As most of you rightly know, there was no domestic auto production during the most serious years of the United States’ involvement in fighting WWII. The entire industrial might of the nation was needed to supply our army and the armies of the allies to defeat the Axis powers. This video is interesting because it shows the very brief period when cars and munitions were being made by the same companies before wartime production ended automobile manufacturing until after the war.
The ad shows that Oldsmobile is putting the defense of the nation ahead of their own interest in building cars, proudly telling the viewers that the plants are making war materials….and oh by the way, the new 1942 Oldsmobile models are coming as well! In typical fashion we are guessing that this ad was run at the tail end of 1941 or very early in 1942 because it was early February 1942 when the last Olds rolled off the line until after the war.
The 1942 cars were not the most visually appealing Oldsmobiles ever made. The massive front end was kind of weird looking although the dual level bumper does seem like it would make it easy to drive this car through a house, a brick wall or something even more stout than that without mussing the paint.
The one takeaway we have from this video is the fact that there was (for a short time) war production and automotive production going on. It was not about completely stopping one to start the other…at first. Ugly or not, the 1942 Olds was an important car and that face would be greeting Americans for more than half a decade before they would see a new one.
