What was the #1 accessory that people wanted in their car in 1954? A heater.

It's quite surprising what was new in 1954 on automobiles. And what people wanted most and least. But first the new...

Mercury (a make long gone) and Ford had a hardtop with a transparent plastic roof section. Sort of a sun roof that didn't open.

Chrysler had a new instrument panel with red indicator lights for oil pressure and battery warnings. Before long people called them "idiot" lights in derogation of people who couldn't understand how to read the gauges and just wanted something simple. Then again, it is possible that Ford and GM owners called them that more as a descriptive term for the people who bought the brand.

Nash Rambler came out with front seats that would swing down to make a comfortable bed. They were apparently so far ahead of the reclining seat idea that the company went out of business later.

The February 1954 issue of Popular Mechanics also reported the results of their survey on what the average driver wanted.

First the averages. In 1954 the average car was driven 15,480 miles a year (just about the same as now, over 50 years later). The average family kept their car 3 years, mostly trading it off due to declining mechanical condition. Less than 10% said they traded in their old car because of new styles. Nowadays people trade a little more often, on average, but the style issue is a much bigger percentage of the cited reasons for getting a new car. But what did the average buyer want in a new car?

53% wanted economy. 47% wanted power.

76% thought comfort was more important than style while 24% went the other way.

58% wanted a big 8 cylinder engine under the hood. 42% wanted a small engine.

61% wanted a car that would seat 6 or more people. There was a hunger for SUVs even then, I guess.

45% of drivers said they would never use a seat belt. Little did they know that seat belts would become mandatory for all drivers 20 some years later.

You can bet those numbers have changed over the years, but one thing hasn't. They still make lemon cars.

And as long as they do, we'll be here to help you get rid of them.

If you've got a lemon, contact us or call us 1-888-331-6422 Toll Free. Squashing lemons and returning them to the factory is what we do. It's what we've done for 30 years, long before there was a Lemon Law. And we'll keep right on doing it too.

The February 1954 Popular Mechanics magazine carried an article on the 1954 model year car lineup and it's surprising to see how times have changed and have some name badges have just disappeared from the scene.

Out of 19 brands, the cheapest car in 1954 was the Henry J, priced around $1,500, and it's a nameplate that no one even remembers. The Henry J was named after Henry Kaiser who was chairman of the Kaiser Frazer Corporation. The company had gotten a government loan that required it to turnout a 5 seater car whose base price was $1,300. At one point the cars were even sold thru Sears, bearing an Allstate nameplate. 1954 was actually the last model year but, truth be told, they were actually built from leftover 1953 parts which were themselves leftover from the Henry J's faltering sales.

The most expensive American car for 1954 was Cadillac, with a price range from $3,500 to $5,800. The Cadillac brand is still around, of course, probably largely because GM took it over only 7 years after it was formed from the ashes of the Henry Ford Company. That's right, Henry Ford at one time left his company and his financiers took over intending to sell everything but consultants convinced them to instead use the assets to set up a new company, which they called Cadillac. Starting out with a 1 cylinder engine, taken over by GM, and forever innovating since then, the brand still has its gold standard reputation, in spite of some disasterous lemons in the last 20 years.

Gone from existence, but still building cars in 1954? Plymouth, Willys, Studebaker, Hudson, Nash, Oldsmobile, Kaiser, Desoto and Packard. Now, they're just collector cars and some of them aren't that desirable. Before its collapse, Hudson had showed off its Italia, Packard its Balboa and Kaiser the DKF plastic convertible.

That last one is one I'd love to have in my garage. It was remarkable because of its sporty look but equally because its doors slid forward instead of opening outward. The convertible top had 3 positions, including a unique mid-way, half-up position. Its fast style and high price didn't help Kaiser survive, however. Now, the model is hunted down by avid enthusiasts. If you ever see one, tell the owner to call me. I'm serious here, folks.

Even back then, though, in 1954 there was talk of how the smaller independent makers would have to merge or face extinction from what writers even then called "the big three." That's pretty much what happened, too.

Meanwhile, the Big Three marched forward from 1954 and survived in the face of the more recent onslaught of imports who themselves eventually built plants in the US to take some of the sting out of the "foreigner" label.

More recently the Big Three have gone up and down the quality scale with their output, sometimes great and sometimes terrible. If you end up with a lemon, contact us or call us at 1-888-331-6422 Toll Free. Getting rid of lemons is what we do. Everyday.

We recently received a copy of the February 1954 Popular Mechanics as a gift --- it was the magazine's "Special Auto Section" that caught my eye right away. But more about that later.

Far more interesting to a car buff, however, was the American Classics article on the 12 finest ageless cars of all time (at least up to 1954). I have to admit the 12 chosen are still the 12 that would be chosen as ageless classics even now.

Notably, only one manufacturer on the list is still around, Lincoln. But the ones who died certainly went out in a blaze of designing glory.

Duesenberg 1931 J Roadster Murphy
Duesenberg 1931 J Victoria Rollston
Lincoln 1932 KB Phaeton Dual Cowl
Packard 1929 Sport Phaeton
Pierce Arrow 1933 Silver Arrow V12
Stutz 1932 Super Bearcat
Cord 1937 Convertible Coupe
Packard 1930 Speedster
Kissel 1927 White Eagle Speedster
Auburn 1936 Supercharged Speedster
Marmon 1931 V16 Club Sedan
Lincoln 1941 Continental Convertible

You only need to look at the elegant Duesenberg Rollston to realize that these were made n the heyday of elegant luxury motorcars. These were indeed the kind of cars that Hollywood stars and Wall Street moguls owned. And many of them were made in America. Indeed, most of them were even though they had strong European influences.

But the Lincoln Phaeton was truely something else.

It's a quarter million dollar car now and it was no price slouch back in the early 1930's either.

Of course, as beautiful as these rolling works of art were, they were costly then and worse now. To build a car of that quality level now would cost a staggering amount...gee, maybe more than the top of the line Mercedes? Undoubtedly. But you know what? You'd get a remarkable work of art for the price and that's just something you don't get with new cars nowadays, no matter what the price. Now if Detroit could only build a work of art like these 12 classics, without it costing you an arm and a leg, the imports could be beaten back from our shores.

Until then, you and I can only look at the pictures and dream.

A fine car is a balance of both style and performance and quality and price. For too long Detroit has been building cars with one of those aspects and sometimes two but they just can't seem to get all four of them in one vehicle at one time. When they do, I'll buy it and probably a lot of other people will too.

Until Detroit figures that out, if you get a stylish lemon that the factory won't stand behind, call us. If you get a powerfully performing lemon that just won't perform, call us. If you get a lemon that was built with junk and not with quality, call us. If you get ripped off on a costly lemon by a lousy dealer and no one seems to care, call us.

We file lawsuits everyday to protect consumers from badly built lemons sold by dishonest dealers. It's what we do.

Here's a group of classic vintage new car commercials from the 1950's and early 1960's. Note the emotional appeal and sexism that still exists in car ads today. Still, they just don't live up to the appeal of the full page print ads that graced America's magazines for decades!