Town of Chevrolet, Kentucky 1936 Chevrolet Leader News Newsreel Vol. 2, No. 2

more at http://quickfound.net/

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet,_Kentucky

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Chevrolet is an unincorporated community in Harlan County, Kentucky, United States.

History

A post office called Chevrolet was established in 1918, and remained in operation until 1992. The community was named after the Chevrolet Series 490, the first car seen on local roads.

A 1935 newspaper account reported the town had 800 inhabitants, and about 60 cars, 30 of which were Chevrolets...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Series_490

The Chevrolet Series 490 (or Four-Ninety) is an early American automobile, made from 1915 to 1922 by Chevrolet. Introduced in June 1915, the 490 sold for $490. Chevrolet 490 was an immediate success and established the brand as a big player. The name would not denote the price for long (in 1921, the average price was $820), but it would stay low enough to take a chunk out of the Model T market. The Model T started at $495 at the time. Chevrolet was soon so profitable that Chevrolet owner Billy Durant began buying shares of GM stock with his Chevrolet stock, enough that he was able to take control of GM and merge Chevrolet with it. Electric horns were standard. And by 1921, standard equipment included a speedometer, and ammeter, dome lights (closed-body cars only), and headlight dimmers...

Models

All 490s were only offered with the Overhead Valve 171-cubic-inch (2.8 L) four cylinder, producing 24 hp (18 kW). This would be Chevrolet's main engine until the "Stovebolt" straight six replaced it for 1929.

Chevrolet owner Billy Durant was a firm believer in the OHV engine, as that had been the reason for the success of his earlier automobile company, Buick, which he had taken over in 1904, and used to found GM in 1908. He lost control of GM in 1910 due to stockholder and banker issues, and Buick still had the patent for the OHV engine, but GM did not dare to sue Durant. Durant would use Chevrolet to regain control of GM in 1917, which he merged with Chevrolet that year...