<VV> Car History Question -- No Corvair

[Robby]

The VW Beetle was the economy car prior to the Corvair/Falcon/Valiant - this
was one reason the Big 3 made those cars - to try to capture part of the
market that was going to the Beetle.

Robby

On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Steven J. Serenska
<corvair at serenska.com>wrote:

> VVers:
>
> The Corvair, Valiant/Lancer, and Falcon were introduced in 1960.
>
> Just prior to that, say, between 1955 and 1959, what would people have
> used as an economy car?  By "economy car" I don't mean a car that got
> good gas mileage, I mean one that would have been a lower priced vehicle
> that could be purchased by most anyone.
>
> I also don't mean cars like an older Volvo or a Saab (or even a VW), as
> I don't think that most Americans of lesser means would have sought out
> a relatively exotic vehicle like that.  I'm trying to get a handle on
> whatever was the low-cost family vehicle of choice in the mid- to
> late-50's before the manufacture of smaller, cheaper vehicles (e.g.,
> Corvair, Chevy II, Falcon, etc.) that were priced lower than the biggest
> cars in the product line
>
> Would it have been a 10-year old whatever (e.g., a 1950 Nash Rambler)?
>
> Maybe another way to ask it is: If you were a single mother with 3 kids
> in 1958 in the rural south who cleaned houses for a living, what was
> your ride?  Were there any 4-cylinder vehicles that would have fallen
> into this category?
>
> I tried Googling this, most references to vehicles from this era are for
> models that would be of interest to collectors today.
>
> Thanks for your thoughts.
>
> Steven "my Mom drove a 1954 Chevrolet Belair, but that was in 1967"
> Serenska
>
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