A-Body Oldsmobiles
By the 1960s, the Oldsmobile division of General Motors Corporation was America’s oldest surviving automobile manufacturer. Founded in 1897 by Ransom Eli Olds, Oldsmobile was known for light, inexpensive runabouts in its earliest days. However, by the early 1900s, the company’s financial backers decided to move upscale in size and price, building larger, more expensive cars. R.E. Olds only wanted to build low-priced cars for the mass market, so he quit in disgust, going on to found the REO Motorcar Company.
In his absence Oldsmobile began to grow, in time becoming a medium-price product. And there it remained for decades, comfortably ensconced between Pontiac and Buick in the “car for every purse and purpose” hierarchy of General Motors.
Until 1961, that is, when market pressures forced Oldsmobile to introduce a smaller car. Sales of import cars, barely discernable in 1950, soared in the later part of the decade and now accounted for a worrisome share of the market. In addition, compact Ramblers and Studebaker Larks were being snapped up by a public suddenly in love
