When Heaven Was at the Corner of Sycamore and Main

When Heaven was at the Corner of Sycamore and Main was an advertising slogan used by the Packard Motor Car Company to help promote their luxury automobile starting at the end of the 1930s.

By the late 1930s, the Packard Motor Car Company had established itself as a major player among American manufacturers of luxury cars. Packard's image was also one of its biggest marketing challenges. In the minds of most Americans, Packard symbolized power, wealth, and glamour, items that were in short supply during the Great Depression. The challenge for Packard was to maintain its reputation for building finely crafted automobiles while beginning to market at least some of its cars in a price range that would be affordable to middle-class Americans in the midst of the economic issues of the decade. It was from this that the advertising agency, Young and Rubicam created "When Heaven was at the Corner of Sycamore and Main," an advertisement designed to help Packard sell its low-end automobiles, the Packard One-Ten, and the Packard One-Twenty.

The first Packards were built by James Ward Packard and William Doud Packard and tested in the streets of their hometown, Warren, Ohio in 1899. The single cylinder, nine horsepower engine performed ably, soon they named the machine the Model A.

The Packards were typical of the many tinkers, visionaries, and hard-headed businessmen who coalesced around the idea of the gasoline-powered automobile, a product of the social and economic changes occurring in the United States and Europe at the turn of the 20th century. By the 1920s, more than 180 American automobile companies had sprung into business in towns and cities across the Eastern and Mid-Western United States. Other companies were also started across Europe in England, Germany, and Italy especially. Cars were a popular commodity, and the public clamored for them. It was in this market that car companies grew very rapidly. Packard was soon marketed as a luxury car, and captured a large section of the elite section of the American market. By 1923, the Packard Motor Car Company was earning $7 million in profits a year.

...
Wikipedia