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N0KFQ > TODAY 29.04.11 17:40l 51 Lines 2411 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 7145_KB0WSA
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Subj: Today in History - Apr 29
Path: IZ3LSV<F6BVP<F6CDD<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 110429/1616Z 7145@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.0.4
Apr 29, 2004:
The end of the road for Oldsmobile
On this day in 2004, the last Oldsmobile comes off the assembly
line at the Lansing Car Assembly plant in Michigan, signaling the
end of the 106-year-old automotive brand, America's oldest.
Factory workers signed the last Oldsmobile, an Alero sedan,
before the vehicle was moved to Lansing's R.E. Olds
Transportation Museum, where it went on display. The last 500
Aleros ever manufactured featured "Final 500" emblems and were
painted dark metallic cherry red.
In 1897, Ransom E. Olds (1864-1950), an Ohio-born engine maker,
founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company in Lansing. In 1901, the
company, then known as Olds Motor Works, debuted the Curved Dash
Oldsmobile, a gas-powered, open-carriage vehicle named for its
curved front footboard. More than 400 of these vehicles were sold
during the first year, at a price of $650 each (around $17,000 in
today's dollars). In subsequent years, sales reached into the
thousands. Olds' invention inspired a 1905 song, "In My Merry
Oldsmobile," whose chorus includes the lines: "Come away with me,
Lucille/In my merry Oldsmobile/Down the road of life we'll
fly/Automobubbling, you and I." However, by 1904, clashes between
Olds and his investors caused him to sell the bulk of his stock
and leave the company. He soon went on to found the REO (based on
his initials) Motor Car Company, which built cars until 1936 and
produced trucks until 1975.
In 1908, Oldsmobile was the second brand, after Buick, to become
part of the newly established General Motors (GM). Oldsmobile
became a top brand for GM and pioneered such features as
chrome-plating in 1926 and, in 1940, the first fully automatic
transmission for a mass-market vehicle. Oldsmobile concentrated
on cars for middle-income consumers and from the mid-1970s to the
early 1980s, the Oldsmobile Cutlass was America's best-selling
auto. However, in the decades that followed, sales began to
decline, prompting GM to announce in 2000 that it would
discontinue the Oldsmobile line with the 2004 models. When the
last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line in April 2004, more
than 35 million Oldsmobiles had been built during the brand's
lifetime. Along with Daimler and Peugeot, Oldsmobile was among
the world's oldest auto brands.
73, K.O. N0KFQ
Another old retired guy
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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