SF Chronicle 1958 Auto show page |
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1958 Buick – our competition! |
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2008 Infiniti G37-S Coupe |
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Bentley to race Bart |
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Every November for the past 50 years, there’s been an Auto Show in San Francisco. This year’s event, at Moscone Center, opens on November 22nd and runs through December 2nd.
Little did we know, when it all started in 1957, how important it would become. Think how different life was in 1957, before computers, ATMs, cell phones, before Haight-Ashbury, with Herb Caen brightening each day in the Chronicle. The Italians hadn’t taught us about espresso and pasta yet, and an old Ferrari was just a troublesome used car. You reached the City of Paris by dialing DOuglas 2-4500. There were no area codes, no dialing of long distance numbers.
At the formal opening of the San Francisco International Auto Show, one speaker was Harley J. Earl, the General Motors vice-president of styling. Since the late 1920’s, he and GM had revolutionized the concept of auto design, and made GM the world’s auto style leader for many years. Earl praised the show, but another remark is interesting historically. He predicted further development of the San Francisco metropolitan area with the introduction of “passenger-carrying jet-propelled planes. Not only will these ships increase coast-to-coast travel, but they will be the means of developing a vast trade with the Far East”. Was anyone, especially in the auto business, listening?
Imagine you’re riding with me out to the 1957 show at the Cow Palace. There’s no freeway, so we’ll go down 10th Street to Potrero, on to Bayshore Blvd. and into Visitacion Valley, following the old Highway 101 route. We’re lucky; our ride is a new $11,000 ($170,000 in 2007 dollars) Mercedes-Benz 300 SL roadster. It has 225 horsepower and a four-speed manual transmission.
The much lower-ranked cars of today have equipment and abilities we could not have dreamed about then. For example, a recent test vehicle was a 2008 Infiniti G37 S coupe. It had 330 horsepower and a six-speed transmission. It’s faster than that 300 SL, lasts longer, pollutes 90% less, stops quicker, has a multi-year warranty, and only costs $40,000 (adjusting for inflation, that’s only about $3,000 in 1957 dollars). And here’s a partial list of items unavailable in 1957: Airbags, Navigation, Disc Brakes, Xenon Lights, AM/FM/XM/CD Sound, Bluetooth.
But back to 1957… at the show, most of the cars are domestic brands. Our import makes only had about 10% of the market. Studebakers, Packards, Willys, and Oldsmobiles overwhelmed the VWs, Renaults, Fiats, Goggomobils, Skodas and Simcas. A new Chevy Impala was only about $3,000 – Cadillac about $5,000. No Toyotas or Hondas in sight.
These cars came from the city’s fifty new car dealers, twenty-four of them on Van Ness Avenue alone. Geary Blvd. was a second auto row, but new car dealers were on Montgomery St., Mission St., Taraval, Ocean Ave. and Columbus Ave. Only nine survive today.
At that first show, the imports were treated like orphans, so Kjell Qvale, then as now, owner of British Motors, decided to start an import-only show for 1958. He endowed it with all the life, buzz and excitement the old show lacked. It was held in Civic Center’s Brooks Hall. Cars on exhibit ranged from the $1200 and $1400 Fiats, $1300 and $1700 Renaults, all the way up to a $24,000 Rolls Royce Mulliner convertible.
We found a photo in the San Francisco Chronicle, dated November 16, 1958, which the Chron has graciously allowed us to reproduce. In the upper left-hand corner is the most significant car exhibited in 1958, although none of us present then realized it. The car is a homely little Datsun, ancestor of the handsome Nissan and Infiniti models that many consider among the best cars on the market today, including the 2008 Infiniti coupe mentioned in contrast with the 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL.
That first show was a roaring success. We worried that holding it during Thanksgiving Week would hurt attendance. But that was the only week available. Fortunately, it turned out to be a very good choice, and that week became San Francisco’s “Car Week”.
Years later, our imported cars gained in popularity, and took a large share of the market. The American brands asked it they could exhibit in “our” show. We treated them better than they treated us in the early days, so we now have an International show again. See you there!
Race Between Car & Train
In the late 20’s and early 30’s, Bentley became famous mainly by winning the 24 Hours of LeMans four times. There was also a famous race from Nice to Calais in France, pitting a Bentley against the luxury Train Bleue, or Blue Train that wealthy Brits used to travel to the Riviera. The Bentley beat the train, and the car that did it still exists.
To announce the 2007 International Auto Show, Kjell Qvale and I intend to race BART from Walnut Creek to San Francisco in a 2008 Bentley convertible. We hope we can be as successful as that original generation of Bentley Boys were.
