Oldsmobile was an automobile brand made by the General Motors Company (GM), a United States automaker. For more than 100 years, Oldsmobile was among the world’s most popular and widely recognized car brands. Olds Motor Works created one of the world’s first assembly lines, building “horseless carriages” in its Detroit factory in 1901. Classic Olds automobiles include the 88, Valiant, and Cutlass.
The American automaker Ransom E. Olds founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company in 1897. The company was renamed Olds Motor Works in 1899. In its early years, Olds was the biggest seller of gasoline-powered cars in the United States. In 1905, two Olds Curved Dashes gained fame during a transcontinental race from New York City to Portland, Oregon. The Curved Dash was an automobile named for its tobogganlike wooden body. In 1908, Olds Motor Works became part of GM. Cars from Olds Motor Works were originally known as Olds automobiles, but the term Oldsmobile became the common and later official name of the company.
The 1910 Olds Limited Touring offered goatskin upholstery, a speedometer, and a clock. The Limited gained fame—and its name—for defeating the 20th Century Limited train in a 1910 race from Albany, New York, to New York City. During World War I (1914-1918), Olds produced more than 2,000 field kitchens (mobile trailers for serving meals to soldiers) for the U.S. Army.
In the 1920’s, Oldsmobile began featuring chrome-plated trim on its automobiles. In the 1930’s, the company introduced “Knee Action” independent front suspension. This feature helped produce a smoother ride. The company also started putting hydraulic (fluid-powered) brakes rather than mechanical brakes on its vehicles. Oldsmobile also began its double-digit model-naming system. The first number represented the body style, and the second was the number of cylinders in the engine. For example, a body type nine (the largest) with an eight-cylinder engine was an Olds 98. See Automobile (The engine block) .
In 1937, Olds debuted the “Automatic Safety Transmission.” This semiautomatic transmission shifted simply from “low” (first and second gears) to “high” (third and fourth). Earlier Olds automobiles came with manual transmissions, which required drivers to shift between each gear. In 1940, Oldsmobile offered the “Hydra-Matic” drive, the industry’s first fully automatic transmission. See Transmission .
During World War II (1939-1945), the U.S. government halted automobile production to focus on wartime needs. From early 1942 to August 1945, Oldsmobile and other GM factories turned out ammunition, armored cars, guns, tanks, warplanes, and other military equipment. Wartime Oldsmobile posters encouraged the war production effort with the slogan “Keep ‘em Firing!” After the war, Oldsmobile produced the Valiant, a model adapted to the needs of drivers with disabilities—specifically, disabled veterans returning from the war. Oldsmobile took orders to make each Valiant according to a particular driver’s needs. Cars were then picked up or delivered to a hospital or home.
Oldsmobile introduced the famous “Rocket” V8 engine in 1949. The 1953 Starfire 98 was Oldsmobile’s “dream car.” The sporty Starfire had a fiberglass body, a powerful “Rocket” engine, and a wraparound windshield. The 1960’s saw Oldsmobile trim down and speed up. The 1962 Jetfire sported the first turbocharged engine, which was used to boost performance. The 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado was the first modern-day front-wheel drive car. Collision airbags first appeared in the 1973 Toronado.
In the 1970’s, stricter pollution standards and fuel crises turned the auto industry toward smaller, more fuel-efficient models. Oldsmobile’s decision to create alternate diesel-engine cars proved disastrous because the engines were unreliable. In 1980, Oldsmobile and GM were sued for negligence (carelessness) in producing defective automobiles, and sales dropped. An increase in automobile imports from Europe and Asia further decreased GM’s sales. Oldsmobile introduced a series of new vehicles in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but sales continued to decline. In 2000, GM decided to discontinue the Oldsmobile brand. The final Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line in Lansing, Michigan, in April 2004.
See also General Motors Company ; Olds, Ransom Eli .
