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This is a 58 Imperial in metallic green. Not popular a color these days. Virgil Exner was Chrysler's head of design. He is known for design style called "The Forward Look." Aside from fins that became even larger in later models, Exner also had a think for tail lights that suggested something associated with rockets.
I think this example of a 59 Invicta coupe has been repainted, although Buick for that year could have produced pink models. The couple appear to be at a car show. Notice the front wings and how they sweep through the side door to the rear quarter panel. Also note the duel headlamps that are angled. This is a design feature the other Big 3 makers incorporated. The 1958 Lincoln Continental also has angled headlamps.
The Invicta for 59 came out in the fall of 58. It was still an example of design excess of the 1950s. It was big. It was heavy. With those two inherent drawbacks one has to ask how do you make a big, heavy car appear sleek and agile?
This is a coupe. I chose the image for the color and the angle of the image, so one can view the exaggerated sweeping tail fins. That is hardly a fitting description. Tail wings would be more fitting.
1958 imperial
What's Behind Me Is Not Important
Ferrari and Corvette at the 12 Hours of Sebring (Part One)
Americans after World War II enjoyed a national prosperity they hadn’t experienced for more than two decades. The decade of the 1950s saw household incomes rise at an unprecedented rate. Businesses dedicated to leisure and entertainment grew exponentially. Although historians usually write of the growing popularity of Hollywood, TV, and professional sports, fads, and consumer appliances, they give little notice to the interest in motorsports.
It was during this decade that stock car racing came into prominence. Its earliest beginnings were in the 1940s when “good ‘ol boys” drove souped up cars with gallon jugs of moonshine in the trunk. They roared along narrow, winding two-lane roads in the Appalachian foothills during the week and raced each other on dirt oval tracks on Sundays, mostly for fun.
It was Big Bill France, one of the emerging sport’s most influential drivers, who organized a meeting with fellow drivers, mechanics, and owners to standardize some racing rules. Out of this meeting, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) was formed. Two months later, the first official race was held on the sands of a Daytona, Florida, beach. Most -- perhaps all -- of the drivers were bootleggers.
Two years later, on Sept. 4, 1950, NASCAR held its first 500-mile race, aptly named the Southern 500. The sport would only continue growing in importance and popularity. By 1989 every NASCAR was televised. Sponsors funded individual drivers and racing teams with millions. Practically all of the American car manufacturers, as well as separate divisions within Detroit’s Big 3, sponsored cars. It was quite a change, considering the predecessors were once considered outlaws. They would now make regular appearances at the White House.
That race, which attracted 25,000 spectators (about the same as a Saturday afternoon Major League Baseball game in 1950), had a total purse of $25,000. The winner, Johnny Mantz, who drove a Plymouth, walked away with $10,000. The rest was split among the 74 other entrants. Average speed for the 1.25 mile slightly egg-shaped oval track built on what was once a cotton field, was 75 miles per hour. That is about ten miles per hour less than the average speed for a Friday evening these days on Interstate 85 between Atlanta and Washington, DC. The race took over six hours to complete the 500 miles in 351 laps.
A 1953 Buick Skylark convertible will be on the block at no reserve in April at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Palm Beach.
November 27--1958 Chevrolet Impala
The Ford versus Chevrolet rivalry has been a part of Americana since the beginning of the 20th Century. For some people, the Ford versus Chevy rivalry is so important, and their loyalty to one brand over the other is so strong, that they proudly show bumper stickers showing their intensely held preference. You may have seen one of these stickers proclaiming that the driver would rather push his Chevy than drive a Ford – or vice versa.
Throughout the prior century Ford and Chevrolet would change places as the nation’s top selling brand. Ford was first for most of the 20s. Chevy lead during the Great Depression, as the two makers strove to outdo the other with innovations and style changes. Ford regained the top spot for most of the 40s. The 1950s belonged to Chevy; Ford would only win the sales race twice in that decade.
The Impala, named for the graceful African antelope, doesn’t quite match up with the 1958 model. It was wider, longer, and a bit lower, but the overall bulky appearance certainly doesn’t impart the impression it was, like an Impala, fleet of foot. The moniker, however, stuck. Chevy has used it off and on for the past 50 years.
A total of 55,989 Impala convertibles and 125,480 coupes were built, representing 15 percent of Chevrolet production in this recession year. The six-cylinder coupes sold for $1750; the convertibles were a thousand bucks higher. Chevrolet in 1958 introduced a 348 cubic inch small block V-8. The coupe equipped with this engine retailed for around $2400 and $3400 for the convertible. This was relatively inexpensive compared to Cadillac models which, with all the available options, could cost upwards to $7500.
Chevrolet was known for its boxy shaped vehicles. This is a bit unfair, however. The Big Three all made cars that were meant to embody the Streamline Moderne motifs in industrial design during the 1940s. The theme carried over into the early 50s in such models as Chevy’s Bel Air series. This two-tone red and white example is emblematic of early 50s styling. Short wheel bases. Big engine compartments containing small engines. Big chrome bumpers with “Dagmar accents.” Note the chromed shark teeth grill work that would also be installed in the Corvette. The most valuable 58 is a convertible equipped with all the available options, plus a trio of four barrel carburetors. About $140,000.
More than anything, the 58 Impala reflects how much economic growth America had experienced since the decade began. Sales were strong for base models. The higher end cars the Big Three bought out that year took the biggest hits. It seems rich folks always get more nervous about their wealth when times get a little lean. Although it cost $3,000 less than a comparable luxury model, the 58 Impala still had all the styling excesses.
This black convertible with red interior was decorated with chrome accents. Four hash marks behind the quad headlamps. Not one, but two signal lamps embedded in the grill above a massive bumper. A chrome strip ran almost the length of the entire body. Notice the gun sights above the headlamps. They were practically standard feature on most late 50s models. Chevy executives had no shame when it came to advertising its new Impala line as a car that made the average middle class wage earner feel as though he “made it.”
One design feature on the 58 Impala makes it a desirable classic among collectors. In a period when fins were in -- the iconic 57 Bel Air had them -- is this was the only year Chevy designers opted for rounded tail fins that were slanted rather than upright. The design team also wasn’t satisfied with a rear half that was devoid of details. Those four connected strips that end in points seem to suggest speed. Notice the horizontal bulge in the body behind the rear wheel that included another four hash marks. The sweeping rear -- can we call it a wing? -- is edged with chrome that wraps around the three -- not two -- tail lights. Later Impalas would also include them.
Equipped with a continental kit, the 58 Impala looked massive, heavy and low to the ground, which was another trend the auto makers employed to impart speed and power. With the top down it was a true boulevard cruiser. Folks wanted to be seen in it during an optimistic era when it seemed the prosperity would have no end.
The 60s New Journalism writer Tom Wolfe, he of the Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby fame, once described the middle class fashion trends of that period in American culture as “second class class.” Certainly the interior of the 58 Impala depicts how middle income earners took to expressing their sense of what it meant to look “dressy.” The typical interior of just about any automobile was done in muted tones of green, brown, tan and blue, along with darker browns as well as black. White was reserved for luxury models. The multi-colored cloth seats, the red rubber floor mats. Red here. Red there. Red everywhere. And the chrome boomerang with the holes inside the steering wheel. It was just plain fun to slide into the front seat, turn the key and cruise the main drag of town on a Saturday night. You were on top. You felt downright proud to be an American driving one.
It was America's Car.
Thanks for the video. Suzanne was very young, and positively gorgeous in that baby blue '56 T-Bird. The 55 and 56 models looked liked scaled down versions of the Crown Vick as this image easily demonstrates. I chose an image of model in pink and black. Such color combinations weren't that unusual in the 1950s.
In 1957 Ford's style department finally caved in and added fins to the rear of all their models, including wagons. The fins, though, weren't anywhere near as exaggerated compared with Chrysler models. This example, in white, was equipped with a 312 cubic inch V-8
November 16--Homo tinkerus (Part 1)
Credit -- or perhaps blame -- should go to William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for distorting America’s perception of Stone Age man. Some of us are stuck with this archetypal image. Many Americans still think of Fred Flintstone when they should be thinking about how the wheel came to be in the first place. The truth is a caveman didn’t invent the wheel. Archeologists who literally dig into Earth’s crust in search of mankind’s past doings can’t find anything resembling a wheel in the period when hominids — the first cavemen -- evolved into homo sapiens about a million years ago.
The archeological record of early man makes it difficult for scientists to determine what our earliest ancestors were up to in their everyday lives The evidence is so scant all the bones scientists have found wouldn’t fill the bed of a pickup truck. Such limited evidence leads to a great deal of conjecture and outright guesswork. At best, what they have determined -- who would have thought otherwise -- is they lived in dangerous circumstances. Many of the animals they hunted for protein also wanted to eat them. Lifespans were short compared to the average longevity of modern humans enjoying the comforts of civilization -- 30 years versus 70 years now.
Based on what the diggers of the past do believe is early man faced such a perilous existence that thinking about anything other than daily survival was way down the list of priorities. Some take the view that man’s earliest ancestors weren’t capable of abstract thought. Invention simply had to wait until the brain inside that thin shell reached a point where it figure out easier ways to get by.
It seems that after a million years of struggle, humans only figured out how to grow their own food around 10,000 BCE. There is even recent evidence that suggests people were using agriculture as long ago as 23,000 years. Even then, there is no available evidence that suggests someone invented the wheel.
As was previously mentioned, early humans weren’t equipped for abstract thought. Certainly there were things around them that were round in shape, like tree trunks, plus flowers and other plants with morphologies that could be spun or whirled in one’s hand. So maybe some early cave guy decided to place a wooly mammoth he’s just killed on some logs he found lying around and tried to roll it back to camp. That sounds easy enough, but if you take the time to picture it, it’s actually difficult and involves a whole lot of physical effort.
It’s fairly easy, though, to envision some caveman in his leisure time — when he had leisure time — to pick up a small stone, rough it up against a harder stone, and fashion an object shaped like a disc. But what would it be used for? Probably as a weapon our early ancestors would use in hunting.
We have this idea that the earliest form of the wheel was a stone disc with a hole in the center. That’s easy enough to envision. But you needed tools to properly shape it. You needed abstract thought to place the hole in the exact center so the stone disc would roll true on its axle.
And axle? What’s an axle? A kind of caveman ax? We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Face it, a stone disc by itself, even though it’s round and can roll, is still heavy. And you can’t control it. So the wheel as we understand it and how it’s used had to wait a few more hundreds of thousands of years. Life was tough on humans for a long, long time.
It wasn’t until humans had developed agriculture and settled down into one place and organized themselves into villages that grew into towns that eventually grew into cities that the wheel had uses. The first use was to turn it on its side, attach an axle to it so it would spin to make pottery. There’s that word “axle” again.
The first potter’s wheels appeared in Mesopotamia around 6,500 BCE. Making pots easily became a snap. The wheels were made of wood. For that task, our ancient ancestors, who we like to think were the earliest examples of civilized man, needed tools. That era was also known as the Bronze Age. We had the necessary metal tools to cut, chip, chisel and shape wood and stone into wheels. So along the way homo tinkerus had to invent that stuff, too.
But notice that rod connecting the lower and upper wheels in the image. It’s called an axle. It’s not that hard to imagine -- let’s say someone imagineered it -- some clever precursor to our modern nerds and geeks decided to turn the two wheels on their sides. Now we have a car-t, as the following image of an ancient Greek wagon easily demonstrates.
But look a bit closer at the image. The spokes certainly made wheels lighter and much easier for a human or animal to pull. But there is something else on the wheel that actually makes all the difference between mankind spending all his time making pots for the next 10,000 years and doing something about advancing the cause of civilization. And it’s not the steering assembly connected to the front wheels.
How about we take a closer look at the wheel as it has been for thousands of years right up to the present.
Chariots and Chicks
Around the turn of the 20th Century, architect Louis Sullivan, who designed the first American skyscrapers, is still revered for making this famous design maxim: Form Follows Function. In other words, sure it’s easy on the eye but it’s still got to work. When a designer or builder or manufacturer can make the two concepts work in harmony you have a thing of beauty.
The Three Fs in this Etruscan war chariot, built sometime in the 6th Century BCE is the very essence of what someone with an idea for shapes, lines, proportion and the ability to make it all work together in a piece of functionary machinery was all about. Sullivan’s maxim made as sense 5,000 years ago as it does today.
The chariot is made of bronze. It was the Bronze Age when homo tinkerus first learned how to work metal with a high degree of sophistication. Imagine a well-muscled horse harnessed to this two-wheeled cart with a platform on which armor plating is attached. The plating itself has a relief of an ancient warrior, sword in hand, poised to lay waste to an enemy combatant.
While you’re at, think Muscle Car, for that is what war chariots were in the ancient world. Since there’s no covering, you might as well think of this gorgeous artifact as a convertible model. Maybe the driver, a dashing young officer in the chariot regiment, took it to the main drag of town on Saturday night to bird dog chicks.
On October 16, 1958, Chevrolet begins to sell a car-truck hybrid that it calls the El Camino. Inspired by the Ford Ranchero, which had already been on the market for two years, the El Camino was a combination sedan-pickup truck built on the Impala body, with the same “cat's eye” taillights and dramatic rear fins.
The wheels aren't original, but they do justice to what Chevy's designers wanted to accomplish. The '59 model with the sharp fins almost at a horizontal was only good for a year. Later, in the 60s, Chevy included models with the big engines and four-barrel carbs. It was genuinely sporty and sleek, with a powerful look to it. I've often wondered why Chevy and Ford, much less the Japanese, Koreans, and European makers didn't reintroduce a car/truck hybrid.
November 6--Uncle Walt Loved You
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(and your parents’ money)
Walt Disney and Ray Croc were born one year apart, in Chicago, but they didn’t meet until they were teenagers. Both volunteered for military service and drove ambulances at the tail end of World War I. They went their separate ways after the war, but they would meet again in the 1950s.
While Ray Croc kicked around for nearly forty years until he founded his hamburger sandwich, fries and a Coke empire, Walt and his brother Roy, older by eight years, went to work making cartoons. They founded a couple of studios during the 1920s that failed but they didn’t stop trying. As a side note, many of the 20th Century’s most revered leaders in business, government, and the military delivered newspapers. Walt and Roy had both a morning and afternoon route, which meant they slept a lot in school. Still, Walt, who showed a talent for drawing, took night courses at the Chicago Art Institute.
Walt was the creative force, while Roy took care of nuts and bolts. Animation was in its infancy after World War I, but technological changes were already happening that Walt realized would become standard in making still figures appear to move.
Although his first character was a rabbit, the mouse cartoon in 1928 was his first hit and major money maker. Walt and his brother could have stuck with producing cartoons. But Walt, aside from being talented, was also a visionary, what we like to call today a futurist. He also liked making lots of money.
Success came with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Grimm fairy tale, in 1937. One has to consider what nearly two million dollars to produce that feature length film would cost today. It was a money loser at first. In fact, later animated feature length movies would lose money. But that was only at the start. The Disney brothers were darned good businessmen. They knew they could reintroduce their films to theater audiences, because they knew the kids who viewed them would have kids of their own. It worked. Snow White holds the distinction of being number ten on the list of most theater visits -- over one-hundred million.
That kind of thinking impressed Wall Street. In the 1940s, an investment banking firm sold some convertible preferred stock to keep the Walt Disney Company on its financial feet. By the Fifties, that investment started to pay off.
The Walt Disney Company already had shelf full of Academy Awards, including a special one in 1939 for Snow White. Walt had a reputation for making quality short films. Kids loved his growing menagerie of cartoon characters. His movies, both animated and real life versions, were always first-rate productions. That emphasis on quality would only gain momentum in the coming decades.
Televisions were around in 1941, but so few were in use the costs of programming was hardly worth the effort. Conditions changed after World War II that made broadcasting commercially feasible. In 1950 over three million households had TV sets. By 1958 that number had swelled to nearly 50 million.
Walt and Roy were there to capitalize on it. By the mid-fifties Walt had his hour-long weekday mouse club that aired in the afternoon after school. He produced an hour-long program on Sunday that aired much of his earlier stuff as well as original programming. The show always began with Walt acting as host. His personable, easy going manner appealed to kids. Uncle Walt were there to entertain them, to please them, to make them feel special and important.
What the Disney brothers saw in TV programming was a cash cow. They made money from the advertising. The programs themselves were advertisements for all their animated and movie products. Above all, though, it was the ancillary products they were hawking in all the dime, department, and supermarket shelves across the width and breadth of America. The era was a seller’s market for kitsch. Wrist watches. Lamp shades. Coloring books. Comic books. Story books. Pencils. Notebooks. Blankets and pillow cases and pajamas with all the characters printed on them. And much more.
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Wall Street took notice again. The Walt Disney Company became a public stock company 1957 on the New York Stock Exchange. All that money flowing into company headquarters in Burbank served to finance Walt’s biggest dream at that time in his relatively short life.
The Happiest Place on Earth
Construction of an amusement park in Anaheim, a suburban bedroom community about 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles, began in July 1954. A year later, Disneyland, a park that included a mix of nostalgia, fantasy and futurism, opened for visitors. The cost was $17 million. Among the visitors that year was 11-year-old George Lucas, who grew up not that far away in the bedroom community of Modesto.
A little over a million paying visitors went through the entrance gate in 1955. More than 4.6 million would pay $39 a person in 1958, topping the 1957 total in what was a recession year. It didn’t take long for Walt and Roy to recoup their investment. More importantly, it solidified Walt’s reputation as an American icon for decades to come. After more than 50 years of technological advances, one would think the original Disneyland would have become something of a cultural anachronism. Annual attendance has seen its ups and downs. The trend, though, has always been upward. More than 18 million people visited the happiest place on earth in 2018.
“We’re Almost There, Son. But, Dad, I Don’t Think I Can Hold It That Long”
Although Southern California was an already crowded and congested conglomeration of housing tracts and apartment homes — what we call urban sprawl in current terminology — millions of American families made what amounted to a pilgrimage to the Mecca of Happiness. They loaded up those hulking station wagons with the squishy suspensions, then everyone piled in and off they went. A cross country pilgrimage of more than 3,000 miles from the Right Coast to the San Bernadino Freeway took at least four days, provided Mom shared the driving with Dad. These families slept overnight in Holiday Inns, which were springing up like mushrooms on America’s superhighways. It would take a few more years before families would be eating at McDonald’s outlets.
When they arrived, parked, got out, walking quickly to the entrance in anxious anticipation, they could see it in the distance, as did a young George Lucas. The rocket ship. And they all felt proud to be Americans.
Mouseketeers and Imagineers
(When George Lucas saw the rocket, he knew what he wanted to do with his life)
"Tomorrow can be a wonderful age. Our scientists today are opening the doors of the Space Age to achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future."
Walt Disney’s public persona of the simple and kindly uncle obscured a genuinely complicated personality. Disneyland was certainly no ordinary amusement park. Families didn’t load their hulking tuna boat station wagons of the 1950s and lumber across the super highways of the day some 3,000 miles just to ride a roller coaster in Cleveland. A trip to Disneyland truly was a pilgrimage.
Certainly all of the nation’s big cities had amusement parks. But they had been around for decades, some going back to the 19th Century. They were dated, a bit worn down, with little in them that was new.
But Disneyland was modern in every sense of the word. Walt sent his artists and designers around the country to amusement parks. He called them his “imagineers.” They returned with visions that would overwhelm anything the competition had to offer. That was the intent. To make them want anything Disney.
In that sense, Disneyland served as a mirror of how people felt, how they perceived the world in which they lived in the 1950s. After four long years of war that succeeded nearly a dozen years of economic hardships, people were working, making good money, and spending a good portion of it on having a good time. Walt Disney tapped deeply into Americans’ new-found optimism, this notion that they were already living in the future, by creating a section of the park devoted to the future: Tomorrowland.
Due to budget restraints, the Tomorrowland exhibits relied upon corporate sponsors. One can’t help but notice the General Dynamics sign on the tower in the left portion of the photo. Monsanto, the giant chemical company, sponsored the House of the Future, with a kitchen that introduced the first microwave oven. It had picture phones, now a reality. It had remote controlled TV sets, now a reality. The structure was made of plastic, not yet a reality, but perhaps one day.
Walt Disney delivered the original dedication. It has that tone that reminds one of a young John Kennedy when he delivered his Inaugural Address in January 1961.
Original dedication
A vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying Man's achievements... A step into the future, with predictions of constructed things to come. Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure and ideals. The Atomic Age, the challenge of Outer Space and the hope for a peaceful, unified world.
October 30--1958 Buick Limited
The Ultimate in 50s Kitsch
As the decade of the 1950s progressed, the Big 3 car companies competed to see which one could produce a model us folks in the 21st Century usually say as having the most “bling.” Auto historians, critics of popular culture, and regular car guys tend to agree the 1958 Buick Limited was the epitome of excess in an era when excess in automotive design wasn’t just expected, it was required. That could be a matter of some debate. Cars in the early to mid 1960s got even longer, heavier and more ridiculous in appearance than any car Detroit produced in the 1950s. Let’s save that discussion for a later time.
When it comes to customizing how could anyone today possibly come up with anything to add to the inherent bling in a ‘58 Limited. It was already overloaded with bling when it came off the assembly line. Anyone restoring a junker they found in a barn or old garage will spend a fortune in re-chroming all that metal trim. It’s everywhere on the car. One doesn’t know where to begin to describe all the square inches -- make that square feet -- the amount of chrome the GM designers and marketing executives believed was necessary to entice potential buyers.
It’s all in the details, as the saying goes. And the ‘58 Limited has a boatload of them. Let’s start with a not so noticeable feature. Look at the chrome trim on the roof above the front and rear windows on the black sedan. Notice the curve. It’s at the same degree of arc as the trim on the body that begins at the rear wheel well and runs through the rear and front doors all along the front fender and over the quad headlamps. That
‘Sweepspear’ side trim was a Buick styling hallmark that began in 1949. Quad headlamps were a design feature on every model that year, no matter who made it.
Moving along, one can’t help but notice the slanted hash marks -- three groups of five. What distinguishes the ‘58 Limited from other models in the Buick lineup is when you bought one, you knew you were getting the top of the line because other models like the Century and the Special only had two groups of five hash marks. Those hash marks were also slanted at just the right amount of angle to impart a sense of dynamism, to make it look fast even though it was standing still. It was Detroit’s way of expressing -- one could say comparing -- passenger cars to Americans’ interest in rockets and jet aircraft. Car designers called it “the Forward Look.”
Fins were in during the 50s, also an expression of the new Forward Look. They became more pronounced and garish as the decade neared its end. The Buick tail fins were massive in 1958. Only Chrysler produced larger fins that took up what seemed like the entire rear portion of the car. They were trimmed in chrome as well, with the strip starting near the rear window. Note the chromed inlays in the red plastic rear signal lenses.
The car makers like to make sure someone in the car behind you knows what you’re driving. The designers installed a Buick badge above the license plate between two thin chrome strips. Just more bling.
Finally we come to all that chromed steel behind the rear wheel well that extends around the rear of the car of what is a truly massive rear bumper. The exhaust pipes were hidden inside what looks like a bullet casing. The rear bumper probably weighed as much as a 1958 Volkswagen.
One other design element is apparent in the ‘58s. Look at how both the sedan and the more stylish convertible appear to sit so low to the ground. It was another trend in styling that year besides the required quad headlamps.
After the end of World War II, American cars got not only longer but wider. Trunk space in full size sedans looked like they could hold a hippopotamus. Due to the additional weight from bigger engines and transmissions, the front portions added to the massive appearance. Car makers today couldn’t install what the auto writers called “gunsight” medallions above the headlamps. They would be immediately stolen. Notice the spotlights before the sideview mirrors on this light blue convertible.
Rocketship styling prevailed in the ‘50s. Even the front turn signal light had to look like the nose cone of a rocket. Bullet attachments, sometimes tipped in black rubber, were a common feature. The bumpers usually wrapped around the front wheel wells. More than anything, those chomed squares -- 160 of them -- defined what over-the-top styling was all about. In its sales literature, Buick justified all that needless expense by saying, "shaped in a design to maximize the amount of reflective light".
Buicks were considered one step below Cadillac in price as well as being a reflection of social status. This stunning red convertible sold for more than $5200 in 1958, a couple hundred more than an entry-level Cadillac. The sedans went for $5400 and weighed just under 5,000 pounds. That is two and one-half tons of automobile. Only Lincoln’s Continental was heavier that year.
Buicks were noted for their sumptuous interiors, and the Limited versions didn’t disappoint. Button and tuck leather seats in the ‘58 convertible and Limited sedan instead of vinyl in the lower end models. A padded dashboard. Leather trim on the doors. Chrome inlays around the steering wheel and instrument panel. Don’t overlook the famous “Wonder Bar” radio, with auto-set push buttons, made by GM’s Delco division. Since this is a convertible, the front seats were split and hinged for ease of entry into the rear seats. Look at the chrome trim at the top and along the sides.
If you could afford it, you could order a ‘continental kit’ for the spare tire to allow for more trunk space. But what for? The trunk space was already so spacious a spare tire wouldn’t taken away that many square feet. There it was just the same, the spare inside a metal casing, with more chrome, sitting on top of an elongated platform that only made the car longer and out of proportion to its overall look. It was also how the dealers could shake a few hundred extra dollars from the pockets of customers. And a few hundred dollars in 1958 would now be worth a few thousand.
1958 was the first year the US experienced a recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment topped five million. The launch by the Russians in October 1957 of the Sputnik satellite put a scare into Americans. Domestic auto production declined to roughly four million pieces compared to the nearly eight million sold in 1957. Buick sold roughly 7,100 Limited sedans and about 4,000 convertibles. This means the models available on the collector market are scarce. That doesn’t necessarily make them more valuable. Just about any convertible Detroit made that year would sell at a premium. But sedans and coupes don’t interest the high-dollar collectors. The average price is around $30,000 for a restored ‘58. Cadillac convertibles and Corvettes restored to original condition are worth well over $100,000 to serious collectors.
To close out, the Buick Limited was equipped with power brakes as standard. One should hope it came that way. Stopping nearly two and one-half tons of automobile with a manual braking system is a terrifying thought.
No review of a car model would be complete without including images of the station wagon version. As one can see, a ‘58 wagon, called the Caballero, was one ponderous mass of steel and glass, not to mention all that chrome. The wagons didn’t have the hash marks. They were replaced with a side panel, trimmed in chrome, intended, no doubt, to induce an added sense of aerodynamism to a vehicle that, for all intent and purpose, handled no better than a school bus. Note the thick chromed weather stripping around the windows. Another feature is the absence of a side pillar that separates the front and rear doors.
During the 50s TV came into its heyday. By the end of the decade nearly every American household had a television. The amount of revenue the Big 3 networks generated from advertising grew astronomically. The 50s really was a period of unprecedented economic growth. The car makers spent millions on TV ads. But it was expensive. Many ad campaigns then, as now, were broken down into 20 to 30 second spots. Just enough tease that was broadcast many times throughout the evening.
There were, however, still plenty of magazine ads. National circulation for general interest publications like Life, Look, the Saturday Evening Post, were delivered weekly to millions of subscribers. One advantage to a magazine ad was the ability to hold a reader’s attention for a longer period of time, allowing him or her to fantasize about the latest models. They promised freedom, luxury, adventure, excitement and enhanced social status.
Here we see a depiction of 50s Mom and Pop and the Kid peeking over the dashboard taking in the scenery. Who painted the highway white? Magazine ads often compared cars to aircraft. Or rockets. Apparently the marketing executives wanted customers they weren’t simply buying a car. They were buying a terrestrial aircraft.
Since Buick decided its Limited sedan was on par with Cadillac in 1958 it was advertised that way. Men in tuxedos. Women in furs and evening gowns. The chromed hulk is parked in front of some stylish setting that suggests wealth and opulence. This wasn’t a car to be driven to the corner grocery. This was a car meant to be seen and admired.
Economic expansion during the 1950s that by the end of the decade, more than a third of the US population lived in suburbs. The percentage would reach nearly one-half by the time John Kennedy took the oath of office in January 1961. This ad for a Buick, yellow no less, depicts a suburban family bringing out the shine in this chromed out hulk. The makers of Simoniz products were certainly grateful.
The notable thing about this magazine ad is the two-page spread. Buick spent a lot of money on this ad. Look at the fine print. The folks in the ad department didn’t create all that copy if it didn’t believe potential buyers would read it. The red sedan with a white top (two tone paint jobs were popular) seems to be flying out off the page.
For the Record--The Numbers, Please
1958 Buick Special Models, Prices, Production
Special (wheelbase 122.0)
Weight
Price
Production
4-door sedan
4,115
$2,700
48,238
Riviera hardtop sedan
4,180
2,820
31,921
convertible coupe
4,165
3,041
5,502
Riviera hardtop coupe
4,058
2,744
34,903
2-door sedan
4,063
2,636
11,566
Estate 4-door wagon
4,396
3,154
3,663
Riviera Estate 4-door hardtop wagon
4,408
3,261
3,420
Total 1958 Buick Special
139,213
1958 Buick Century Models, Prices, Production
Century (wheelbase 122.0)
Weight
Price
Production
4-door sedan
4,241
$3,316
7,241
Riviera hardtop sedan
4,267
3,436
15,171
convertible coupe
4,302
3,680
2,588
Riviera hardtop coupe
4,182
3,368
8,110
2-door sedan
4,189
--
2
Caballero 4-door hardtop wagon
4,498
3,831
4,456
Total 1958 Buick Century
37,568
1958 Buick Super Models, Prices, Production
Super (wheelbase 127.5)
Weight
Price
Production
Riviera hardtop sedan
4,500
$3,789
28,460
Riviera hardtop coupe
4,392
3,644
13,928
Total 1958 Buick Super
42,388
1958 Buick Roadmaster Models, Prices, Production
Roadmaster (wheelbase 127.5)
Weight
Price
Production
Riviera hardtop sedan
4,668
$4,667
10,505
convertible coupe
4,676
4,680
1,181
Riviera hardtop coupe
4,568
4,557
2,368
Total 1958 Buick Roadmaster
14,054
1958 Buick Limited Models, Prices, Production
Limited (wheelbase 127.5)
Weight
Price
Production
Riviera hardtop sedan
4,710
5,112
5,571
Riviera hardtop coupe
4,691
5,002
1,026
convertible coupe
4,603
5,125
839
Total 1958 Buick Limited
7,436
Total 1958 Buick
240,659*
All Buick models for 1958 were equipped with 90-degree, vertical in valve V-8 engines. Displacement was 364 cubic inches. They developed a maximum of 300 horsepower at 4,600 rpm.
October 24--A Nation on Wheels
autobug2 says: April 5, 2016 12:26 pm
Well, the newest car I spotted is a `60 Plymouth. In the foreground, a nice creamy gold `56 DeVille. And of note, there isn’t a single car in this image that isn’t collectible; a great benefit to cars of the 50s!
Jay S. says: April 6, 2016 11:16 am
It’s a ’59. The ’60 had a rounded grill, with no ‘mustash’ above it. Speaking of bronze ’57 Chevys, the back end of a ’57 wagon can be seen in the lower left corner.
Isn't it amazing how American culture has changed since the first Baby Boomers were born in 1946? Telephones had rotary dials in 1958. A long distance call cost a fortune. In the current century, telephony has advanced so much anyone can talk -- for cheap -- to anyone, any time, anywhere on the planet. Once the internet became a household appliance, people have been chatting away via social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. People like to talk. Everyone knows that. They usually prefer subjects that most interest them. This book begins with an online conversation from a website about two guys identifying some American car models from a photo of Los Angeles traffic, probably from 1960. The color image is somewhat grainy, yet these two anonymous individuals are able to make them out by year and make. It isn't much different compared to a discussion on a zoology website between two Lepidopterists discussing the taxonomy of swallowtail butterflies.
That conversation was gleaned from a Hemmings Motor News web page. Founded in 1954 in Bennington VT as a dead tree publication full of classified ads for old cars, Hemmings has grown to a 100-employee company that supplies information about antique, classic and exotic cars and trucks. How to restore them. How to buy and sell them. And ultimately what they are worth in the collector marketplace. The magazine and its online version aren’t by any means the only sources. More than a dozen monthly magazines -- even more sources exist online -- provide similar information. But Hemmings is a good place to start before deciding to branch out.
With an eye fixed on making some big bucks, TV executives have capitalized in the past decade or so on this growing interest in old vehicles. Jay Leno of NBC’s Tonight Show fame is an avid collector. Jay Leno’s Garage has aired for the past five seasons in prime time. There are more than a dozen other programs spread across the cable and satellite networks. Collector car auctions like Barrett-Jackson run for three days on ESPN.
Okay, so this business of restoring old cars and trucks isn’t exactly as big as Microsoft. But the business has always attracted Big Bucks dudes willing to shell out well past seven figures for rare and exotic cars. Jay Leno is an example. Most classic car lovers, of course, don’t possess his deep pockets. The typical collector who now owns, say, a 1958 Plymouth Fury like the one in the movie Christine is an aging Baby Boomer.
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One recently sold for $23,000 at a Barrett-Jackson auction. The description below is typical car guy jargon:
Restored to look like "Christine" from the movie of the same name. A 1958 Plymouth Fury with less than 400 miles since complete restoration. Power is a 383 V8 with dual Carter AFB carburetors. Push-button activated TorqueFlite transmission. Front disc brakes. All chrome redone in "show chrome" new sport tone side trim. New paint, new Coker wide white wall tires. Working AM radio with "demon" eye lighting. Hidden stealth stereo with 10 disc changer and remote. Drives as good as it looks with safety and reliability upgrades.
Cars from the 1950s are now viewed as works of art, no different from French Impressionist paintings. There is one major difference, though. The Top 10 French Impressionists paintings, the ones most sought after by collectors, sell for an average $124 million. Even the exotic and most sought after European models, mostly Ferraris and Mercedes, approach perhaps $40 million. Like any other market, prices can fluctuate. Economic cycles and collector preference are major factors that determine what a restored vehicle in pristine condition is worth at auction.
What’s so special about the American cars of 1958? The consensus view now among auto historians is the models Detroit’s Big 3 car makers put out that year were, in a decade that focused on excess, reached it zenith. The designers who already were legends among car enthusiasts, turned the aesthetic concept expressed by the turn of the century architect Louis Sullivan that “form follows function” upside down.
But does that mean the critics in those days as well as now consider them visually ugly? When describing the overall look of 50s cars writers will often use a German word, kitsch. It is more like using kitsch to have fun rather than making fun of 50s cars.
Here’s what is what kitsch means from a dictionary perspective:art objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way. To digress, here’s a quote from a website: “The lava lamp is an example of sixties kitsch.” Or, “The front room is stuffed with kitsch knickknacks, little glass and gift ornaments.” Saving the best for last, “As a child, I considered my mother’s ornaments a bit kitschy, but when I took them to the Antiques Road Show I discovered that they were valuable.”
So something having kitsch appeal, one could say, has value, just not a whole lot of value in most cases. Returning to the American cars of 1958, the collector market as a whole places a high price on a select few models. Everything else is priced much lower. It takes a few hours of watching a televised car auction to understand this. A rare convertible, say a 1958 Corvette in original condition with an engine that appeared in only a small percentage or models produced that year might sell for well over one-hundred thousand dollars. Then comes a series of 50s coupes and sedans that sell for between twenty-thousand and forty-thousand, followed by more that sell for much less.
Nevertheless, no matter the collector value, car guys (90 percent are men) cherish each and everyone of them. Many were young, certainly not old enough to drive in many instances,
during the 50s decade. They grew up, left school, got a job. Next came marriage, a mortgage, and children -- lots of children. The dream of owning a chromed out piece of gas guzzling, rolling sculpture powered by 300 horses under the hood had to wait, sometimes for decades. That said, the average age of a 50s car owner is getting up there. He’s a grandfather now. Maybe even a great grandfather rumbling along on an urban street when the weather’s nice in his chromed chariot, reliving, as best as he is able, a special period in his life.
The 50s decade was special in its own way. In the decade that followed, with all its social turmoil, youth rebellion, riots, racial strife, and political divisiveness that still troubles America as it makes it way in the 21st Century, the 1950s were downright genteel. It was a good time to be young. The outlook was gloriously optimistic after four long years of war in the prior decade. The economy didn’t just grow. It boomed. Readers will learn of how much in various segments of this book.
Despite the current consensus of what the 50s were about, that they were dull, a time when people’s chief concerns were with convention and conformity, and that nothing notable happened in the way of scientific discovery, you will be pleasantly surprised. It was a period of high creativity, as well as a time when a few genies were let out of their bottles. Those genies would live on in the decades ahead, as one will see in coming segments.
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