This in-depth General Motors film explores all the fascinating details of the 1937 Oldsmobiles, both the six and eight-cylinder models.

This awesome old movie, which comes to us courtesy of Wilding Picture Productions and the King Rose Archives, is a full 45 minutes long. Wow, that’s nearly Russian-novel length by current internet standards, but we think the material is worth the time. Produced for the division’s dealer sales and service professionals, the film drills down deep, deep into the Oldsmobile lineup for 1937, with lots of neat design and engineering insights. In that regard it’s similar in format to a 1939 Oldsmobile film we’ve featured before at Mac’s Motor City Garage, but with totally different material to entertain us hardcore gearheads. It’s a thorough briefing, we can safely say.

Oldsmobile boasted two complete car lines for ’37: the six-cylinder F-37 with 117-inch wheelbase chassis and 230 CID, 95-horsepower engine, known simply as the Six, and the L-37 straight eight with 124-inch wheelbase and 110-hp, 257 CID engine, billed as the Eight. In a fresh move for the Lansing car maker, the Six and Eight each featured distinctive front end sheet metal. Prices ranged from $810 to $1,060, planting the two Oldsmobiles into their traditional slot in the General Motors lineup just above Pontiac and comfortably below Buick.

There’s a whole lot to see here, but we got a special kick out of the the basic yet ingenious test equipment used to develop the ’37 cars. Check out the clever rigs engineered to explore body sealing, noise and vibration, and chassis roll. Engineers today seem a bit spoiled in comparison. Alas, there’s no mention of the new-for-’37 Automatic Safety Transmission, the Hydra-Matic’s predecessor, probably due to its late-year introduction. Enjoy the video.