The 1946 U.S. automobiles were mostly carryovers from the abbreviated 1942 model year. The domestic automakers had all they could manage to resume production of ‘1942’ models, as for the ’46 model year. Any changes to bodies or mechanicals were understandably few and far between. Total sales were approximately 2,187,000. Of this total, Chevrolet accounted for 468,000, Ford 398,000 and Plymouth 265,000.
This was the mother of all seller’s markets, with huge pent-up demand. The war effort produced full employment, and rationing limited goods that could be purchased. More significantly, new cars hadn’t been made since the abbreviated 1942 model year. Every car that was built flew off the sales lots, and buyers often had to settle for their second or third choice of make and model. It was going to take a couple of years for the normal supply and demand to be re-established.
All 1946 engines were valve-in-block, with the exception of the two Buick straight-eights and Chevy’s inline six. Ford had their V8, but this was the long-in-the-tooth flathead. The Buick 320 held the horsepower title, at a mere 144hp.
Well, this is the baseline for everything that follows. Ford and Chevy are clearly the two top-sellers, with Dodge in third and B-O-P following. Mercury, Chrysler, Cadillac and Lincoln are mixed among the independents that have survived thus far.
Chevrolet
The Chevrolet models were Stylemaster, Fleetmaster and Fleetline, which was a Fleetmaster subseries. This was a fastback model, available in two and four doors. The Stylemaster was a bit plainer, lacking the three horizontal trim pieces on the front and rear fenders. Chevrolet, like the vast majority of domestic auto makers, was offering mildly updated 1942 models this year.
A 216cid 90hp inline OHV six-cylinder engine was the sole offering, as was the 3-speed manual transmission. The only rear axle ratio was 4.11:1. Though the engine was a six cylinder, it did have overhead valves, which was not common at this time.
Approximate sales: 398,000; industry rank: 2nd.
4.11:1 Rear-end? Aren’t those Racing Gears?
Yeah, in the later ‘50’s and ‘60’s they were, but not at this time! You had a big 90 hp to haul around a ton-and-a-half car, so you very much needed the gearing advantage. There wasn’t any such thing as cruising on the highway at 70+ mph, either. As the era progressed, we would see higher (lower numbered) rear-end ratios, as engines became more powerful. Soon, 4.11:1 gearing would mean you were seriously into acceleration!
Low gear ratios were nothing new for cars. In the 1920’s and ‘30’s, ratios close to and over 5:1 were not uncommon. The 1930 Cadillac 353 had a 5.08:1 ratio, and over 4,600 lbs. for its 95 hp V8 to motivate. Can you imagine this boat with a 3.23 rear-end? 0 to 60 would be measured with a calendar!
This advertisement is interesting for one reason. For two reasons. First, the Marlboro man makes an appearance.
Second, see the red circled text. You didn’t have to shift your Chevy solely with your own muscle strength. No, no, no! The Vacuum-Powered-Shift used engine manifold vacuum and a vacuum servo to assist with the moving of the shifter forks. The shift lever the driver controlled only had a couple of inches of travel and was very easy to operate.
Information that I’ve seen indicates this was a ’40 – ’48 feature and that it was standard.
Remember that even though the was over, there was still rationing and other controls. This came under the jurisdiction of the O.P.A., the Office of Price Administration.
I think if you’ve never seen a car from this era with a (front) door open, it might be hard to imagine how it works with the huge separate fenders. Well, here’s a picture it.
Look at the 4-door Chevy in the ad above, and then compare the 4-door Buick below (rear view). The Chevy rear doors are curved around the rear fenders, while the Buick doors include part of the rear fenders. Oldsmobile followed suit with Buick, while Pontiac used the same styling that Chevy did for their doors.
Buick
Buick models were very popular before the war and continued to be afterward. The 1946 Buick models were also continuations of the interrupted 1942 models. The ’46 models included Special, Super and Roadmaster. The Special was the entry level model, while the Roadmaster was the top-of-the-line model, each with its own eight-cylinder inline OHV engine. That last point is noteworthy, as overhead valve designs were not in widespread use yet. The Super, placed in the middle, was the larger body style with the Special engine. It accounted for a huge share of the sales. A 3-speed manual transmission was the sole offering.
Approximate sales: 154,000; industry rank: 5th.
Prior to WWII Buick offered some models with dual 2bbl carburetors; this practice was not continued in the post-war period. Stromberg carburetors used on the upper series had venturi diameters 3/32″ larger than those of the lower series. I can’t verify if this same practice applied to Carter carburetors.
I’ll Show You a ‘Happy Salute’!
The small text says “That’s why you see Buick owners hailing each other in happy salute when they pass on the road—they’re brothers in a common bond of satisfaction others can’t quite know”. This was quite a load of marketing crap, I think. Now if someone older than me can relate to me how they experienced this ‘back in the day’ as a Buick owner (or passenger), I’ll gladly stand corrected.
I guess that was a weak attempt at a play on words.
The text highlighted in red is interesting. I’m not an aircraft mechanic, but my gut feeling is that this is a bit of advertising fluff.
Radial engines were air-cooled, and had some tolerances that were looser than an equivalent liquid-cooled engine. I suspect that’s where they get this, although it’s not really intellectually honest, is it?
Hey, I’ve been wrong before! Am I off-base about this?
Oldsmobile
The Oldsmobile models for this year were the Special, Dynamic and Custom Cruiser. A 3-speed manual transmission was standard, with the four speed fully automatic Hydra-Matic available in any model. The Dynamic 70 series was the biggest seller. Models 60 and 76 were six-cylinder powered, with the 78 and the 90 getting the straight-8 engines.
Approximate sales: 118,000; industry rank: 7th.
Olds Naming Oddity
Oldsmobile series naming was a bit different than most automakers. Series numbers tended to be 60’s, 70‘s, 80’s and 90’s, bottom to top. There wasn’t always a 60 series or a 70 series, and the top 90 series was usually named ‘98’. The second digit referred to the number of engine cylinders for available engines, so was a ‘6’ or an ‘8’. After 1951 the 6-cylinder Olds engines were gone, and the second digit was always an ‘8’. The styling of the 98 series often reflected the overall Olds styling for the next model year.
“Look! Someone stole my clutch pedal!”
Olds dedicated a lot of their advertising to the Hydra-Matic. This made sense, as automatic transmissions were in their infancy and were not yet widely available.
Hydra-Matic Transmission
Oldsmobile was chosen to field test the new Hydra-Matic fully automatic transmission, rather than Cadillac. It was desired that any disasters with this transmission be put on Olds, rather than Cadillac. Going this route would also allow more transmission units to be tested, as Olds outsold Cadillac. It made its appearance in 1940.
The Hydra-Matic had four forward speeds, plus reverse. It incorporated a fluid coupling, which did not increase torque like a torque converter did. The 4th gear was a 1.00:1 ratio. The transmission was used during WWII, in a variety of armored vehicles, including tanks. Other fully-automatic transmissions of this era, like the Buick Dyna-Flow and the Chevrolet Powerglide, were one- or two-speed units that utilized torque converters.
This transmission had virtually nothing in common with later Hydra-Matic transmissions, except the name.
These newspaper clippings are from the November 26, 1939, Carlsbad Current-Argus, Carlsbad, New Mexico. This might be the first view some had of the new-for-1940 Hydra-Matic-Drive. Note the ‘Hi-Test Glass’ article that was included as an aside; it’s kind of interesting!
I don’t know if the use of a feminine model in this advertisement was intentional, but I suspect so. You have to remember that the older manual transmissions could be a real pain in the butt to shift at times and a lot of the ladies left this to the man of the house to manage.
Just $57 additional for the Hydra-Matic! That’s actually just over $1,200 in 2022 dollars. Get a load of the phone number: “13”. Yep, just 13! Carlsbad had about 7,000 people at this time, and only about 40% of homes nationwide had telephones. I did a scan through the entire paper to see if there were any three or four-digit numbers, and I found none. However, I did find this car-related gem:
‘Better Oil’
Don’t miss the text boxes at the left. Basically, the message is “Our oil is better because it’s older”! And yes, Sinclair is still using the brontosaurus as their mascot. I know that when I was a kid, we thought that oil was made of ancient dinosaurs, not plant material.
When is a Brontosaurus not a Brontosaurus?
In the late 19th century (the 1800’s for you Idahoans) there was a fossil war going on between two groups of paleontologists, which sometimes led to a rush to publish findings. The 1879 finding of a set of fossils introduced the world to ‘Brontosaurus’.
There were later debates in the paleontological community (fun guys, I’m sure) regarding the naming, as fossil skulls were sometimes associated with the wrong sets of fossils. Sometime in the 20th century, the name ‘Brontosaurus’ was deemed to be invalid. Much later, I guess when more fossils and information were available, this decision was reconsidered, and the name Brontosaurus was revalidated.
I have to say, the whole Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, etc. thing has always given me a headache. Guess that’s why I didn’t go into that field.
Suffice to say, that there all manner of extinct animals that resembled one another. If you could magically view many of these different sauropods together, you’d see differences in size, body shape, neck length, head shape and the like.
Here’s a visualization of a skeleton. I’m not positive which genus (?) this belongs to, but I’ve kinda lost interest at this point. Dinos are cool and interesting, for sure, but the details!
Pontiac
Pontiac entered the post war era with two models, Torpedo and Streamliner. Both series were available as either a six cylinder or an eight cylinder. The only transmission available was a 3-speed manual, with column shift. Available axle ratios were 3.9:1 (“economy”) and 4.55:1 (“mountain”).
One interesting option was a NoRol (also seen as No-Rol) device that was (at least originally) made by Wagner Electric. This device was designed to assist drivers when having to stop on a hill. It was installed on the master cylinder and it kept the brake lines pressurized until the driver let out the clutch. So, all you had to do was to press the brakes and push the clutch in. You could then take your foot off of the brake pedal, while keeping the clutch depressed, and use your right foot for the accelerator when it was time to go. Quite an ingenious device.
Approximate sales: 138,000; industry rank: 6th.
This body style was the ‘fastback’ of the 1940’s. It was a dated look and the clock was ticking. The day would come soon when there were no such models anymore.
“…still a performance leader…”. Performance? From Pontiac in 1946? Yeah, like a 107hp straight eight. There’s some performance, let me tell you!
‘Many notable improvements’. Like, uh, well, uh, like…crap! I know there were some, but I can’t think of them right now. My brain tends to lock-up under pressure… There must be some.
Silver Streak
Pontiac continued the “silver streak” theme they had introduced in 1935. This consisted of thin, parallel silver lines running down the center of the hood and the trunk lid. Though it may sometimes appear as such, “Silver Streak” is not a model name!
Chrysler
For 1946 the Chrysler series were Royal, Windsor, Saratoga and New Yorker. The two lower tier series had a shorter wheelbase and offered a couple of models on an extra-long wheelbase.
The models were moderately updated from their pre-war predecessors. The front fenders now flowed back into the door panels. The bumpers and grille were new as well. The Royal and Windsor received the 250cid L-head six, while the Saratoga and New Yorker got the 323cid L-head eight. The optional Fluid Drive transmission was a “semi-automatic” transmission, one of a series of such transmissions offered by the Chrysler corporation, prior to offering a fully-automatic trans. These were three or four-speed transmissions, with a clutch, but with an added fluid coupling that spared the driver much of the clutch work needed for stopping and starting. The fluid coupling did not provide any torque multiplication.
Approximate sales: 83,000; industry rank: 10th.
A fair question would be “Just what the hell is ‘gyrol fluid drive’?” Oh, those silly marketing people! Always making up fully little names! Yeah, and there was probably more than a little reefer involved!
I looked up ‘gyrol’ and concluded it’s most often used when playing Scrabble. Go figure.
The movie Reefer Madness has already been out for a decade. The Chrysler ad guys should have known better.
You might try to catch this movie on the net. It’s been widely acclaimed as one of the worst movies of all time, right up there with Trolls II and Monster Dog.
Dodge
The 1946 Dodge series were Deluxe and Custom. The Dodge offerings were not much changed from the 1942 models, but one notable exception was the front fenders now flowing back into the door area. It was hard to tell the two series apart, as the Customs were mostly Deluxes with a few more options and upgrades.
The lone engine was a 230cid L-head inline six of 102hp. A 3-speed manual trans was standard, with Fluid-Drive optional.
Approximate sales: 163,000; industry rank: 3rd.
Fluid Drive and Semi-Auto Transmissions
Oldsmobile and Cadillac had fully auto transmissions before the war, and Buick would introduce their Dynaflow in 1948. Chrysler attempted to compete with a slew of ‘semi-automatic’ transmissions. I don’t know about back in the day, but here in the 21st century looking back, there’s a ton of confusion regarding these offerings. Since 1940 Chrysler had been offering 3-speed manuals, 3-speed manuals with overdrive, and a small handful of 4-speed transmissions with semi-automatic shifts.
All of these semi-auto units used sliding gears, not planetary, and all had clutches. Some had torque converters, and some had fluid-couplers, which were torque converters without stators. Others were vacuum operated, and some were hydraulically operated. Various names were used by Chrysler, Dodge and DeSoto.
Here’s the Admiral explaining to the grandkids why this is actually a ship, not a car. It won’t be long before Mom realize he’s escaped, and she’ll have to herd him back into his room.
Plymouth
The post-war Plymouth offerings were Deluxe Six and Special Deluxe Six. These were known as the “series P-15”. They were about as plain and unexciting as cars could be, but they were affordable and reliable.
The only engine was a 95hp 218cid L-head inline six and the sole transmission was a manual 3-speed manual. As the low-cost Chrysler corporation brand, there was no Fluid-Drive trans available.
Approximate sales: 265,000; industry rank: 3rd.
Well, if I travel there, I’m probably going to want to travel back, too… Real savvy marketing here, Plymouth!
“Even greater economy and performance result from a long list of new engine features”. Uh, the 218cid inline six had been in production for freakin’ ever by ’46! This sounds like a total heapin’ steamy pile of marketing doo-doo.
I guess maybe the high-priced cars weren’t fun to drive? Plymouth is clearly catering to the ladies here, which seems to be a bit uncommon in this era.
Ford
The Ford offerings for 1946 were not much changed from those of 1942. The series were Deluxe and Super Deluxe, both having 6-cylinder and V8 subseries. The Super Deluxe outsold the Deluxe by more than three to one.
Two L-head engines were available, an inline six of 90hp and a 239cid V8 of 100 hp. A 3-speed manual was the only trans offered.
Approximate sales: 468,000; industry rank: 1st.
Vee Eight?
This was the only V8 engine available, at least to the average buyer. Yeah, Cadillac had a 346cid V8, but those vehicles were priced at three times the cost of a Ford; not what you’d call affordable.
It was still a valve-in-block design, but this was truly a revolutionary engine. We just had to wait a bit longer for ‘V8’ to be paired with ‘OHV’, then the real excitement would begin. See Pre-Muscle Car Era Engines for information on the Ford 239 V8 flathead.
Holley Carburetors
Originally known as the Holley Motor Company, Holley was started in 1896 by brothers George and Earl Holley. The Bradford, PA company marketed their first car, the Motorette, in 1902. Total sales exceeded 600 units.
Their first carburetor externally marketed was in 1904, for Oldsmobile. After manufacturing carburetors for Ford, the company became the Holley Carburetor Company. In 1913, over half the cars sold in the US had Holley carburetors. The model 4150 4bbl was introduced on the 1957 Ford Thunderbird. The famous Double Pumper was first seen in the ‘60’s, and the Dominator came to market in 1968. The 2bbl carbs seen on the Corvette and Mopar 3x2bbl setups were manufactured by Holley.
This advertisement is pretty plain and non-specific. Not too persuasive, I’d say. Obviously, Ford’s marketing theme at this time was “There’s a Ford in your future”, complete with a crystal ball. (I’ve never come across a real crystal ball; have you?)
Well, this is creative, I guess, but that’s about all, and I don’t see much here to convince anyone to buy a Ford, do you?
Mercury
Mercury had just one series, the 69M. A 239cid L-head V8 was the only engine offering. A 3-speed manual was the sole transmission. The ‘46 Mercury’s were almost identical to the ‘42’s. One interesting option was a radio with foot control. Liquamatic drive, which was available before the war, was no longer offered.
Approximate sales: 87,000; industry rank: 10th.
Comfort, vision-safety and fun! More of everything you want with Mercury! Happy kids leaving home for school. Where are the backpacks? Didn’t kids have backpacks in the ‘40’s?
1946 Engine Specs
1946 Newspaper Ads
This ad is encouraging you to sell your existing car and buy new. The only problem is that the supply of new car was extremely limited, as the next ad points out.
I would have to agree with this text that only 1 in 10 people who want a new car this year will be able to buy one, due to limited supply. Here, they’re encouraging you to take your existing car to the dealer for service, thus prolonging its life.
We’re not covering the pre-war cars here, but I’m going to put this article from the same 1939 Carlsbad Current-Argus issue as above under Oldsmobile. This was the first indication people had that the car tops with fabric or canvas and wood center sections were going away, being replaced by the solid steel tops that we’ve enjoyed ever since.
