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I have a question related to the annual model change. Came all new models at a stroke or step-by-step?

From what I remember, back then it was mostly all at once and usually in the Oct-Nov timeframe. There was an occasional late entry to round out an offering or line. In Packards case, there were a couple of years where things were delayed by a month or so. Each marque seemed to have their own time and sometimes they came close together. I remember as a kid it was quite the thing to go visit the dealerships one after the other on a Saturday and grab what literature you could get away with.

Once everything became badge engineered or a world model then it seemed to start being all thruout the year.

In Detroit is was usually the beginning of October. Good customers were invited for a special reveal of the new models a day or two early. The cars were transported with covers on them and parked in the middle of rows of the old models so you could not get near them. The showroom windows had glass wax all over them so you could not see the new cars. Spotlights shown into the air. A magical time.

Howard and Joel, thanks for the information. It sounds like a hot autumn with tinsel and trombones.

When I was a teenager, my best friend's father had the local Pontiac agency. My friend would give me the details of the new models in late August. The local Chevrolet-Buick dealer was also a good friend and let me peruse the "confidential" documents and even let me order the cars. In 1975, I remember ordering a dark green Buick Electra Limited for the opening day...it didn't sell for some time, and I remember the rather pointed joke that Grandfather should but it (he preferred New Yorkers)...it finally sold when a timber man's wife wrecked her Cadillac. The sticker price, fully loaded was $8872--really expensive for the day.

Generally, Cadillac would run a television commercial on Wednesday evening during the news to announce the new models on sale the next day. Other GM cars were announced on Thursday when they went on sale. Ford usually announced the Friday of the same week. There were punch and cookie receptions in all the agencies. The new cars were carefully hidden in storage buildings, or in the Pontiac agencies' case, in the garden at the dealers Mother-in =-law's house.