“The Thrift Carriers for the Nation!”

I’ve always been a fan of 1938 and ’39 Chevrolet styling. Mainly because I built a model of a ’39 Chevy Coupe as a kid and have considered the company’s styling from those years to be iconic ever since.

 Of course, flipping through dusty old issues of CCJ for this blog, I was struck by how similar car styling for all makes and models was during the late ‘30s. Willys, Buick, Ford, Plymouth, Dodge and Chevy all pretty much look alike to our modern eyes.

 By 1930, Chevy and Ford were already locked in a battle for market supremacy that continues to this day. Ford held the upper hand in terms of power, with its V-8 gas engine: Technology GM would not be able to produce until the Ford patents expired in the 1950s. But Chevy wasn’t willingly ceding any ground in the truck market to its arch rival, as this feature-heavy 1938 ad shows.