Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Del Mar Motors...A San Diego Connection
Being raised in San Diego, I always feel a connection to my hometown past. How many of you know San Diego had its own manufactured automobiles? Well, check this out. This one called America's lowest priced car, named the Del Mar! Who could turn down $1170 for a 4-Cylinder, 63 H.P. beast? Can you imagine going around a corner in this, the tires squealing like pigs? It was to be built at the Convair plant on Pacific Highway after World War II left the building available. It didn't last long, in fact never really made it into production, only a prototype. However, this wasn't the only car to be built in San Diego, more on that in a later post.
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John,
ReplyDeleteMe, being originally from Detroit and moved to San Diego in 1984-1992, actually worked in this building ( Amongst many other s ) When this was known as General Dynamics Convair.
There were old timers there at that time, but none of them ever mentioned this interesting yet short lived venture into automobile manufacturing. I left before Convair closed in 1995 and I had heard there was "talk" of using the Lindbergh Field plant as a possible site for GM / Ford or Chrysler to build Cars there .( But NOT at the site given in THIS story, which was about 1/4 mile north of Lindbergh Field. Loved working for Convair. Fond memories...����
Cool story!
DeleteJohn