In the mid '50's as foreign car sales were beginning to increase dramatically,
many American Car dealers took on foreign cars. GM assisted by bring in GM
products from other countries. Pontiac got Vauxhall and Buick got Opel.
Because of Chevy's market position as GM cheapest car, GM did not arrange for
any foreign make. Chevy dealers did not seem to be interested anyway.
Cadillac's position as the top of GM's market also precluded imports. That
left Oldsmobile with nothing "cheap" to sell. Therefore, it is not surprising
to see that Olds dealers were also often Rootes dealers.
Not surprisingly, you also find alot of Studebaker dealers sold Rootes
products.
The various Rootes/Hillman/Sunbeam connections are interesting though. ALFA
Romero was originally the Italian factory of Sunbeam. Isuzus were sold as
"Buick Opels by Isuzu", Isuzu assembled Hillmans in the 1950's to early
sixties. A Studebaker engineer, Barney Roos, later worked for Rootes and
designed many of the Rootes front suspensions in the thirties and forties.
And of course Raymond Loewy did alot of design work for Rootes in the forties
and fifties.
I don't know of any factory level connections between Olds and Rootes, but, as
stated above, many Olds dealers sold Hillmans.
Jan Eyerman
1959 Hillman Minx Series III DeLuxe (don't have any information on what dealer
sold it)
1973 Hillman Avenger DL (ex Plymouth Cricket sold by Berger and Berger
Chrysler Plymouth in Pennsylvania)
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