G. M. 5o millionth car produced in Flint Michigan. Rare Footage from 1955
Channel: Do you remeber this?
Date: 2020-04-09

General Motors celebrates production of 50 millionth automobile with a parade through 
Flint, Michigan. 
You Can See also the very first GM car the 1908 Cadillac that started the biggest parade 
of industrial products in all history
and GM's million car a 1919 Oldsmobile and
the five million a Pontiac from way back in 1926
and the 10-million a Buick and only three years later 1929 and 
the 25 million car Chevrolet  t's totally amazing how a place that here represents the pinnacle of human advancement would within just 40 years revert back to stone age tribalism. Just amazing. In 1954-55, our country was proud and confident of its future. It is so well seen in this film.
Many people felt they could achieve part or all of their dreams.
It was a great accomplishment, for those times.
The building of the 50 millionth General Motors car, was for it's time an amazing accomplishment. It represented the cumulative effort of hundreds of thousands of people in the span of some 50 odd years. In the automotive world of 1954, (The film was made in 1954, showing the new 1955 model year cars.) it was a highpoint that those participating knew would not come by again during their working lives. The 100 millionth Chevy was built in 1979, a Monza.

I think it's all too easy to loose sight of the fact that these films were produced during a time when industrial might was expressed by output. It was, after all, sheer output by both the United States and the USSR which had won the recently fought European war. It hadn't even been 10 years since the ending of those hostilities, and many parts of the world were still in literal ruins in 1954.

This film comes from a time when large corporations had not yet achieved that pall of negativity which seems to hang about them today. The people who ran them, the CEOs and upper management didn't make the outrageous salaries we seem to see everywhere in our “modern” times. Much of the negative environmental impact associated with industry was not yet fully appreciated or understood.

You have to try to watch this film in that light, because after all, this film was never intended to be seen by us, the viewer of 2010. It was intended for the viewer of 1954/55. You cannot judge it by modern social, economic, environmental or political standards. Neither can you expect those 1955 Chevrolets that remain in collector's hands to give the same performance, fuel economy or safety ratings as do our more modern automobiles.

I think it's a wonderful film, very out of step with a “today” it could never anticipate.
Digitizing sponsor General Motors Corp.