Pen Circles - The Death of a Great American Automobile

There was a time when Oldsmobile was about to overtake Chevrolet and Ford as the best selling car in America... Until GM made one of the biggest PR blunders in history.

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The Death of a Great American Automobile

Automotive :: History

Started by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, Oldsmobile began its life as one of the best-built cars in America. Despite the solid reputation of Oldsmobile vehicles and the fact that they were the first American automaker to embrace mass production --- producing 425 cars in 1901 --- the Olds Motor Vehicle Company fell on hard times in the middle of the first decade of the 1900's.

In 1908, Oldsmobile was purchased by the new upstart, the General Motors Corporation. GMC entered the marketplace as a holding company for the Buick model of vehicles. And nearly right out of the gate, GMC began buying up their smaller rivals, absorbing many of the primary vehicle brands of the day. They absorbed dozens of vehicle brands in less than a decade.

The first eight decades of Oldsmobile were marked by amazing successes in the automotive marketplace. The last 27 years of the brand was marked by a complete loss of consumer confidence in the Oldsmobile brand. But, in order to understand the underpinnings of the demise of the Oldsmobile brand, we must return to 1949, as their company was about the become a household name. Then, we need to follow the progression of the company through 1977, when the seeds of Oldsmobile's demise were sown.

In 1949, Oldsmobile introduced a new engine to the automotive world. This new Oldsmobile motor was called the "Rocket V8 engine". This engine was a real powerhouse, and it led to Oldsmobile producing some of the fastest cars to take to the road during the 1950's. Almost single-handedly, Oldsmobile and their branded 350 cubic inch Rocket V-8 engine ushered in the great muscle car era of the 1960's and early 1970's.

On the heels of the success of the Olds 442, Oldsmobile introduced the Oldsmobile Cutlass in 1966. The Cutlass sported the Oldsmobile Rocket V-8 engine, which continued to define the Oldsmobile brand. For just over a decade, the Cutlass and eventually the Cutlass Supreme steadily increased their share of the automotive marketplace. The brand was so hot that the Cutlass platform spawned several other Oldsmobile cars in those days.

Then as the mid-1970's rolled by, the Cutlass became one of the most-loved cars available anywhere in the world. Sales of the Oldsmobile Cutlass were so high that Oldsmobile became the third-highest selling brand of car in the United States, based on the number of branded model units sold.

Herein lies the secret to Oldsmobile's early death. Up until 1979, each of General Motor's brands sported their own branded 350-cubic-inch engine. They had the Chevy V8, the Buick V8, thPontiacac V8, and the Oldsmobile Rocket V8. And, all Oldsmobiles that sold with v8's as the stock engine were sold with the Rocket V-8. But, in 1977, sales of the Cutlass line of Oldsmobiles was so high that GM found themselves facing a shortage of engines to put into their Oldsmobile cars. So, on the sly, GM substituted Chevy V8's for Rocket V8's in many of the Oldsmobile Delta 88's.

The buying public was not notified of this change in the Oldmobile engine configurations that occurred half-way through the model year. Instead, folks were going to their dealership and buying Delta 88's with the full expectation that their cars would be equipped with the Rocket V8. Consumers were none the wiser until they needed to buy replacement parts for their engines. When consumers went to thauto partsts store to buy new OldsmobilOEM partsts for their vehicles, they were shocked to discover that theiOldsmobile partsts did not fit their car's engine.

As you may well imagine, people started raising hell about this bait-and-switch perpetrated by Oldsmobile at the direction of GM. General Motors fired back that both engines were GM-made engines and both engines were of good quality. But, the public knew that these were not the same engines that they had thought they were going to receive with their vehicle. The public felt they had been scammed. While it may be true that both engines performed nearly equally as well, people were buying the Oldsmobile over the Chevrolet models, because they knew that the Olds engines were more powerful than most engines available in otheautomobileses. Customers said that if they had wanted to buy a Chevy engine, then they would have bought a Chevy vehicle.

General Motors found their reputation losing prestige, and their business decision led to one of the greatest Public Relations disasters in American business history. Eventually, GM began to run a disclaimer with all of their Oldsmobile advertisements stating that "Oldsmobiles are equipped with engines produced by various GM divisions".

To prevent this from ever happening again, General Motors decided that they would cease production of "branded" engines. Starting in 1980, the introduced the new "GM Powertrain" (GMPT) engine in all of their brands. With the introduction of the GM Powertrain, thBuick engineses, the Pontiac engines, and the world-famous Oldsmobile Rocket V8 engines were discontinued.

Between the loss of consumer confidence in the Oldsmobile brand due to GM's bad decision, and the loss of power in subsequent Oldsmobile products due to the loss of the Oldsmobile Rocket V-8 engine, Oldsmobile began sliding in the marketplace. By 2004, sales of the Olds brand had been damaged so severely that GM finally pulled the plug on what used to be one of their most profitable brands of cars.

The era of Oldsmobile was finally over.

When I was younger, I would only purchase the 1977 modeOldsmobile Cutlass Suprememe. I owned four of them, and I miss the experience of owning such a fine car. I put 350,000 miles on my first one. The second and third ones were wrecked before their time. The last was worn out by the time they came to my possession. For 15 years, I only drove the Cutlass Supreme, until I had the fateful experience of driving my mother's 1988 Olds Cutlass. It would be another 18 years before I would realize how it was that Oldsmobile made such fine cars in the late-1970's, and in the late-80's, they developed such an under-powered granny car.

Now I know. And, now I want to drive to GM headquarters and find the clown who destroyed the Oldsmobile brand and smack him in the back of his head, telling him "Great job, Bozo."

Automotive :: History

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