Tag: 1962

1962-63 Oldsmobile Jetfire: With Turbo Rocket Fluid!

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Note: Another one from Tony LaHood! The featured car was spotted by yours truly at the Oldsmobile Nationals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, back in 2015. Enjoy. -TK

Our youngish readers might find it hard to believe that in the early 1960s the idea of a turbocharged production car was only slightly less fantastic than that of a pocket-size wireless flip phone. But in 1962, General Motors (Yes, there was a time when GM was a real innovator) rolled out not one but two such production passenger vehicles: the Corvair Monza Spyder, and the Oldsmobile Jetfire, America’s first turbocharged volume-production cars.

The Jetfire was essentially a 1962 F-85 Cutlass hardtop coupe (Holiday Coupe, in Olds-speak) with specific interior and exterior trim and, of course, a big surprise under the hood.

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1962 Cadillac Park Avenue: The Garageable Sedan de Ville

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In the early Sixties, Cadillac Motor Division received a bit of flack from some of their customers as to the growing girth of their offerings. Said irritated customers, living like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons in their Victorian era mansions in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, were finding that their new Cadillacs were too big for their garages. So Cadillac decided to offer a new model. A shorter Cadillac.

And so, for the 1961 model year, there was a new model, the short deck Series Sixty-Two sedan. (UPDATE: The ’61 was actually in the de Ville series, the brochure showing it as a Sixty-Two series is incorrect. Thanks Dave Smith for the info!). Its primary difference was a shrunken rear deck, all the better to fit in 1920s-era garages and to assist in parallel parking in Manhattan or on Boylston Street in Boston. Standard equipment and interior trim were just as elegant and luxurious as the regular, long-tailed model. That ought to show those moneyed East coast swells, right?

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