My parents had a 56 golden hawk til 64, mom got a 61 lark followed by a 63 wagonair. dad got a 65 daytona. By 67 everybody got bitten by the vw bug/bus/ghia/ et al...
Title should read “Top 13 American cars from the 50’s that REAL people, not AI, would have back in a heart beat rather than most of todays plastic crap”.
he's a knothead, a friend had a Studebaker Hawk, it ran like a scalded ape, Golden Hawk, love that car. As a kid the Edsel was my fav to spot on long trips. Agree about the Nash tho.
@@TonyGalano-t5o That's true, but most people don't know that. Nowadays you are more likely to survive a crash because of the crumple zone and better designed safety belts. And air bags and collapsible steering wheels.
Unfortunate AI circling the subject with fractured facts and poor photographic accompaniment. The errors are too numerous to list. Do yourself a favor and scroll on.
While in High school I owned a 1954 Buick Roadmaster 2dr hardtop and loved it - I would love to have it back - really comfortable and loved the 322 nail head V8 engine.
Much better than I.....I owned a '46 Harley' when in high school and never owned my first car until after I was 20 (in 1960) and married....a '51 Kaiser I bought for $25....with the same Continental flathead in-line 6 cyl engine also often employed in many fork lifts....must have had at least 80 hp!
Your intro on the 50's, showed a 1974 Olds, and what followed was rubbish. A lot of us would love to have many of these 50's cars back, as they have beautiful styling lines and aren't stamped out to look all alike like many cars today. Those cars all had personality and flair.
Sharing design & parts across the product line, division, or sister companies leads to sameness. Unfortunately, the lesson of shareholder stock value has taken deep root.
Wow you must certainly be up in years Norman as that was a long time ago. The Hudson Hornet was a great car but the '53 model has always been my least favorite of the four years that the model was made by the Hudson Motor Car Company.
@@NormanSilver Yes, that's definitely up there in years. The '51 Hornet has always been my favorite, but they are all great looking fast cars. The trouble with the '53 for me is that it looked too much like the '52 only its missing the impressive triangle front chrome design. Anyways, thanks for your reply - and keep on posting!😊
Your perspective of worst car just reflects 21st century styling mods on what was trendy in 1950 onward to 1960 or so. Some of the cars I owned in the past were a 1950 Studebaker Champion, a 1955 Buick Century, 1 1956 Pontiac etc. I would love today If I had any of these cars. So don't label worst based on 2024 views of cars today. They all got one from point a to point b.
This whole list is one man's opinion and it is wacko. One example ...the 1954 Buick was so popular that it outsold Plymouth, and became the third best selling car in the country, a position that Plymouth had held for years
Remember the old Superman TV series. Clark Kent was seen driving a Nash-Healy a number of times. In fact Nash must have supplied all the cars for that show.
These cars may have been shunned by the public when they came out, but today they are in such demand that you can't buy any of them for a reasonable price.
@@brucetowell3432 - I never said that I didn't know why these cars are so expensive. If you had paid attention to your reading comprehension class in school, you would have understood what I wrote in my comment. But that's the way it si when you don't pay attention.
First family car I remember was a 50 AMBASSADOR. Family kept it until 59 with only normal maintenance. Without Power steering, Mom's Arthritis made parking difficult, otherwise it would have continued for who knows how long.
We had a school teacher that few people liked who drove a little Nash Metropolitan. One day she was working late at school and a few of the football players turned her car sideways so she was sandwiched between two of the school's utility trucks. The janitors had already left and the door she exited locked behind her. So she had to go to a neighboring house and call the principal to contact one of the janitors to move a truck. She was not a happy camper the next morning
The BMW Isetta was a LICENSED design from an Italian design firm. The vehicle was built in SEVEN countries, over 161k units were produced, & its small engine had a fuel economy of 3L / 100 km. It was strictly form following function because of gasoline expense, taxes & scarcity in post WWII Germany 🇩🇪 It was much better than a scooter !!
@@garycamara9955 // Your choice. I know what mine would be. It does rain & snow in Germany. Oh, and where does that sack of groceries go with someone riding on the back of the scooter ?? True, we are talking VERY BASIC transportation. According to the Missing Persons band, "Only a nobody walks in LA."
The Hudson Jet shown is wrong. You show one of those “dream cars” that doesn’t have anything to do with the real car. A very simple research on the internet would have given you a lot of information for the Hudson Jet.
jet liner was gorgeous with chrome interior sills & trim pleated & rolled naugahide , step down floors and was very quick. the clown who wrote this piece should be fired
Where do they find these people who write this garbage? They show pictures of vehicles that don't even fit with the topic and then criticize the design----designs that are actually not all cookie-cutter designs we are repeatedly force-fed today.
Most of those cars on your list are priceless and unaffordable. They also are not ugly and very reliable in their day. Those Studebaker Hawks were gorgeous and also fast with their O. H. V-8 cly. engines. The NASH Ramblers were easy on gas and had a lot of followers like my friend and also my older brother who drove them everywhere, with me in it also. All those 1950 cars were likeable .
The Hudson Jet you showed is a Studebaker Manta Ray. The Studebaker Manta Ray was a one-off custom car built by Glen Hire and Vernon Antoine of Whittier, California in 1952. Assembled with fiberglass molds using 1950s aircraft design as inspiration, it looks unlike anything else on the road, sporting a center turbine-like grille and three tail fins. Sadly, it never went into production.
Exactly- the commentary is clearly about the later 105E with its reverse sloping rear window. That was an odd duck. Most of your visuals are of the earlier and more conventional looking 100E . My family had one and it was good basic transport, although my father was once very rudely asked to remove his "tin perambulator" from the parking space that a rich bastard wanted!
My father bought a 54 Pontiac 2 dr hdtp, it was a tangerine orange with 3 tone matching leather interior. He inly had it for 2 weeks. That straight 8 was really gutless. He bought a 56 Desoto with a hemi. Beautiful and fast. It was red and black.
All those cars had their own beauty and I enjoy seeing them I can tell you one thing is cars nowadays would you call recycle beer cans and milk jugs are pure garbage there's no class hell you can't even tell what country they're from
Regarding the Rambler at 2:10, if the only negative thing the critics could say is "unconventional styling", then it sounds like a pretty successful car, even by modern standards! 😂 I've been driving Nashes for 50 years and find them extremely reliable.
The "Hudson Jet" pictures are of the custom Manta Ray project, built on an early 1950s Studebaker chassis and Cadillac powerplant. ru-vid.comBpX3QXmz30c
That Studebaker starlight is an awesome looking car. It could be hopped up from looking under the hood. Put a small block in it and have a blast with it. The 54 Buick was fine by me also. The waterfall grill was a Buick trademark like the portholes.
I owned four of the cars on this list. The Hudson Jet is not anything like what was pictured here. The real Hudson Jet remonds one of a 1952 Ford. The car shown must have been a prototype or ??? With these in mind, I naturally take issue with what is said here as fact.
From 'Chasing Classic Cars', It was called the Manta Ray, It used a Studebaker body, highly modified, obviously. It was powered by a Cadillac engine. One of one.
The Kaiser Darrin was introduced in 1954. The Corvette in 1953. Only 435 Kaiser Darrins were built. The Corvette was almost dropped by GM as "sporting motorists found it hard to reconcile themselves to its automatic transmission, even though its modified Six put out 150 horsepower. A V8 option made available by 1955 helped save the car, and the Corvette went on to become one of GM's success stories." This information is sourced from the book, "Cars of the 50s" by the editors of Consumer Guide.
The Studebakers, Nash-Healey, Nash Rambler, Hudson Jet, Kaiser Dragon and Kaiser Darrin are ALL Cars I find Brilliant. The Jet failed because they listened to the Hudson concessioner in Chicago, instead of maintaining a "family" look that Frank Spring (the designer) had intended. The Darrin failed because of Kaiser's poor business decisions, and a sluggish 90-HP F-head 6 (the supercharger from the 226cid 6, would have been very beneficial!). Kaiser overall went haywire because of Joseph Frazer's leaving in disgust of Henry J. Kaiser's "Kaisers don't 'retrench'" mess. The Rambler Succeeded TWICE, because they started with the Landau Convertible- to get it into the hands of Lincoln and Cadillac Owners- as a "second car" for the Lady of the Home, then brought-back the Rambler as the "Rambler American" to great acclaim! Studebakers succeeded, but not enough to combat the mess that happened with James Nance and the Packard merger mess (plus fudging their books before the merger, and Eisenhower's Defense Secretary being a General Motors man!). The Nash-Healey was a "halo-car" which it achieved, despite the costs and trip from Kenosha to England, Italy, and return! Donald Healey was too-focused on the Austin-Healey, which caused him to give-up on the Nash-Healey. What killed a lot of the Independent auto brands and cars, was the Eisenhower Recession. That's what killed Packard, Edsel, and eventually DeSoto (Studebaker's a more complex matter).Further, you don't even show the Hudson Jet you dips; you show a Customized Studebaker in its place!
The Hudson Jet (sometimes referred to as Hudson's Edsel) also had too high or a roof line (which the then CEO of Hudson insisted on so a man could wear his fedora hat while driving) giving it an awkward look, styled similar to a period Ford, smaller than that Ford and worst of all more expensive than that Ford.
@@WAL_DC-6B all because of the Chicago concessioner! He sold the largest single percentage of Hudsons across the U.S.A.. The Chicago concessioner said that the Jet (originally supposed to be called the "Bee"), said it should look more like contemporary Ford.
@@nikolausbautista8925 I agree that Jim Moran ("The Courtesy Man" of Chicago's Courtesy Motors) had a hand in the Jet bearing a resemblance to a period Ford. Courtesy Motors was responsible for about 5% of Hudsons total output at the time (about 3000 Hudsons per year). It's just that Hudson CEO A.E. Barit wanted the car higher than the original drawings and plans had suggested. Consequently, the car looked like "a little box on wheels" to quote Frank Spring who was chiefly responsible for the original, lower body design of the Jet.
Unfortunately the people who put them together are fairly clueless about their subject and try to compensate by slapping us in the face with a click-bait title to get our attention.
When I was 5, I fell in love with the '53/4 Pontiac Star Chief 2-dr hardtop: Ivory top, Pueblo tan body; amber Pontiac's head on the hood; metal sun shield; bench seats, and that wonderful 'car' scent. Good thing it isn't listed here ..
Excellent video with just enough stats, thanks for posting. I owned a '60 Studebaker Lark, not very pleasingly designed but good enough for getting around, and always wanted a Hawk.
I remember these cars from the 1950s through to the 1960s. I liked most of these cars. I think they were works of art in their time. During the 60s I drove some of the 1950s cars. They were not fast like today's cars, but they were a nice comfortable ride.
Each summer day I walk from my place to the subway there's a shiny red Austin-Healey convertible parked under the trees. A most heartwarming sight. We have some nice classics in the neighborhood - a couple DSs, a pontoon Merc, a litter of early VWs (including the Karmann) - but this one is probably the cutest of all. Alas, the summer is over, and we won't see it until next year...
Sorry but the Studebaker Hank is a cool design to me . I just saw a Silver Hawk the other day . It was a project car and I wish I had it ! Loved the body design .
I was responsible for the Buick to be painted in Tahitian Blue,(non original color). I did one in that color scheme, and another followed suit also a yacht.
07:00 Comparing the mid-50's Buick with Marvin the Paranoid Android was a neat time travel trick, given that that character never appeared until 1978 in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I suspect poor research by the video producer is the real cause. 😅🤣😂
I remember most of these cars. In the early 60s there were plenty of them still on the road. However the mussel cars that came out in 62 put many of them in the garage or junkyard for good because they were not cool enough to drive! By1963 the sting ray was tearing up the road. The mustangs, Camaros, firebirds, GTO judge and the AMC javelins took over the roads. And of course there was the Volkswagen Beetle and bus! Wild times in the 60s the race bug was happening all over the country. And by 1972 it was all over for the mussel cars. Rebuilds were the thing that kept the 50s alive. Everywhere people were rebuilding 56, 57 Chevy. The 53 to 59 corvette came back. And many of the station wagons were back to the repair shops being upgraded. By 1975 the gas shortage hit hard on the old cars and most were parked in the garage again or left to rusting from break downs. And by 1975 even the car styles had had been replaced with some god awful and ugly cars. Wish you could have been there to see them all, the 50s & 60s were something else ❤❤
The problem with some of the Edsels was the engine was to long for the intake manifold. A friend of mine's parents had 58 Ranger. His dad changed the intake to a twin 4 barrel carbs. The car got batter gas millage and was a dream to drive. These big cars are road trip cars, big heavy and comfortable, Had a class mate who had a golden hawk. It ate 57 Chevys with fuel injection.
I'll tell what no one wants back is this click bait AI rubbish. Narrative dosn't match images - Ford Prefect shown is not a Ford Anglia. The T-Bird styling was on the Ford Consul Corsairs & their British. Could go on, but I have a life
Worst American cars? I'd take any one of these. There are some truly beautiful cars here! Except maybe the Rambler. But they also failed to point out that one of the drawbacks to owning a Rambler was that the wheels were prone to falling off.
You missed the 1958 Buick which shared the body of the 58 Olds with a different splatter of chrome tinsel. The Studebaker Lark was based on the 1956-1959 Studebaker with the body overhang shortened. The 1955 Studebaker shared it's body with the streamlined 1953 and 1954 models. If you watch the reruns of "The Adventures of Superman" Lois Lane drove a Rambler convertible. Clark Kent often drove a Nash Healey.
By the time my dad traded in the 1950 Ford sedan in for a 1956 Plymouth Plaza I think he had to replace the water pump at least 4 or 5 times. So, sometimes mechanical unreliability was as much a drawback as bad style. Granted, pulling the mountain roads of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado could take its toll.
Another AI-generated, waste-of-tine video full of incorrect info and footage that often doesn't match the cars described. For example, the Hudson Jet footage is totally incorrect and shows a Studebaker concept car, not the Hudson Jet compact. Many of the cars featured were very innovative and sold well. The '54 Buick certainly shouldn't be included in any "worst cars" list. It launched Buick's excellent and long-lived. "nailhead" V8. The '54 Buick was the 4th best-selling U.S. car in 1954 (and every year from 1949 to 1954). It moved up to #3, ahead of Plymouth, in 1955 and 1956, then back to #4 in 1957.
I find that the Studebaker Hawk was a very attractive car, very much ahead of its time. And the 58 Oldsmobile while overloaded with chrome looks like a tank.
My stepfather used to own a Studebaker "56. It was a very reliable vehicle and very comfortable so far I can recall. Every time I spot one of this cars, it brings me sad memories of him. Thank you for the documentary.
YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE! OTHER THAN THE BUICK ( I OWNED A '55 MYSELF), THE EDSEL, THE '58 OLDS AND KAISER DRAGON. ALL THE OTHER CARS YOU MENTIONED WERE FINE CARS. ESPECIALLY THE 1954 KAISER DARREN AND THE STUDEBAKER LARK, THEY WERE BEAUTIFUL CARS, THE LARK WAGON WAS GREAT. WHY DON'T YOU MENTION THE '59 CADDY ELDORADO? THAT BEAST WAS UGLY AS SIN. JUST REMEMBER MOST OF THE CARS YOU MENTIONED ARE NOW HIGHLY SOUGHT AFTER AND COLLECTIBLE, IN PARTICULAR THE 1952 NASH HEALY. YOU STRUCK OUT 11 OUT OF 15 TIMES TODAY.
The Nash Healy was a design predecessor of the Austin Healy Mark I "Sprite." This "Frogeye" design with inboard headlights was not readily accepted by the American public.
The BMW Iseta was a LICENSED design from an Italian design firm. It was strictly form following function because of gasoline expense, taxes & scarcity in post WWII Germany 🇩🇪 It was much better than a scooter !!
I never saw the sliding doors, but instantly thought that would be great in parking lots, But i'm sure they failed in the Winter when ice accumulated on the track.
Loved! that 1950 Stude! the airplane like front ++ that wrap around rear window were dynamic && rad! But, then, i was also a huge Edsel fan... is that one included too?
In the 60s smaller size and sleek lines prevailed. In the 70s, concerns over pollution and gas mileage brought on an effort to make a car’s MPG as high as possible. The looks became ugly.
ITS AI... he steal video... types in "give me a 3 page critical essay on the 1958 Oldsmobile" PUTS in a AI voice reader and voila... a video you watch... :)
Very interesting. Edsel Was V-8 only for 1958 Large series Corsair Citation came with a 410 CID MEL V-8 Small series Ranger Pacer and wagons Roundup Villager and Bermuda came with 361 FE V-8. 1959 Edsel's came with A 223 I-6 292 Y block 361 FE V-8. 1960 Edsel came with A 223 I-6 292 Y block and 352 FE V-8.
@@danielulz1640 I think @theprinceofsnj (AT-6?) pretty much got it all correct with the engines though my sources have no information on the engines for the short-lived 1960s.
I saw and photographed a '59 Edsel (windshield chalked as a '58), six cylinder with three-on-the-tree and exterior rotting away, but the owner had reupholstered the front seat in original pattern cloth upholstery and a bolt of fabric to complete the rear seat as well.
I agree, no one wants the Ford Anglia back. Most of the others we’d all like to see again and have a chance to buy, especially the GMs from 1954-1958 and all their excess, over-the-top design and chrome.
