and innumerable ballpoint pens and key rings.

For Chevrolet, 1955 was the best year the company had experienced to date. The number of vehicles sold rose to 1,646,681 and beat Ford’s sales of 1,573,276 automobiles, and in the NASCAR race the Chevrolet Race Team won 13 out of 25 short-track races.

Until the early 1970s the company experienced a wave of success which brought to market such innovations as the gasoline injected engine (1957) and the four-wheel independent suspension (1959). In 1958, Chevrolet combined the functions of a pick-up with the comfort of a large passenger car in the El Camino model. In 1962, Chevrolet introduced a new line of smaller vehicles, the Chevy II models. The Malibu and Camaro models, considered classic cars today, were launched in 1963 and 1966 respectively.