During World War II, General Motors was making just enough cars to stay in business because they were making tanks to help the war effort. The only colors in cars they made during the war were black and brown unlike the cars of today. The reason they made dark colors is so that airplanes could not spot the cars.
Back then there were a lot more different car lines than there are today. One includes the Dinah Pinard. The Pinard was different from other cars because of how it sat so low to the ground. If you were going down a rough road, you could pull a lever inside the car which raised the whole car body higher off the ground. Another old car that’s not in business today is the Citroen. The Citroen was the first foreign made car to be sold in Aroostook County. Citroens came from France so they had to be shipped overseas. The Citroens were very small. I remember one time one of the guys I worked with parked one on the sidewalk of Main Street. When they got here they had a protective film around them to keep the seawater from damaging the paint. This film was so hard to get off it was unbelievable.
Other car lines that don’t exist today were Nashes, Studebakers, and Hudsons. One problem they had with cars in the 1970s is that the windshields and leather seats would crack and break. This would happen in Aroostook County because of the temperatures changing from cold to hot so drastically. Because of this, people would have to get new seats about every year.