 1929 Chevrolet Landau. Click image to enlarge |
Article and photo by Bill Vance
During much of the first third of the twentieth century the car industry was dominated by Ford Motor Company. Ford was formed in 1903 and had some success with early models, but when Henry Ford Introduced the Model T in 1908 it quickly surpassed all others. The T was inexpensive to buy and maintain, and proved so tough and durable that more than 15 million would be built over 19 years. Also in 1908 Flint, Michigan-based carriage millionaire William Durant had formed General Motors, and although he proceeded to offer a wide variety of models, GM could not displace Ford.
The tide would finally start to turn with the introduction of the 1929 Chevrolet. Chevrolet had tried earlier to compete with Ford’s Model T by introducing the low-priced 1915 Chevrolet 490 model (for its $490 price) but had failed. Unfortunately, management within GM had also been somewhat chaotic under high flying, stock-plunging Durant, whom the bankers ousted from GM in 1910. He regained control using Chevrolet in 1915, but was out again for good in 1920. It wasn’t until the appointment of an engineer named Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. as president in 1923 that GM’s potential began to unfold.
After the disastrous air-cooled “Copper-Cooled” 1923 Chevrolets, all of which had to be recalled, Sloan set about to reorganize GM’s management structure. He rationalized its car divisions down to a manageable, non-competing five, formalized car styling and inaugurated the annual model change.
He also set out to overtake Ford, and in this he had a critical new asset: William. S. Knudsen. Knudsen had been Ford’s production chief but finally became tired of old Henry’s mercurial management and defected to GM in 1922. Sloan made him general manager of Chevrolet where the big Swede galvanized his new charges by vowing to go “vun for vun” with Ford.
In the meantime Ford continued to lead, but all was not well. Because old Henry believed the Model T was the perfect car, he refused to modernize it. The result was that by the late 1920s Ford was vulnerable. Although Henry finally agreed to introduce the more modern, good-performing four-cylinder Model A Ford for 1928, he delayed its development for many months. This allowed Chevrolet’s improving model to have its first million-car year, and Chevrolet had already plotted its blockbuster move: a six-cylinder engine.
The arrival of the 1929 Chevrolet six was a milestone event. Up to that time, the low-priced field had been characterized by four-cylinder engines. But from 1925 on, there had been a rapid shift away from open cars to closed ones where the enclosed body acted like a drum to amplify a four’s vibration. Sloan was convinced a six was the way of the future.
Knudsen wisely decided that an all-new car and new engine would be too much for one year, so a lengthened 1928 model was introduced, still with four cylinders. The long fan shroud required by the four between the radiator and the engine was a dead giveaway of what was to come.
The new 1929 six-cylinder Chevrolet was introduced on January 1, 1929 and advertised it as “A six for the price of a four.” It was superior to its main competitor Ford in several ways. The short-stroke, overhead valve 3.2-litre (194 cu in.) inline six was smoother than the Model A’s side-valve four, and its 46 horsepower was six more than Ford’s 40. It had fuel and air filters under the hood, and oil pressure and coolant temperature gauges on the dash, none of which the Ford had. Its 2,718 mm (107 in.) wheelbase was 90 mm (3.5 in.) longer than Ford’s, and this, plus four longitudinal semi-elliptic springs rather than the Ford’s two transverse “buggy springs” gave the Chevy a better ride.
The new engine soon gained the nickname “Stove Bolt Six,” because the screws used around the engine, but not for the cylinder head, were similar to those used to assemble stoves, and its cast iron pistons inspired the name “Cast Iron Wonder.” All were good naturedly accepted by Chevrolet owners.
While the Chevrolet was more modern than the Ford, there was still a deep reservoir of Ford goodwill and Henry Ford hero worship left over from Model T days. Thus the Model A Ford outsold Chevrolet in 1929 by 1.4 million to some 850,000. For 1930, Ford revised the Model A’s styling and again outsold Chevrolet by one million to 687,000 during the deepening Depression.
But the die was cast for the decline of the four-cylinder car. In 1931 Chevrolet finally slipped past Ford to gain industry leadership, a position it would hold for many decades, in spite of Ford’s introduction of the peppy V8 engine in 1932. Derivations of that 1929 Chevrolet six engine were used until 1962, and the Ford-Chevrolet sales race continues to this day.
