Series 60 and the Oldsmobile Series 70. Oldsmobile was chosen to introduce the Hydra-Matic for two reasons: economies of scale—Oldsmobile produced more cars than Cadillac and Buick at the time, thus providing a better test base—and to protect the reputation of Cadillac and Buick in case of a market failure of the new transmission. Advertising proclaimed it "the greatest advance since the self-starter." In 1940, the Hydra-Matic was a US$57.00 option ($ in dollars ), rising to US$100.00 ($ in dollars ) for 1941. In 1941, it also became an option on Cadillacs for $125.00 ($ in dollars ). Almost 200,000 had been sold by the time passenger car production was halted for wartime production in February 1942. During the war, the Hydramatic was used in a variety of military vehicles, including the M5 Stuart tank (where two of them were mated to twin Cadillac V8 engines) and the M24 Chaffee light tank. The extensive wartime service greatly improved the postwar engineering of the transmission, later advertised as "battle-tested." Starting in 1948 Hydramatic became optional for Pontiacs (and was in 70% of them that year), although Buick and Chevrolet chose to develop their own automatic transmissions, called Dynaflow and Powerglide. All Oldsmobiles installed with the Hydramatic had at the bottom edge of the front fender directly behind the front wheel a badge that said "Futuramic" which identified an Oldsmobile approach to simplified driving, and the presence of an automatic transmission. V8 Oldsmobiles were automatic-only in 1949 as Oldsmobile lacked a manual gearbox that could handle the torque of the new Rocket V8 engine.1948 Oldsmobile Futuramic introduction. One million Hydramatics had been sold by 1949. In the early 1950s various manufacturers without the resources to develop a proprietary automatic transmission bought Hydra-Matics from GM. Users included: 1951–1957 Hudson 1950–1957 Nash 1951–1956 Nash Rambler 1957 Rambler 1958–1960 Rambler American (AT&T associated company fleet units only) 1951 Frazer 1951–1955 Kaiser 1954–1955 Willys 1949–1954 Lincoln 1956–1968 Austin and Vanden Plas Princess In 1952, Rolls-Royce acquired a license to produce the HydraMatic for Rolls-Royce and Bentley automobiles. It continued production until 1967. A massive fire that destroyed GM's Hydra-Matic plant in Livonia, Michigan on August 12, 1953, left the corporation and the three divisions that used this transmission scrambling for other sources of automatic transmissions to complete that year's model year production. As a result, Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs during the downtime were assembled with Buick's