keep it on topic
first mass produced car and the oldest american car company
Oldsmobiles were first manufactured by the Olds Motor Vehicle Company in Lansing, Michigan, a company founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In 1901, the company produced 425 cars, making it the first high-volume automobile manufacturer of the day. Olds became the top selling car company in the United States for a few years. Ransom Olds left the company in financial difficulties and formed the REO Motor Car Company. The last Curved Dash Olds was made in 1907. General Motors purchased the company in 1908.
The 1901 to 1904 Curved Dash was the first mass-produced car, made from the first automotive assembly line, an invention that is often miscredited to Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company. After Olds sold the company in 1899, it was renamed Olds Motor Works and moved to a new plant in Detroit. By March 1901, the company had a whole line of models ready for mass production. Unfortunately, a mistake by a worker caused the factory to catch fire, and it burned to the ground, with all of the prototypes destroyed. The only car that survived the fire was a Curved Dash prototype, which was wheeled out of the factory by two workers while escaping the fire. A new factory was built, and production of the Curved Dash commenced
automatic tranny
Oldsmobile was the first auto manufacturer to offer a fully automatic transmission, called the Hydramatic, which featured four forward speeds.
Notable achievements included the introduction of the first turbocharged engine in 1962 (the Turbo Jetfire), the first modern front-wheel drive car (the 1966 Toronado),
Oldsmobile Toronado (1966-1992) - a front-wheel drive coupe in the personal luxury car category, introduced in 1966. At the time, the largest and most powerful front wheel drive car ever produced, and one of the first modern front wheel drive cars equipped with an automatic transmission. The original Toronado was powered by a 425 in³ Super Rocket V8 engine rated at 385 hp, mated to a three speed Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission. The Toronado was Motor Trend magazine’s 1966 “Car of the Year.”
Oldsmobile sales soared in the 1970s and 1980s based on popular designs, positive reviews from critics and the perceived quality and reliability of the Rocket V8 engine, with the Cutlass series becoming the North America’s top selling car by 1976. By this time, Olds had displaced Pontiac and Plymouth as the #3 best selling brand in the U.S. behind Chevrolet and Ford. In the early 1980s, model-year production topped one million units on several occasions, something only Chevrolet and Ford had achieved.
TURBO
The first production turbocharged automobile engines came from General Motors in 1962. The A-body Oldsmobile Cutlass Jetfire and Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder were both fitted with turbochargers. The Oldsmobile is often recognized as the first, since it came out a few months earlier than the Corvair. Its Turbo Jetfire was a 215 in³ (3.5 L) V8…
In 1962, Olds, along with AiResearch, introduced a ‘turbocharged’ (called Fluid Injection) version of this engine, which put “Turbo Rocket Fluid” (½ distilled water, ½ methyl alcohol) into the carb. Along with a 10.25:1 compression ratio, yielded 0-60 in 8.5 seconds (with the manual tranny). The turbo was a Garrett TO-3 with an integral wastegate, the first. Unfortunately, due to the 10:1 compression ratio, boost was limited to only 5 psi, not the best use of a turbo.
The induction setup itself is fairly sophisticated (especially for 1962), with something like 54 separate connections to the intake system. The turbo has an integral wastegate, being the first mass production turbo application to use a wastegate. The turbo has a large oil line running directly from the oil pump to keep oil present to the bearings. If they get hot (running hard) they must not be shut down without a cool down period. This was arguably the most complex induction system build to that time, with something like 50 different hose connections in the intake system (pressure sensors, wastegate, fluid injection, fuel, etc).
Olds attempted to get around the boost lag problem by using a high compression ratio (10:1!), which limited boost to only 5 psi. Fluid injection (Turbo Rocket Fluid) was used (a water/alcohol mix) to suppress detonation. Properly running cars will not go into boost if the “Turbo Rocket Fluid” resevoire is empty. There is an automatic shutoff for this.
first to have on star
1998: Also new was an optional satellite navigation system/cellular phone called OnStar.