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00:00Howdy folks, Hank Dunham at Dunham Family Motors and today I'm here with my boys
00:04Danny and Jeff. Boys, say hi to the nice folks at home. Hi. All right fellas, what
00:10do you want to be when you grow up? Danny? I want to run this dealership. Oh, that's
00:15great. And little Jeff, how about you? I want to be Ventura Quest. Son, I've told
00:21you before, you're not gonna amount to anything doing that. Now put that doll
00:24away. You want to sell cars, that's what you want to do. Let's show the folks what
00:28we have. This episode isn't about what you need in a car, it's about what you
00:35want. And for automakers, the sky's the limit. Not just the radio, not just
00:41leather. We're talking options that make you say, wait, that's factory? If they
00:48could dream it, they could build it, and they did. Welcome to the wild world of
00:53factory options. And finally, the creme de la creme of our dealership this week, the
00:581954 Kaiser Darin. This is a rare beauty right here. Wait until you take a peek at
01:03those doors. It'll make you say, wow, that's factory? Come on down to Dunham
01:07Family Mortars, where you're family too. Right, boys? It's not that bad. Hey, that was
01:14pretty good.
01:18Throughout time, humanity has been obsessed with getting places using anything but
01:22their own two feet. We've tried all kinds of things. Until finally, the greatest invention
01:30of all time, the automobile. Moron! These are the cars that drove us.
01:40Ah, the 1950s, a glorious time when every lawn was trimmed with military precision, every fence
01:48was white and picketed. And safely within the confines of that fence were exactly 2.5 well-adjusted
01:55children, frolicking in domestic bliss. Yes, sir, the American dream is alive and well. Vacuum-sealed
02:02in suburbia and powered by a healthy fear of communism.
02:09But while Dad waxes the Plymouth and Mom starts the laundry, something cosmic was unfolding
02:15over those cookie-cutter rooflines. Space. Yes, space. The final frontier, now featuring
02:22Soviet metal beach balls like Sputnik beeping ominously as they orbited overhead.
02:28You are hearing the actual signals transmitted by the Earth-circling satellite.
02:32Sparking a full-blown American innovation panic. And that same feverish excitement made its
02:38way back down to Earth, showing up in kitchens, living rooms, and of course, car showrooms.
02:44This new futuristic technology that you were seeing in the outside world, you needed to
02:49have that stuff in your car. It was a vision of what the automotive future could look like.
02:54Fueled by the same engineering bravado that launched monkeys into orbit, the automotive space
02:59race-race often pushed creativity into overdrive, resulting in designs, concepts, and factory
03:05options that felt more sci-fi than street legal. In the early days of the auto industry, car makers
03:13weren't aiming for the masses. Automobiling, as it was called, was a hobby practiced by rich people.
03:20$12,000 for a car? This you gotta see. It was seen as something manly, and you're an
03:26automobilist. Oh, he's gone 50 miles an hour. As cars became more affordable, manufacturers
03:32found a new way to cater to the rich. Options come into the fold right there. If it didn't
03:38involve accelerating or braking, it probably started as a factory option. Automatic transmissions,
03:44power steering came in, air conditioning became very popular, very common. In some cases, paying
03:50for options was the equivalent of volunteering for a test flight. Volkswagen made a gas heater.
03:55You'd light it with a match, and you would use gas from your engine to heat the inside of the
04:01car.
04:01Yeah, what could go wrong there? Eventually, heaters became standard. But ah, not that gassy VW one,
04:08of course. There were also concepts designed to meet the needs of the moment. Some of the car
04:13configurations that were developed were really around the emerging mobility of Americans. It
04:19was a time when, you know, motels were starting to appear, but there would be long stretches of
04:24American highway where you couldn't really find a place to sleep. Now, you can sleep in any car,
04:28but in 1936, Nash came up with a way for the whole family to take a nap, just so long
04:33as it wasn't
04:34barreling down the road. You can even get your Nash equipped with complete twin beds. So now on long road
04:39trips, you just sleep in your car. And road trips would be on the rise thanks to the Interstate
04:44Highway Act of 1956. The suburbs were getting popular. No one lives in cities. So now people
04:50were starting to commute to work. Some suburbanites were even buying two cars. And at that point,
04:55the sky was the limit. Putting just about anything into a car seemed like a good idea. You know,
05:00what was a big thing? Plug in electric shavers for your car. The GM in-car electric shaver. Plugs into
05:06your
05:06life. You can shave while you're driving. Grooming while driving. Safe time. You know,
05:11you're looking in the mirror and get rear-ended. That is, if the potholes didn't get you first.
05:17As more Americans got behind the wheel, roads filled up, and so did the hours spent in cars that
05:23had little to offer in the way of entertainment. Today, we're used to the concept of having all kinds
05:28of great music in our car. But back then, you pretty much just had an AM radio. Oh yes, nothing
05:34says I'm
05:34driving under power lines like AM radio. But for those who could afford a little more,
05:40Chrysler had an alternative. Plymouth has everything. Even a highway hi-fi record player.
05:45Chrysler had something called the highway hi-fi. And it was the first time that you could take music
05:51out of your house and put it in your car, which was at that time, obviously, an actual record player.
05:57Although you couldn't actually use your own records.
06:00It only worked with proprietary records from Columbia, so you were also very limited
06:05on the music that you could play. For those who wanted to hear something
06:07other than the soothing swoon of Percy Faith and his orchestra, Salvation wouldn't arrive
06:12until the 1960 Dodge Polera. And the dealer installed Chrysler-approved RCA Auto Victrola.
06:19What was great about this one was you could pick out your own records. It's a stack of 1445s
06:25from your own record library. Listen to that. Now that they had tunes,
06:31it was time to focus on the real innovations. Car manufacturers were simply experimenting. If
06:36somebody had an idea to put something in a car, somebody said, well, let's do it. Let's put a bar
06:41in a 1957 Eldorado Brougham. Name the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham. Engineers were handed a free reign.
06:48And free-flowing American whiskey all around. In all fairness, vices in the 50s were different.
06:54Luckies, viceroys, camels were just what the doctor ordered. This resulted in a boom in
06:59aftermarket cigarette accessories. You're driving along, you press the button,
07:04the cigarette would roll down, the thing would light it, and then the stupidest part,
07:10it would flick the cigarette up, and you catch it, you know. Just the idea that you're in a
07:16machine is throwing lit cigarettes. But nothing goes better with cigarettes than coffee.
07:23Volkswagen enthusiasts know about the esoteric options that could be had on the Beetle,
07:29one of which is often talked about is the coffee maker. Oh, the Hertella Auto
07:35coffee machine. A coffee maker that mounted to the dash of your car.
07:41You're out here engineering portable kettles, but no one thought just to put in a cup holder.
07:46And while astronauts sipped from high-tech Capri Suns,
07:49we Earthlings prefer a place to park our easily spillable drinks.
07:53So it's hard to imagine there was a time without cup holders.
07:57After three and a half decades of improvising, we came up with a doctor of cupology.
08:02We had cup holders that could hold anything and would clamp it like claws of a crab.
08:07You go to Europe, a cup holder holds a cup. Here it's got to hold a 44-ounce big gun.
08:12Now that's what I call a large.
08:16As Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard became the first men to voyage into space,
08:21their bravery inspired engineers and dreamers here on Earth to devise new and exciting ways to traverse the
08:27land. But one car dared to go beyond the land.
08:30With the flick of a switch, it becomes a boat.
08:34The Amphicar was marketed to the adventurous American outdoorsman.
08:39Lyndon Johnson, the president, made them famous. He had one on a Texas ranch.
08:43And whenever Khrushchev or world leaders would come, he'd take them and ride.
08:46And then he'd press the brake. Oh, oh, oh, oh, we're going to go in the water.
08:50Oh my God, the brakes don't work. And he would go in the water and they would go,
08:52Oh my God, what's going on? And then they'd go across the lake, whatever.
08:55Yeah, that was his big trick.
08:56These themed cars were made for a very specific customer. But there's another kind of themed car,
09:02one that didn't have a target demo. In fact, it wasn't even for sale.
09:06Well, a concept car is usually an engineer or a designer's idea of vehicle of the future.
09:13They're all set for auto control.
09:15There were a series of three concepts back in the 1950s, Firebird 1, Firebird 2,
09:20and Firebird 3, which were coincidentally all powered by turbid engines.
09:25Everything had an aeronautical look. And the idea that you could have an airplane
09:29on the ground that flew at, quote, airplane speeds, well, that was just unbelievable.
09:35While the first Firebird was a single seater, the second featured two rows of seats,
09:39perfect for families that wanted to feel like they were heading into combat together.
09:44Then there's the Firebird 3.
09:46Firebird 3 from General Motors with twin plastic canopies.
09:50It was brimming with concepts that would foreshadow things that are still maybe headed to production.
09:55Get ready for a ride in Firebird 3.
09:58Full autonomous driving.
09:59Want to sit back and relax? Set in the speed you want to drive.
10:03And switch over to automatic guidance.
10:06Release the stick. And Firebird 3 is on its own.
10:10Wait, a self-driving car in the 50s?
10:13Good luck with that.
10:15Considering this is what a computer looked like in 1959, you might be thinking,
10:19It's not possible. It's physically impossible.
10:22Computing technology, on the other hand, was coming along in leaps and bounds.
10:26But still, well, in those days, America's space program was using something much more reliable.
10:32The computing power of women.
10:34You have a brain.
10:36I bet I can work with it.
10:37But meanwhile, the auto industry seemed to ignore women's intelligence and appeal instead to their vanity.
10:44A bunch of guys figured they'd design a car for women.
10:47Think of it as a series of car options for women bundled into one lovely vehicle.
10:52Designed entirely by men.
10:54And what did the husbands in Detroit name this beautiful car for their blushing brides?
10:58The Dodge Le Femme.
11:01That's great! It's French!
11:03It was just a regular Dodge.
11:05They offered colors like pastel pink and white. They had a rosebud interior.
11:10It even came with a parasol and matching raincoat and a purse.
11:14Came with this purse. You open the purse up and look at the stuff that's inside.
11:19What woman wouldn't love this? Lipstick. Oh, a lighter because back in the 50s everybody smoked.
11:24The change purse. Oh, oh, and the compact. I wonder if there's any makeup left in it.
11:29Hold on, let me see. Yes, there is! It's powder.
11:32Okay, there. I actually did that.
11:36Oh my gosh, what did I do?
11:38There's powder everywhere now.
11:40This is the 50s. Is it carcinogenic?
11:43Hold on.
11:47As the 1960s moved into the 1970s, style became important again.
11:54Leading the charge.
11:55American Motors, they were the fourth largest car company in America.
11:59You know, the big three, and then there's American Motors.
12:02They needed something to help their brand stand out.
12:05If you had to compete for the three biggest car companies in America, what would you do?
12:10So American Motors thought, how can we, how can we make these a little fancy? Maybe we'll get
12:14together with some fancy designer like Gucci. Gucci designed an interior for the AMC Hornet.
12:20It was the perfect blend of European and American. It was pretty successful.
12:24Turns out, the unlikely pairing made a lot of sense. It got a lot of people into AMC dealerships,
12:29so they reached out to other designers. As a result, the world's greatest designers
12:33weren't headed to Milan, Paris, or even New York. They were headed to Detroit.
12:37The AMC Javelin, a really outrageous-looking muscle car, had an interior designed by Pierre
12:43Cardin, and there was an AMC Matador with an Oleg Cassini-designed interior. On the other end were
12:50the Levi's collaborations that AMC also did. So you could get a car that actually was upholstered
12:57with denim. Well, they look like denim seats, but the actual denim didn't meet the fire safety
13:02protocols, and so they actually made spun nylon. So this is dyed nylon.
13:06But it feels a lot like denim. But then, look at this. You got the tags, just like on the
13:10Levi's jeans,
13:11and then you got the buttons. It's just goofy fun. Jeans are all about comfort. But when you want to
13:17impress,
13:17the idea of having leather in your car, well, you must be special. And along comes Ricardo Montalban, the actor.
13:25I know my own needs. And what I need from an automobile, I know I get from this new Cordoba.
13:30Cordova. That voice. Montalban's voice could make you feel welcome. Welcome to Fantasy Island. Or terrified.
13:37This is City Alpha 5. As to the car itself. It was a big, comfortable car. It only had two
13:43doors because
13:44it was for somebody who didn't have a family or wanted to pretend they didn't have a family. That's
13:49actually a pretty good tagline. The Cordoba sold luxury on a budget. One thing that people wanted
13:56were supple leather seats. But Chrysler didn't line the Cordoba with just any old leather. They used
14:03soft Corinthian leather. The name was infectious. Rich Corinthian leather. Rich Corinthian leather.
14:10Rich Corinthian. Rich Corinthian leather. Suddenly, I had to have Corinthian leather. America was
14:17obsessed, begging the question. Why didn't all cars have Corinthian leather? One question would lead
14:23to another. What was so special about Corinth that they had these special cows that made this unique
14:29leather? Yeah, about Corinth. It was something that an ad agency came up with. The writer, Jim
14:34Nichols, who wrote the commercials for Chrysler for me at that time, found, he wanted to find a word
14:40that sounded sort of elegant, that I could say with a little verb, you know. And so Corinthian seemed,
14:47you know what I mean. But does it mean anything? Nothing. Corinthian leather was completely made up.
14:54It was just standard leather from New Jersey. Ah, Jersey cows. The Cordoba somehow turned real leather
15:02into faux leather. But what came next was really real. Real undeniable change. By the 80s, high tech
15:09and digital tech started to invade the automobile. Please turn off your light. Thanks, Maxima.
15:17While the formal space race wrapped up in 1975 with the Apollo-Soyuz test project, the world's
15:23obsession with the stars was far from over. We have ignition. We have a liftoff. And in 1977,
15:29the universe was expanding and we were searching for ways to be a part of it.
15:36This was the era of Star Wars. Even legendary interior designer John Shetler
15:43was captivated by the space drama. What was the most exciting part of the Star Wars movies?
15:49I have you now. And they were in the Starfighters trying to take down Death Star.
15:58Although, John appreciated the sequence from a certain point of view. But it was all interior
16:03looking to drop that missile. Great shot, kid. That was one in a million. The 80s was packed with
16:08legendary sci-fi vehicles, each with their own futuristic interior. A cue the real-life auto industry would
16:15begin to pick up on. You had things like digital dashes. No more were there analog gauges. Those
16:21weren't cool. Those weren't futuristic enough. While some of the vehicles Hollywood envisioned were odd,
16:26one would border on prophecy. Amazing. And it's like mission control. I'm into gadgets.
16:33When Knight Rider came out in 81, yeah, I thought that was fantastic. To see the car,
16:39you could talk to it. Come on, kid. Say something to the bear. I'm sorry, Michael. I have nothing to
16:45say.
16:46It was wonderful. While you couldn't banter with the cars of the 80s, the 1981 Datsun Maxima offered a
16:51one-sided conversation. Datsun Maxima. Lights are on. Thanks, Maxima. Your door is ajar. You know,
16:59when I was a kid, the car talks down. It's cool. You know, that was the idea. And then after
17:04your third
17:04conversation with the car, he shut up. The 1984 Nissan 300ZX. I have an affinity for this vehicle
17:10because this very car right here is the first thing that the dummies paid for that was kind of
17:16expensive. I love this thing because some of the factory options are great, but the number one is
17:21the talking car. It was one of the first talking vehicles. For example, uh, let's leave your lights on.
17:29Lights are on.
17:31But the conversation was just getting started. From advanced technology comes a new kind of luxury
17:36car. The Chrysler New Yorker. That's right. Corinthian's biggest leather man was back.
17:42And Ricardo Montalban had become the voice of Chrysler cars. With electronics so advanced,
17:48it even monitors itself. But unfortunately, not the actual voice of the actual talking Chrysler car.
17:54All monitored systems are functioning. A real missed opportunity.
17:59Love is the creative energy of the universe. Without it, life would be hell.
18:05Anyway, the options of the 80s and 90s brought the focus back to comfort. Meanwhile, the auto industry
18:11took a slightly more down-to-earth approach, offering features people actually wanted.
18:15Their old ideas, the technology is new. The reason why we're putting them in the car is the same reason
18:20that we put record players in cars in the 1950s. It was to make the car feel more like the
18:27home.
18:27What else did every home have?
18:29In 1984, Buick actually offered, as an option, a car phone.
18:36To be able to talk on the phone in your car, it really felt like the future.
18:39Now you were a member of the elite. The name Buick has always stood for automobiles that are well
18:45above the ordinary. And in some ways, it set the table for what was going to happen over the next
18:4920,
18:5030 years. I mean, it wasn't until 2004 that you could finally send a fax from your Audi A8, just
18:56in case
18:57your Blackberry was on the fritz. I think the car industry is most exciting when there are new
19:03vehicles coming when they're challenging each other. The goal is let's do something that nobody has ever
19:09done before. They push boundaries, they challenge conventions. It's an exercise in exploration.
19:15From hybrids to EVs. Augmented reality windshields and self-massaging seats. From self-braking
19:23to self-parking. The car packs itself. It's smart. It's wicked smart. Today's cars are packed with tech
19:29once reserved for sci-fi. Shields at 60%. Auto manufacturers are still chasing that space race
19:36energy. Only now it's software over steel and battery hum over engine roar. Even what we could have
19:44imagined back in the 50s, the 60s, 70s, the 80s, even the 90s, the cars we have today
19:52they're not just cars anymore. They are mechanical and technological marvels.
19:58The mission? Go further. Do more and spark the imagination. Ideally without catching fire.
20:07Kids, don't smoke. And whichever element we conquer, be it space, sea, or land, we're all set for
20:18auto control. We'll be there, embracing whatever the future holds. As long as it still holds a cup.
20:25If you don't have good cup holders, you don't have a car.
20:39I kill you!
20:40I kill you!
20:40You
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