Keep your eye on the D-500 . . . IT’S A REAL BOMB! (Sep, 1956)
Keep your eye on the D-500 . . . IT’S A REAL BOMB!
These days, more and more of you guys who know and love cars are “talking up” the fabulous Dodge D-500. And no wonder! This D-500 is a real bomb!In official NASCAR acceleration tests at Daytona Beach, the Dodge D-500 licked all cars—regardless of size, price or horsepower.
This D-500 gets out of the chute like a jackrabbit. Hugs the road like a dirt track special. Hits the turns without any squeal. Handles like a gem.
Though it performs like an expensive custom job, this D-500 is actually the slickest-looking production car to come up Main Street. Under the hood is a 260 hp. mill rarin’ to go (with big 12-inch center-plane brakes to stop it)!
You can buy a D-500 at any Dodge dealership in the country in any body style you like. (Costs only slightly more than $100.00 over standard models.) And it needs only regular Dodge service to keep it in razor-sharp condition.
So get behind the wheel and drive a D-500 today. See your Dodge dealer.
Dodge D-500
AMERICA’S ACCELERATION CHAMPION
No wonder for years the CHP used Chrysler cars during the ’50’s and 60’s as patrol vehicles.
Now it is the Dodge Viper.
That bomb word is a fine example, how the meaning of the words changes during the ages. I mean I wouldn’t buy a car described as a bomb.
Jari, How about “bad” or “sick”? Tha’s one BAD car you got there; the speed it goes is SICK! (It took me a while to figure out “sick” was a compliment on the Scion xB list I hang out on once in a while . . . . )
Or drive such a car to an airport– tsa would have a fit!
KD5ZS: Only if you try to drive it through the checkpoint?
Don: Exactly. I can’t imagine anyone saying “My GTLX-Turbo-VSOP gets out of the chute like a jackrabbit” in these days 🙂
Anyway, it seems that when this ad was made it was a common enough term that evolved over time.
Hot Rod Model A’s in the fifties picked up the moniker of “A-bomb” and the rest is history.
1952 Popular Science
1957 Life magazine
1963 American Motorcyclist (yeah, motorcycles)
2004 Ultimate Hot Rod Dictionary
Okay, so that’s the origin of the expression. Thanks.
Hmm… I think I need to swith to Firefox, as Googlebooks doesn’t seem to work properly with Opera…
Then they detonated the real mccoy at bikini atoll providing inspiration for that bathing suit….
KD5ZS: Nope, sorry. Operation Crossroads at the atoll (which inspired the bikini name) took place in 1946 but thanks for playing.
I keep hearing things/people called ‘da bomb’ to this day.
I don’t suppose the Ford people like the term after making Pintos though.