On November 8, 1962, the famous Ford Rotunda stood in
Dearborn, Michigan for the last time: the next day, it is
destroyed in a massive fire. Some 1.5 million people
visited the Rotunda each year, making it the fifth most
popular tourist attraction in the U.S. (behind Niagara Falls,
Smokey Mountain National Park, the Smithsonian, and the
Lincoln Memorial).

Ford had commissioned the Rotunda for the 1933 Century
of Progress exposition in Chicago and had moved it to
Dearborn when the fair ended.

Christmas exhibit at Ford Rotunda, December 1955.

On October 16, 1958, Chevrolet began to sell a car-truck hybrid
that it calls the El Camino. Inspired by the Ford Ranchero, which
had already been on the market for two years, the El Camino was
a combination sedan-pickup truck built on the Impala body, with
the same “cat’s eye” taillights and dramatic rear fins. It was, ads
trilled, “the most beautiful thing that ever shouldered a load!”
“It rides and handles like a convertible,” Chevy said, “yet hauls
and hustles like the workingest thing on wheels.”

For the first time, Henry Ford’s entire Highland Park,
Michigan automobile factory is run on a continuously
moving assembly line when the chassis, the automobile’s
frame is assembled using the revolutionary industrial
technique.          

Within a year, further assembly line improvements reduced   
productivity effected by Ford’s use of the moving assembly
line allowed him to drastically reduce the cost of the Model T.

Packard (formerly the Packard Motor Car Company) was 
a luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan.

The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899,
and the last Packard’s were built in South Bend, Indiana,
in 1958.

 
ED DANAHUE

1982

Arnold Schwarzenegger was nicknamed the "Austrian Oak"
in his bodybuilding days, "Arnie" or "Schwarzy" during his
acting career, and "the Governator" (a portmanteau of
"Governor" and "Terminator") during his political career.
He’s 77 years old today.

1984