1946 Pontiac Torpedo

“A car for every purse and purpose.” That was how Alfred P. Sloane. General Motors President and eventual CEO described the pricing structure of General Motors brands beginning in the 1920’s. Pontiac was a value brand, originally slotted just above Chevrolet in the pricing hierarchy. In fact, beginning in 1932, Chevrolet and Pontiac where the first two GM brands to share basic bodies, the beginnings of what we call badge engineering today. In the period from Pontiac’s creation in 1926 through the post World War II era of the early 1950’s, Pontiacs were little more than fancy Chevrolets or Oldmobiles. Buyers seemed very satisfied with Pontiac positioned as a mid-priced move up car and sales of the brand were brisk from the start. In 1942, before the war curtailed production, Pontiac managed to attain 5th place ranking based on production, just behind 4th place Buick. When the war ended and the car starved public got their chance to purchase new cars again, Pontiac picked up where they left off. The 1946 Torpedo series were nearly identical to the 1942 cars and Pontiac ranked in 6th place. The Torpedo series continued utilising bodies shared with Chevrolet and Oldsmobile and could be fitted with either a six cylinder or eight cylinder engines. The slightly larger and more expensive streamliners could also be six or eight cylinders. The body sharing program allowed Pontiac to keep prices low. At $1,399 this Torpedo Sedan Coupe slotted right in between a comparable Oldsmobile or Buick. There are no breakouts on production by body style but 44,909 1946 Pontiac Torpedos rolled off the assembly line. That was about 33% of the 137,640 Pontiac’s produced for the 1946 model year.