How To Advertise Cars By Making Horses Look Like Jerks: Cold Start

In the early 20th century, when cars were just starting to be sold in real numbers, the competition wasn’t from other cars, be they steam, gasoline, electric, or gaint-spring-powered, but rather from biological sources. Yes, nature had a firm lock on the personal and commercial transportation industry with their very popular product, Equus ferus caballus, better known under the brand name horse. So how does one compete with such an established and entrenched player in the transportation space? Easy. You just need to convince people that horses are assholes. And that’s just what carmakers like Oldsmobile tried to do.

The Curved-Dash Olds, introduced in 1901, was a small two-passenger runabout with a 1560cc flat-one engine making five horsepower, making it a worthy adversary to the horse, which was also a two-passenger runabout that you’d think made just one horsepower, but in actuality could hit 15 hp in short bursts. Horses, unlike the Olds, had a mammalian brain that was capable of moods and feelings, including, as this old Oldsmoible ad pointed out, viciousness:

t

I’ve never seen another ad for a car that pushes the lack of “visciousness” as the primary selling point. Also, the ad notes that the olds has “no uncertain disposition” and “no menace to life and limb” and no “uncontrollable temper.” Really, these are still fantastic qualities to look for in a car today. I’m told new cars as varied as the Kia Ioniq 6 and the Dacia Duster and the Tesla Model Y all feature a lack of an uncontrollable temper, too.

That not enough for you? Well, what if your horse’s “uncertain temper, sudden fright, and unruly disposition” cause a horrible accident, all because you chose poorly, selecting 900 pounds of freaked-out muscular quad-hoofed asshole instead of “mechanical skill and mathematical exactness” that the Oldsmobile provides. A Curved Dash Olds won’t see something shiny and lose its shit and go stampeding into a crowd of people, but some idiot horse? Who knows?

What a way to advertise a car! It’s not alive! It can’t go bonkers on you!

The Curved Dash Oldsmobile was a strange little car; first, it’s one of the only cars that is consistently referred to as model name first, then company name, which is weird enough, but it’s also the only mid-engined Oldsmobile. The Curved Dash was an interesting design, resembling a side-by-side more than a conventional car, partially because it was designed for America’s then-crappy road conditions. Look at that ground clearance!

What a interesting little machine; no wonder they sold about 19,000 of these before the Ford Model T was even introduced. And it’s at least in part because it lacked an uncontrollable temper, among other things.