Video: Presenting the 1955 Olds Holiday Line

In 1955, Oldsmobile offered its popular Holiday body style in no less than six different versions, including both two-doors and four-doors. Here’s the rundown in an original Olds commercial spot.

 

 

For 1955, Oldsmobile went all in with its sporty Holiday body style, offering the pillarless hardtops in no less than six different flavors, including both two-door and four-door versions. General Motors had pioneered the “hardtop convertible” style, as it was originally known, as a two-door coupe for Olds, Buick, and Cadillac in 1949. And when four-door versions of the pillarless bodywork appeared in 1955, Olds and Buick were the early adopters on GM’s behalf. In those days, the Holiday name signified an Oldsmobile hardtop model, much as Riviera for Buick or Bel Air for Chevrolet, although these distinctions were eventually discarded.

In this original 1955 commercial spot, the announcer clicks through each one of the six Holiday models that year: 88, Super 88, and 98 models in both two-door and four-door versions. The 88 two-door proved to be the most popular Holiday, with more than 85,000 units sold. One point we found interesting: Our announcer uses the original French term coupé, pronounced “coo-pay,”  rather than our newer, Americanized word, coupe (pronounced “coop”). When did “coo-pay” fall out of regular use in the USA, we wonder? There’s one more item to investigate on our endless historical journeys. Video follows.

 

9 thoughts on “Video: Presenting the 1955 Olds Holiday Line

  1. Flawless editing. You’d almost never know he was in the studio instead of right there at the country club.

  2. The 1955 Olds 98 and Buick Road Master, Clearly the best looking G.M. products of 1955. One and one half styling cycles ahead of Chevrolet and Pontiac with “A” pillars swept back past 90 degrees ( Chevy and Pontiac won’t get this until 1958), roofs that Chevy or Pontiac will never get and with the Olds 98 Styling of 1954 continuing into 1955 a feature called “Sweep Cut fender styling” for rear fenders which Chevrolet won’t get until 1956 and Pontiac in 1957. Ironically some people unaware of this styling feature would put skirts on these cars. Ironically the Olds 88 does not have the feature so Olds put sweep cut into the skirt instead.
    1955 Olds 98 Holiday Coupe below;
    https://dealeraccelerate-all.s3.amazonaws.com/rkm/images/5/1/0/8/5108/396473e7b8195a_low_res_1955-oldsmobile-98-holiday.jpg
    1955 Olds Holiday 88 Coupe below:
    https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hu0EfyBj-uY/maxresdefault.jpg

    • Funny you should mention that. I have issues with the styling on some late Fifties cars. After watching the piece, I was thinking that this Olds was a better than average looking car. I googled its GM mates to refresh my memory, and I have to agree with most of your points. But I’d give the prize to the ’55 Buick. Same windshield, and I prefer the round wheel cutouts. I like the front end on the Buick more and have a distaste for the ziggity-zag side trim on the Olds.

    • I don’t guess I had ever realized the difference in the wheel cut-outs between the 88s and the 98s on this era of Oldsmobiles. I’m not so sure that I like the “cut-out” styling feature on the skirts for the 88. I do think that the cut-out on the 98 looks great.

      Regarding the ’55 Chevrolet, I think I actually prefer the squarish cut-out of the ’55 over the “sweep-cut” cut-out of the ’56 and ’57. It’s all subjective, but I think that skirts blend into the overall look of the squarish cut-outs as compared to the sweep-cut. I actually think the skirts look better on the ’53/54 Chevrolets than the ’55. The wheel cut-outs on the ’53/’54 do not have the “lip” along the opening that the later models do.

  3. I watched a similar early ad which may have been for Ford or… and the presenter pronounced Deluxe as “dee-lukes” in the European way. At some point it was also Americanized and became “de-lucks”

  4. I remember saying coupe’ through the early Sixties. I thought “coop” was an aberration. Don’t remember how or when I switched to it. Although I never had one, I have always the the ’56 Olds was the finest looking of them all.

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