We love these 1950s promotional videos because they all follow along the same line. There are moments where they’re educational, moments where they are completely ridiculous, and (to us anyway) they’re entertaining as hell from tip to stern.
When it comes to spending as much money as you could spend on a domestic car in 1957 (and there were pretty much ONLY domestic cars in 1957) few could suck a wallet dry faster than a Chrysler Imperial or a Cadillac 62. We’re kind of surprised that the 1957 Lincoln Continental was not included here but perhaps they had not hit the showrooms yet by the time this film was made.
As we can see the engineers are dressed as if they are going ice fishing so we can surmise that this was made very early in the 1957 year. Typically the new cars were coming out in the fall for the next year at this time so it makes sense that they’d snatch a Cadillac up quick and then get to work as far as the comparison testing.
It’s impossible to deny that the Imperial was the more wildly awesome styled part of this pair. The both have their benefits but the Imperial was inches lower than the Caddy, it had those wild canted fins at the rear and was more than half a foot longer than the already gargantuan Cadillac.
This whole thing is awesome. The tip of the spear for performance and luxury in 1957 going head to head!
