In the heady days of the 1960s and 1970s, personal airplane manufacturers were heavily invested in marketing their products the same way Detroit had been selling cars: Get new owners hooked on an entry-level model, offer several step-up models and make annual but incremental improvements. Just as Detroit’s Big Three had dealer networks, Beech, Cessna and Piper had them also, offering everything from primary flight training to maintenance, rental and charter.
Rarely would a new pilot trained in, say, a Cessna 150 look at another manufacturer’s product as a step-up airplane, because a larger, faster version of what he or she was already flying was readily available. Brand loyalty was important to general aviation’s Big Three back then, just as it was to Detroit.