This article contributed by Thomas Paro, from the November 1, 1954 issue of Time magazine.
Red Curtice had followed the progress of the new Chevrolet from first sketches to drafting board to quarter-scale model to clay mockup with all the anxious looks a young father-to-be bestows upon his wife. Now he slowly circled the car, squinting at its lines and lightly touching its smooth surface. When his eye lighted on a horizontal crease in the molding of the trunk, he shook his head. "That's not good," said Curtice. "You'll see that it casts a shadow on the bottom half of the lid. That shadow makes the car look higher and narrower. What we want is a lower automobile that looks wider." At the side of the car, Curtice stopped again. Why should the belt line (i.e., the line formed by the bottom of the windows) be straight and unbroken? When a designer explained that only the two-door models would have a racy dip in the belt line, Curtice suggested; "Don't you think we might try it on a four-door type, too?" As he left the room, molders set to work making the suggested changes. A few days later, Red Curtice was back to see the results. Said he: "That's itl" Those two words were the signal for G.M.'s Chevrolet division to spend some $300 million to turn the clay model into a car on the production line - the biggest expenditure for a new model in auto history.
This week the Chevrolet began its competition
for the customer's dollar in a circus atmosphere whooped up by the country's 7,500
Chevrolet dealers. Outside the Chevrolet agencies, hundreds of machines spewed forth
varicolored bubbles by day; by night huge spotlights swiveled their beams across the sky.
Dealers hung up miles of flags, banners and placards, hired clowns and calliopes, rented
dinner jackets for their salesmen, splashed teaser ads through the press.* They spent
$3,500,000 on promotion, giving away 2,131,000 balloons, 1,016,920 bottles of Prince
Matchabelli perfume, hundreds of thousands of pencils, yardsticks, potholders, key cases
and beanies. With the help of all this razzle-dazzle, Chevrolet Division Manager Tom
Keating expects 20 million people to troop through his showrooms in the next few days.
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