There have been MANY cars named after places over the decades. Pontiac Montana and Chevrolet Malibu are just two. I had never heard of an Oldsmobile named for a place...until now. https://denver.craigslist.org/cto/d/aurora-1966-olds-toronto/7384230739.html
Aurora? How appropriate. Isn’t that another Oldsmobile? It’s a big Galaxie out there. Sorry just channeling my inner Ford guy. At least they pick a pretty city. I doubt that we’ll ever see a Chevrolet Compton, or a Ford Philly. Maybe a Buick Boulder.
Very true. I hadn't thought of that one. But I think Oldsmobile was going more for a different meaning of the word, an "aurora" being glowing lights in the sky, such as the Aurora Borealis (northern lights). I also think it's important to distinguish between cars named after places where the specific intent is to associate the car with the place (Chevy Colorado, Hyundai Santa Fe) versus a situation where the name is chosen for a different reason but where it happens also to be the name of a place. One example of this would be Oldsmobile "Delta." Oldsmobile chose that name because of its association with Delta rockets and their whole rocket engine campaign. No one would argue that Olds chose the name because there are cities, such as Delta, Utah, that have the same name. Virtually any car name is probably the name of a city or some other geographic feature somewhere. I looked it up, and, heck, there are seven cities in the U.S. named "Ford." Did Henry Ford name his car after any of those cities? Of course not.
Well I’m sure Ford Ford would have been better than New York, New York, especially now. I agree that names like Tucson, Santa Fe, Colorado are picked to conjure up feelings about beauty or ruggedness. I’m sure name selections on vehicles today is so shopped through focus groups it’s ridiculous. As Ford found out using a family name can be dangerous. After the Edsel I’m sure that the Ford Duce would have never seen the light of day for a myriad of reasons. Lol
Common misnomer on those is to call it a 'Tornado', but 'Toronto' is a new one on me..... - Probably used his phone to post it, and has 'auto fill-in' turned on......
. There is a city north of Toronto named Aurora ... my daughter lives there The Oldsmobile Aurora was derived from a prototype they called ... "The Tube Car" .... breathtakingly beautiful. The early Auroras "sort of " followed the tube car design and used the excellent Cadillac Northstar platform .... but sadly later models morphed into ordinary looking cars ..... I owned an autobody shop and considered modifying an Aurora to look like a tube car but never did follow through . .
I worked at a local dealership washing cars the summer after I graduated from High School. It was a multi-franchise GM dealership and they had Chevy/Geo/Issuzu on one side of the street and Olds/GMC on the other side. One day I was in the showroom of the Olds/GMC store and there was an Aurora in there. I had never heard of them. I was a car guy, so I was surprised that I didn't know that they existed. Then when I saw the V8 badge I was shocked. I thought to myself "there's no way this car has a V8". I assumed it was one of the salesmen being cheeky. I was completely flabbergasted when one of them popped the hood. From that point on I became an Aurora fan (simply because: V8) and would keep my eyes peeled for them in the wild. I even (unsuccessfully) tried to convince my folks to replace Mom's aging Olds 98 Regency Brougham with an Aurora. To this day I still think they are a good looking car and representative of that era. I'm left wondering why so many folks, such as myself, were unaware of their existence.
And now you know why Oldsmobile died. The root cause of Oldsmobile's death will probably be debated until the end of time. There were lots of reasons, but one that I've heard that has always made sense ot me is that Olds became afraid of its past. In trying to appeal to a younger, otherwise-they'd-buy-a-European-import buyer, they tried to shed their our-buyers-are-doctors-and-bank-vice-presidents image. Remember "this is not your father's Oldsmobile?" Generally regarded as one of the worst advertising campaigns in the history of advertising. Not only did Oldsmobile try to hide from its past, it even tried to hide the fact that its cars were Oldsmobiles! I don't think the word "Oldsmobile" appears anywhere on the exterior of the Aurora. Why not? Because they assumed that potential buyers would see that and immediately assume the car was a slow boat for old people, not a personal sport/luxury car for the 35 to 50 year-olds.
Agree 100 % - and wasn't there some scuttlebutt around that time of dualling Saturn and Olds franchises to upsell Saturn owners to an Olds for their next car? I want to say I heard something to that fact....
I think a lot of it too was Roger Smiths disastrous 1984 reorganization from divisions to groups. I think that really led to the eventual demise of Olds and Pontiac as they overlapped Buick and Pontiac with Chevrolet. His 9 year tenure at GM did irreparable damage to the company. No fan of Michael Moore, but Roger and Me really told a story even if he took some liberties.
I'm sorry folks but all this drabble about Oldsmobiles demise is depressing me! DAMN YOU GM EXECUTIVES!!!...... Oldsmobile Longroofs Rule! PS, I feel better now!