{"id":20859,"date":"2011-06-16T10:04:38","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T09:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=20859"},"modified":"2025-03-27T09:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T09:29:19","slug":"americas-dreamcars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/americas-dreamcars\/","title":{"rendered":"America&#8217;s Dreamcars &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ok, ok. We concede. America <em>owned<\/em> the car in the 1950s. Us Europeans made some good motors, and we set ourselves up well for the \u201860s with the launch of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/a-mini-obsession-two-generations-and-counting\/\">Mini in \u201959<\/a>. But we couldn\u2019t get close to America in the \u201850s; not on numbers, not on power, and most clearly of all, not for its extraordinary, unrestrained, never-to-be-repeated exuberance of design.<\/p>\n<p>We think of America as being more in love with the car in the \u201850s than ever before or since, but when you look at the cars it made \u2013 and more specifically its concept cars \u2013 you\u2019d think it was bored of the car already. This was the decade of jetliners and supersonic flight, of <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/onthisday\/hi\/dates\/stories\/october\/4\/newsid_2685000\/2685115.stm\">Sputnik<\/a> and the start of the space race. Americans didn\u2019t want cars that looked like they could go fast: they wanted cars that looked like they could fly. Tailfins! Yes! Now make them bigger! Plexiglas bubble canopies! Fuselage bodies! Turbines for engines! Who cares how hot that exhaust gas is! I want a car I can stand on its damn backside and beat the Russians to the Moon!<\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20907\" title=\"Ford's Atmos concept showed that lines between sci-fi and industrial design were breaking down ...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1700\" height=\"747\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1.jpg 1700w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1-300x131.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1-1024x449.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1-624x274.jpg 624w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1-278x122.jpg 278w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1-526x231.jpg 526w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1-1010x444.jpg 1010w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Ford_Atmos-1-572x251.jpg 572w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1700px) 100vw, 1700px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>A little economic background. Continental Europe, plainly, was rent by the war; those car factories that survived had been turned over to munition and military vehicle production and needed turning back. Britain started rather better; the first post-war <a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishpathe.com\/record.php?id=84548\">Motor Show of 1948<\/a> was rare flash of optimism amidst the grey post-war austerity, and saw the debut of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carstyling.ru\/resources\/classic\/1949_54_Jaguar_XK120_01.jpg\">Jaguar XK120<\/a> (sex) and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mmoc.org.uk\/\">Morris Minor<\/a> (profit). Britain made around half a million cars in 1950, less than ten per cent of America\u2019s output. But it exported three-quarters of them; globally, more than half of all cars exported from their home market came from the UK that year.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s because America just didn\u2019t have the time to bother with small, weird, poor markets overseas. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/exhibits\/featured_documents\/marshall_plan\/\">Its economy rebounded much faster than Europe\u2019s after the war and its car industry had a tough time keeping up;<\/a> it too had to retool after the war and labour disputes limited capacity. Sales volumes didn\u2019t really explode in the \u201850s; they started the decade around five million and finished around seven.<\/p>\n<p>But everything else went nuts, particularly the styling. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prewarbuick.com\/features\/why_the_y_job\">Buick Y-Job<\/a> of 1938 is generally held to be the first concept car, but such indulgence was quickly halted by the war. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.korean-war.com\/\">The Korean War <\/a>caused a little restraint too, but by \u201953 all bets were off, and America\u2019s appetite for excess, speed, flight and space, and its ability to afford it, produced some of the maddest vehicles ever made.<\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20912\" title=\"1961_Ford_Gyron_1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"782\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1.jpg 782w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1-300x230.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1-624x478.jpg 624w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1-278x213.jpg 278w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1-526x403.jpg 526w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1-578x444.jpg 578w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1961_Ford_Gyron_1-572x438.jpg 572w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 782px) 100vw, 782px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>Political correctness was of little importance. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rmauctions.com\/CarDetails.cfm?SaleCode=AZ10&amp;CarID=r125\">\u201956 Cadillac Maharani <\/a>concept, named after the wife of a maharaja, really did come with everything including the kitchen sink, so a dutiful wife could more completely cater for her husband and family on a picnic. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagoautoshow.com\/history\/\">1951 Kaiser Safari<\/a> was trimmed with zebra and lion skins.<\/p>\n<p>Most concept cars \u2013 or \u2018dreams cars\u2019, as they were more often referred to \u2013 showcased some new technology or design innovation, but you wonder if the engineers at GM and Ford and Chrysler honestly believed they could bring some of them to production, or whether they were conceived purely as crowd-pleasers. Way out on the unlikely-to-be-seen-in-a-showroom end of the spectrum were some of the Ford concepts, like the two-wheeled Gyron (above) which used a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cquvA_IpEsA\">gyroscope<\/a> to stabilize it and had little legs that emerged as its slowed to prop it up at rest. Or the Ford Nucleon (below), powered by a rear-mounted nuclear reactor which only needed refuelling (\u201cyeah, I\u2019ll have a Ginsters, twenty Bensons and kilogram of uranium, please\u201d) every five thousand miles.<\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20911\" title=\"Nucleon_1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1-624x416.jpg 624w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1-278x185.jpg 278w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1-251x167.jpg 251w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1-526x350.jpg 526w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1-666x444.jpg 666w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Nucleon_1-572x381.jpg 572w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>The three-car Firebird series of concepts created by legendary GM design chief Harley Earl in \u201953, \u201956 and \u201959 could be dismissed the same way. Each was powered by an actual gas turbine (the Nucleon, you won\u2019t be surprised to learn, didn\u2019t have an actual nuclear reactor) which GM took seriously enough as a future means of propulsion to build, run, and test. With exhaust gases at nearly 700 degrees centigrade it was probably soon obvious that a big, lazy V8 was still the better solution.<\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1950s_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20913\" title=\"GM's Firebird series of concepts took the idea of Space-Age design literally...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1950s_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1950s_1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1950s_1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1950s_1-278x185.jpg 278w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1950s_1-251x167.jpg 251w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1950s_1-526x350.jpg 526w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1950s_1-572x381.jpg 572w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<p>But the Firebirds were significant for two reasons. First, they set the tone for the jet-and-rocket aesthetic that dominated American car design in the fifties. The first one just looked like a jet fighter, with a fuselage body, bubble canopy and a huge single rear tailfin. Oh, those tailfins: they were the fifties and they were sold via artwork like that created by the great <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/art-fitzpatrick\/\">Art Fitzpatrick<\/a>. They first appeared in \u201948, got bigger every year until they reached their literal peak with the genuinely iconic foot-high fins on the back of the \u201959 Cadillac Eldorado. Then they got smaller every year from 1960, until they disappeared around 1965. But they took off with the Firebirds.<\/p>\n<p>And second, the Firebirds first posited a whole bunch of technologies we still get excited about today; lightweight composite bodies, keyless entry, car \u2018platooning\u2019 and crash avoidance, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qJa5-_ExsBE\">air brakes<\/a>, just like the one on the new McLaren MP4-12C.<\/p>\n<p>So not only did they look like the future, they actually were. More importantly to 1950s Americans, they were great entertainment, and GM bust its best concepts out of the straight-jacket of the motor show and put them on the road in the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/features\/futurama\/\"> Futurama<\/a> shows, which toured the country from 1949 to \u201961, displaying the cars alongside other space-age advances like microwaves and videophones and pulling in over ten million visitors.<\/p>\n<p>Europe just didn\u2019t have anything to compare. The concept car wasn\u2019t an entirely alien concept \u2013 Alfa and Bertone produced the mad BAT series, for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/blog\/bertone-bat-concept\/\">Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica,<\/a> between \u201953 and \u201955. And when the Italian carmakers and design houses started doing concepts for every big motor show from the late sixties, they made some of the most memorable and outrageous automotive sculpture ever seen.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20916\" title=\"Bertone's BAT concepts were as close as Europe got to American excesses of the 1950s\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1221\" height=\"856\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group.jpg 1221w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group-1024x717.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group-624x437.jpg 624w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group-278x194.jpg 278w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group-526x368.jpg 526w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group-633x444.jpg 633w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/BAT_Group-572x401.jpg 572w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1221px) 100vw, 1221px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>But the outrageous was irrelevant to the European motoring culture in the 50s. Small, affordable, practical and smart was what mattered if we wanted to get back on four wheels. Forget the Firebird concepts &#8211; you could have put a late \u201850s American production car like that \u201959 Eldorado onto a European motor show stand and it would have looked like it had arrived from another planet. Which would have been just what its designer had intended, and his audience had wanted.<\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-20920\" title=\"The 1959 Eldorado integrated the extreme aesthetic into mass production...\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1526\" height=\"1092\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1.jpg 1526w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1-300x214.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1-1024x732.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1-624x446.jpg 624w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1-278x198.jpg 278w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1-526x376.jpg 526w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1-620x444.jpg 620w, https:\/\/cdn-influx-wp.adrianflux.co.uk\/uploads\/2011\/06\/1959_Eldorado1-572x409.jpg 572w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1526px) 100vw, 1526px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ben Oliver on world-dominating auto-futurism!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1779,6],"tags":[2017],"class_list":["post-20859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cars","category-features","tag-design"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - 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