VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 Chevrolet history: a detail needed

'ello folks

This inquiry concerns the economic history of early American motor industry. The early motor industry in the world was concentrated on building high quality partially unique products to the solvent customers until Henry Ford introduced the idea of cheap, simple mass produced vehicle for substantially larger group of buying power. This then launched the true motorisation of the world. However, the idea of limited use life of cars, became a little later and I have understood that this is been titled to Chevrolet. I have heard or read somewhere that the current idea of average five year life of a car was first officially stated by Chevrolet (GM) in 1927. And from then on the Chevrolet cars were to be designed and build based on these principles.
Can anybody give more accurate data and especially reference material concerning this? I'm writing my dissertation concerning the development of early consumerism and I'm planing to use this data from Chevy as an illustrative example. However, I need solid documentary data.

Do not hesitate to answer if you have any knowledge on this, please.

Regards

Risto Nurmi
Oulu
Finland

I don't know where you got the impression that GM or Chevrolet intentionally tried to build a 5 year life vehicle. It is not supported by their sales literature, proving ground testing and constant improvement of parts and construction. If it actually was an internal policy I seriously doubt that you will find any documentation for a couple of reasons. One is that Chevy and GM did not keep literature and documents for more than a few years. That included sales, production records. Fortunately some employees spirited some information, records, documents out the back door so we have a little. The other is that no one would want a record of purposely producing limited life product to survive.

Before I jumped by others, it is common to use parts that have a limited life expectancy. It is a matter of initial expense versus service life. There are many examples of the use of the substitution of inexpensive to reduce cost that needed replacement quicker. However there are also examples of the use of more expensive parts that also reduced lifetime. An example is the Dubonnet suspension. It was far more expensive that the solid beam front axle assembly but gave a much improved ride. The early units leaked and needed repair partly due to the use of needle bearings on the shafts. After a couple of years Chevrolet replaced the bearings with bushings and dramatically increased the life of the units. The bushings were much cheaper to produce and install but also increased service life. I am sure that ChevyGene can give us many more examples and also comment on your allegation of planned limited life.

Guess conspiracy theories are not a new invention. We have just taken them to a new level. On a recent trip, I challenged the BOSS to come up with a government or industry action that I could not come up with a conspiracy. So far she has not be able to do that.

Gentlemen this might help to shine a little light on the subject. Chevy didn't make cars that only lasted five years, but changed styles every five years. They were the first and all others had to follow or be left behind. That's what brought about the Model 'A'. Up until the 1990's it took five years from a concept drawing to a car being on the show room floor. And the real KING of planned obsolescence is the fashion industry. Who wants to be seen in last years outfits???


http://laramie.willshireltd.com/DynamicObsolescence.html

Thanks for the quick answer, some light truly appears visible.
First, I was possibly too drastic in my argues yesterday, but some basic principles are already present in these first answers. As I said, my knowledge is currently based on heard comment fore here and there, and I'm after more solid information. The five year cycle in production that SSG26K mentioned is most likely the feature I'm after. I don't mean that cars were designed to disintegrate themselves after five years of life. The concepts life and use-life have different meanings.
Now that the car production was intentionally planned into five years intervals it evidently involves the basic idea of modern consumerism. Customers had to be guided to change the product into new model in short period of time to keep the business running. Unlike 15 years earlier, when the increase of sale was based on the expand in the number of potential customers. Now that the industry had adopted the idea of determined average use-life of a vehicle, it naturally standardised the production to fit it from the economic framework. Otherwise today we would be driving almost eternal cars with stainless steel frames and engines that can do millions of miles, The technology is available, but it would not be economically rational. So there is not a question of any conspiracy theory, but simply raw business. During the twenties the economic potential of single model policy had been pumped out and industry in general needed to change strategies. And I have understood this move is titled to the Chevrolet in the history, as seems to appear also from the SSG26K's post.
However, in a wider chronological view such thinking is distinctively 20th century phenomenon, although its root can be followed all away to the late middle age European pottery production among others. For us this is simple every day life but fore example 200 years ago mostly unknown idea and would have most likely kept fully illogical.
But now back to the original question. The applied web link gave good information, but I can not use unreferred data in my dissertation. I’m not expecting to get access to genuine GM archives, but I believe that several historical research and publications have been made that discuss the GM and Chevrolet. So I’m looking for Chevrolet or GM history that is based on historical research and documentary data. The motor industry worldwide is full of various level publications, volumes, and books, but most of them do not inform where their data is originally from. The same goes with internet sources.


Regards

Risto Nurmi
Oulu, Finland

Rizhto
go to ford museum in Michigan they have on line library for historical aspects of many antique cars. By the way my wife's shoes become obsolete every few weeks and she has hundreds of old models in her pole barn, thats an industry with planned obsolesence

Ken 45145

I would visit Ford museum if it was not over 4000 miles away and thus out of my budget. The published collection of economic history of motor industry is rather poor here. Most of the printed books ilustrate and concentrate on the cars, the products, not to the history, especially economic history, of the company itself. Thus I was hoping to get some good tips form fellow American enthusiasts.

Risto Nurmi
Oulu, Finland

Go on line it is accessible

http://catalog.dalnet.lib.mi.us/ipa...ord&menu=tab144&ts=1253720764356

also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_design

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

try google

RISTO

http://www.google.com/#q=economic+history+of+the+auto&hl=en&sa=X&tbo=p&tbs=tl:1,tll:1920,tlh:1929&ei=slG6SqiMIY3j8QajsrSMCg&oi=timeline_histogram_main&ct=timeline-histogram&cd=1&fp=755ad8a0fea6f9bc

Ken

The Detroit Public Library, Detroit Michigan is the premier automotive history library. They have a libraryinterloan program so you should be able to get information through your local library. The have extensive collection of literature from auto companies plus trade publications. I would expect that the trade publications like "Motor" would have more relevant information for your need.

Free Public Library in Philadelphia PA and AACA library in Hershey PA are also good sources. I am sure they will be able to suggest other possible sources. Don't know if the GM Heritage Collection is available for non-GM employees but you might check with them to be sure.

Good luck

Just to clear up one thing, Ramsom Eli Olds was one of the first to make a cheap car for the masses with the Curved Dash Runabout Oldsmobile in 1900/1901. He also built the first automobile manufacturing factory and used an assembly line to build them which used stations and the cars were moved down the line by hand on carts until they could roll on thier own. Ford had the first fully mechanized assembly line. The curved dash was killed off by Olds' big money investors who wanted to build luxury cars. Harley Earl was hired by Alfred Sloan GM president in 1927 to work on the new at the time LaSalle and went on to start up the Art and Colour Section which focused on appealing design work. That may be the start of the planned obsolesence you are wondering about, but like was said earlier, it was more on visual appeal and not so much reliability.

Thanks a lot for information. With the aid of your tips I was eventually able to find one book that discussed the subject quite well (Making and selling cars, Rubenstein 2001) from Ebrary.

Planned obsolescence is the correct term hmm...

...learning language.