Exquisite Potential: Postwar Automobile Styling and Popular Culture

David Traver Adolphus

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

TABLE OF CONTENTS:............................................................................................ 2

ABSTRACT:................................................................................................................ 3

INTRODUCTION:....................................................................................................... 3

PART I: THE UNITED STATES:.............................................................................. 4

PART II: EUROPE ................................................................................................... 15

CONCLUSION: ......................................................................................................... 27

ILLUSTRATIONS:.................................................................................................... 28

APPENDIX A: CHARTS: ........................................................................................ 40

1. SPECIFICATIONS.......................................................................................... 40

2: PRODUCTION DATA.................................................................................... 41

3: SOURCE DATA AND FIGURES USED IN CHARTS................................. 42

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WORKS CITED: ............................................................... 43

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David Traver Adolphus

Exquisite Potential: Postwar Automobile Styling and Popular Culture.

ABSTRACT:

Automobile design underwent a sweeping change after World War Two. Designs

which had been congruent in the US and Europe rapidly diverged into distinct schools.

The cultural situations leading to both the divergence in design philosophies and the

changes in are discussed, with significant styling examples examined in detail and major

designers profiled.

INTRODUCTION:

The effect of the automobile on culture and society has been the subject

uncountable commentaries, from scholarly tomes to popular songs. But what about the

reverse—the effect of culture on the automobile? The car does not spring unbidden out

of the ether, but rather is a reflection of the culture that surrounds and incubates it. This

second half of the automotive century saw a distinct evolution in the needs of

manufacturers, the desires of consumers and the exigencies of engineering, all of which

are ultimately reflected in the look of an automobile as it hits the showroom floor. In the

preface to For Love of the Automobile, German cultural historian Wolfgang Sachs says:

A technological history, setting one type of automobile next to others and

singing a devotional hymn to increasing perfection, is blind to human

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needs and cultural significations; it fails to consider that every technology

is the product of a historical period, in which it rises to prominence and

disappears. (viii)

It is my intention to track this relationship through the second half of the 20th

century, examining what I consider distinct and related eras in the US and Europe. In the

US, I define cars by the era in which they occur, those eras being the post-war years, the

baby-boomer revolution of the sixties, the oil crisis of the 70s, the rude awakening and

near collapse of the 80s and the revitalization of the auto industry in the 1990s. In

Europe, eras are more defined by the cars which characterize them, and I will look at

these periods through the lens of a small number of significant cars, demonstrating a link

between the look of the cars of an era, and the culture which brought them into being.

PART I: THE UNITED STATES:

In February 1942, automobile production in the US was halted by government

order and assembly lines were converted to the manufacture of military vehicles and

weapons to support the US military. When auto production was allowed to resume in

1946, manufacturers used their pre-war tools and dies and began selling cars that differed

only slightly, if at all, from the '42s. The introduction of new designs from the major

manufacturers (with the exception of Studebaker, which introduced its stunning Hawk in

1947) was delayed until the 1949 model year, when the industry was fully converted back

to civilian pursuits and the public began clamoring for new designs.

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These first new postwar designs held little resemblance either to their prewar

predecessors, or their immediate fifties descendants. Shorn of ostentation, they were

some of the cleanest and most attractive models to issue from Detroit for many years.

Boyne calls the 1947 Studebaker (fig. 1) “the most beautiful American production car of

all time. Its sculptured, understated refinement ran in direct opposition to the styling of

its competition [in later years]” (169), although this perhaps better refers to the slightly

more evolved designs a few years later (fig. 2). Ford’s 1949 sedan of the same era (fig.

3) was a startling departure from their prewar designs, and an immediate success.

Manufacturers of the immediately postwar era quickly discovered that two

economic engines drove consumer spending of the time: a desire by returning soldiers to

reinforce their material status through the purchasing of durable goods, and an overheated

industrial sector stepping into the void left by ravaged European firms. The industry now

had an enormous pool of skilled workers, fully evolved manufacturing processes and a

great desire to continue the profits they derived from military contracts. Once pent-up

demand from the unavailability of new (or any) cars from the war years of 1942 through

1945 was filled, people were going to want something new, and Detroit was going to

have to respond to what consumers wanted.

One element which was to influence US designs for decades to come was the

‘how are you going to keep them down on the farm, once they’ve seen Paris?’ factor.

Returning GIs, particularly those who had been stationed in the UK, had been exposed to

two types of vehicle unavailable in the US: the small, lithe sports cars for which English

automakers became famous, and the ubiquitous Army JEEP (which in its small size and

maneuverability resembled a sports car more than a traditional American sedan).

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Thousands of soldiers shipped home cars which they had purchased while on duty in

Europe—mainly English makes like Jaguar, MG and Triumph, but also smaller numbers

of French and Italian autos.

Perhaps it might seem at first surprising, then, that the American market did not

produce a variety of light, small European-style sports cars, but instead quickly began to

create a vast fleet of huge sedans. The sports-car market never emerged as a major

factor, and European cars continued to fill this niche until the mid-1960s. However, the

giant cars which came in retrospect characterize the years of 1949-1965 were in fact just

what the American people as a whole wanted: cars which expressed our national mood.

As it became apparent that we were to be an industrial superpower, we responded by

creating cars which became the primary symbol of our international ascendancy and

which came to symbolize the capitalist victory of WWII.

This attitude provided the primary impetus to manufacturing decisions for the

next decade. Detroit manufacturers (then including such now-vanished marques as Nash,

Studebaker, Hudson, AMC, Kaiser-Fraser, Packard and others) were able to ignore

practical requirements and engage in what were purely fanciful styling exercises (fig. 4),

in some cases taking the consumers’ whims to absurd extremes. “However flamboyant

or even dumb a lot of these American designs were,” says Mark Christensen, “ their

designers welded tremendous clout, not only within the auto industry, but over popular

culture as well.” (44) The industry and consumers created a kind of feedback cycle,

where each large model beget an even larger successor, the market being driven by

complacent consumers who were happy just to express their prosperity. In return, it

seemed as though what was good for a major corporation was clearly good for the

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consumer. “It is difficult today,” says Boyne, “to understand how anyone in management

could have permitted the endless mindless excess to continue.” (176) He concludes that:

A kind of runaway pituitary growth madness set in, and stylists with long,

flowing arms and flexible elbows seemed to step in and dictate what

American cars should be. Engineering changes persisted, but they were

subordinated to the whims of the stylist to a degree never before tolerated.

The styling changes were incredibly stupid. Cars got bigger and heavier,

while their interiors either stayed the same or grew smaller and less

comfortable. Enormous overhangs developed at the front and rear of cars.

A foot of empty space often separated the chrome-toothed grille and the

actual radiator, while in the rear a cavernous trunk yawned behind a 1-

foot-high lip.

It was extravagance without conscience, vulgarity without vision,

statement without content [. . .]. Detroit meant for cars to go fast or to go

straight; a luckless owner who wanted a car to do both was in for trouble.

(170-176)

Clearly, there was a difference between the needs and the desires of the

consumer, and the manufacturers were satisfying the more profitable—the desire for pure

gratification (which suited the stylists, as their flights of fancy grew ever more elaborate).

(Boyne: 176). But what were the needs of the consumer? If the American public was

getting what it wanted, how was that different from what it might have needed? In his

essay on automobiles in animation, Paul Wells says that:

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If the 1930s had been characterized by resilience in the face of economic

hardships of the Depression, and the 1940s were inevitably informed by

the effect of the necessary sacrifices in the light of the war, the 1950s were

effectively the growth period for consumer goods, especially in response

to the re-consolidation of the middle-class family, and the rise of youth

markets. For the first time since the heyday of the car as the chief symbol

of commerce and culture in the 1920s and 1930s, the motor vehicle found

prominence as an icon of progress and profit…Inevitably, though, it was

not long before style was once more the key factor in appealing to new

buyers; indeed, styling became the determining agenda in the development

of car culture in the United States. People even went to observe new

stylings [sic] in showrooms even if they had little intention of buying.

(86)

Tailfins topped out at an astounding 42” on the 1959 Cadillacs (fig. 5). However,

challenges to this new golden age of Detroit were approaching quickly.

The mid-1960s saw a tectonic shift in American culture, and Detroit at last

responded. Gerald Silk, writing about an exhibition in Los Angeles in 1984, said, “If the

fifties were flamboyant, the sixties could best be described as a period with a strong

character and a sense of style.” (241) The first generation of Baby Boomers began to

approach car-buying age and like their predecessors, they tended not to embrace the

conventions of their parents’ generation. Additionally, new consumer pressures began to

be felt (Ralph Nader’s seminal “Unsafe At Any Speed—The designed in dangers of the

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American automobile” was released in 1965). Pressure from Europe and Asia began to

be a real concern (the VW Type 32 (AKA “Bug” or “Beetle”) was one of America’s best-

selling cars by the early ‘60s). New demands for performance, safety and economy

began to be felt from an increasingly enlightened populace. Designs of the time began to

reflect a rejection of the recent past, as well as a response to the engineering challenges

posed by these new demands. Wells characterizes this shift as one from one extreme to

another, as

The change in American auto-culture [. . .] [showing] the implications of

the shift from the excess of styling in the 1950s to the excess of

horsepower in the 1960s. In appealing to an increasingly irrational

marketplace, the ‘muscle car’—a Pontiac GTO, a Chevrolet Camaro (fig.

6), a Ford Mustang (fig. 7) a Dodge Challenger—fulfilled the fantasies of

the young, the image-conscious, the thrill-seeker, and the prestige buyer.

Motoring itself had little to do with the appeal of the car. (91)

The 1960s also saw the introduction of any number of now-commonplace safety

and engineering advances. Developments such as the first on-board computers enabled

designers and stylists to do less with more. “Aerodynamics is one of the most variable

and logical arts presently applied,” says Silk. “The results of its application are

fundamentally beautiful and truly exemplary of profound cultural reflection.” (247) Cars

of this era show a clear relationship to the automobiles of the present, demonstrating the

enduring appeal of their designs, as well as the developing maturity of designers and

consumers. Where behemoth 1950s automobiles quickly came to be regarded as baroque

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extravagances, many of the simple and elegant designs that followed achieved a much

more lasting favor. We had recovered somewhat from the heady postwar feeling of

indomitable triumph, and started to display a more mature confidence and we no longer

required enormous tailfins or massive chrome-toothed grilles to as symbols of our power

and arrogance. These styling hallmarks fell out of favor rather abruptly between 1959

and 1960 (fig. 8). Horsepower replaced exuberant styling as the primary means of

expression. For example, Pontiac introduced a “longer, lower, wider” marketing

campaign aimed at differentiating its new models from their predecessors. Alas, these

were to be the last good years for the industry in America.

The 1970s and 1980s could well be called a dark age for Detroit. The clean,

muscular and linear designs of the 1960s were translated onto ¾-scale economy cars,

with disastrous results (fig. 9). There were at that point two economic demons at work

making the 1970s the worst decade of car design in US history (although a moribund

industry was unable to escape from its doldrums until the late 1980s). Firstly, the gas

crisis of the early ‘70s and new federal emissions standards made the large, elegant cars

of the ‘60s became uneconomical to operate, and without a design vocabulary that

included small cars, floundering designers attempted to translate earlier designs onto

smaller models, with horrifying results. Secondly, generations of inertia and entrenched

mismanagement among the directors of Detroit’s Big Three and a general unwillingness

to embrace change, or even acknowledge it meant that manufacturers were compelled to

cut costs dramatically as profits declined, due to the first encroachment of Japanese cars.

This meant less money was available to pay designers, and less willingness existed to

take any sort of risk with distinctive designs or to manufacture complicated and

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expensive designs. This eventually led Chrysler Corporation close to bankruptcy, saved

only by a massive bailout from the Reagan government.

Perhaps the worst affronts to the American car-buying public during this period

were Chrysler’s disastrous K-cars—The Dodge Omni/Horizon, Aries/Reliant and their

assorted clones (fig. 10). Conceived by Chrysler General Manager Lee Iacocca, and

introduced with tremendous fanfare as a challenge to Japanese imports, they were among

the worst performing, least reliable, least safe and worst looking cars ever to shame our

roads. They also marked the beginning of public awareness of a “planned obsolescence”

in cars from Detroit—they were engineered to wear out within 80,000 miles. Yet,

perhaps due to a Reaganite patriotic fervor, they and their Detroit brethren sold as well as

their antecedents, although imports continued to make substantial inroads among

consumers.

As Japanese imports continued to gain ground through the 1970s and 1980s,

Detroit manufacturers responded with further attempts to imitate these new competitors,

both in design and engineering. These attempts were to fail miserably, and Detroit has

never regained the lead in the passenger car market, remaining to this day is incapable of

producing a vehicle which can compete in quality, design or price with the Japanese or

European manufacturers.

American consumers had seen a similar decline in their own standards. The

acceptance of shoddy and ill-conceived designs during the 1970s and 1980s can be

directly attributed to a general malaise within the consumer community. The lingering

effects of the Kennedy and King assassinations, the moral swamp of Vietnam and

Watergate, are related to the decline in standards of the automotive culture—the

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manufacturers in design and the consumers in purchasing. A lack of interest in life or

culture, and a loss of faith in major institutions does not reveal itself directly, but instead

manifests in all aspects of life. Having fallen from the heights of ‘50s conviction, we

could no longer in good conscience drive cars of that era of confidence. Instead, a

humiliated, insecure nation expressed its national malaise through the American

vernacular: ugliness. When we were proud, cocksure and dominant we created cars that

were, within the American context, beautiful. When our hearts fell, we showed our

shame through Chevelles. Thus, Detroit’s own response to the wants of the car-buying

public has led to the long decline of American car manufacturing.

Ford, Chrysler and GM responded with alarming enthusiasm to this trend,

outdoing each other with in an orgy of putrescent products disguised as “cost-cutting,”

only to discover that the humility of the car-buying public stopped short of outright

masochism. This dis-affectation gradually led to a rejection of the products of Detroit,

and acceptance of Japanese and European products. While patriotic stalwarts continued

buying a new Buick every other year (and sometimes destroying a Honda in a public

display), legions of better informed buyers elected to spend their money more wisely, on

superior products. Outwardly, there is little thematic difference between a small Honda,

Dodge or VW of the 1980s. The American public should have found its needs served

equally well by any. However, the Honda and VW were well-made cars, where the

Dodge, Ford or Chevy was likely to be unredeemably awful. Only the dramatically

uninformed or those whose buying habits were informed largely by nationalism would

have knowingly purchased an American car between 1975 and 2000.

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Detroit had been aware of this flight since Volkswagen attained the “unthinkable”

benchmark of capturing 10% of new car sales in the US with the Beetle in the mid-‘60s

(Silk: 240), and the small cars of the 1980s were intended to fill the needs discussed

above. Alas, 75 years of having things their own way had ill-prepared the Big Three to

meet even their own goals, let alone those of their consumers.

Fortunately, it was during the late 1980s that some of the designs that would come

to characterize the New Golden Age of the 1990s began to emerge, along with the

development of the minivan and SUV styles. Cars such as the then-groundbreaking Ford

Taurus introduced in 1986 (fig. 11) helped prepare the consumer for a new generation of

cars more in tune with broader tastes and requirements. However, holdovers from the

1970s such as the Ford Escort, Chrysler K-Car variants and others continued be produced

until the late 1980s and early 1990s, enabling the Japanese and later, European

manufactures to establish dominance they have been loath to surrender.

The 1990s have seen American consumers much less likely to consider national

origin when purchasing a car. For several years, Honda and Toyota have bested Ford for

best-selling sedan honors, and their reputation for quality has far outpaced that of their

American counterparts. In response, the remaining two American auto manufacturers,

Ford and General Motors, increasingly global in not only outlook but also corporate

structure, have begun to explore previously untrodden stylistic grounds.

If the market has become truly globalized, what then remains to distinguish an

American automobile? What drives an American consumer?

DaimlerChrysler seems to have found an answer to both questions with its LH-

series sedans (fig. 12). While still relatively early for retrospective assessment, they seem

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to appeal to a broad range of the car-buying public. “We can’t remember” says Car and

Driver’s Csaba Csere, “the last time a new car made as dramatic a break with its

predecessor as the new Chrysler LHS.” Capturing a Jetsons-esque futuristic appeal with

a practical and quality design, cars such as the Concorde and 300M have been successes.

In their way, these cars (initially previewed in 1990) were harbingers of the

“retro” trend that seems to be the hallmark of the recent past and near future. “You can’t

change who you are,” says Cadillac general manager Michael O’Malley. General Motors

is “taking the best from the past and modernizing and bringing it into the future”

(Gritzinger). All of the world’s car companies are now looking to their past for

inspiration.

This is not what was pictured 50 years ago. “According to many soothsayers in

print,” says Car and Driver’s resident pundit and curmudgeon Brock Yates,

By now we ought to be whizzing around in emissions-free, ultra-safe,

feather-light, computer-controlled automobiles fabricated entirely of

space-age, environmentally friendly materials, or floating serenely from

pillar to post aboard all manner of high-speed mass-transit devices.

Electric motors, fuel cells, cold-fusion reactors, solar power—all these

things were to be the sources of our New Age transportation, anything

except the hated internal-combustion engine.

But these were the predictions of the experts who know what we should have, not

what we want. The cars of today look a lot like the cars of immediate postwar period; not

exactly what projections from the 50s expected (fig. 13).

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There is a clear link between the needs and desires of the people and the products

they are offered, but this link is difficult to perceive without some separation in time.

The process by which these desires are translated into sheetmetal reality is even more

obscure, but just as surely exists.

Speaking of the British car culture, Ken Holden said that:

Objects can become mythologised [sic] according to the stance of those

who create the myths and those that perceive them. Car culture compared

to other subjects is relatively new but it is a twentieth-century

phenomenon which through the rise of a mass literature in magazines,

newspapers, advertising and other forms of communication has ensured

that they are objects which pass beyond function and enter the realms of

fetishism in the continual rediscovery of their distinctiveness in terms of

the mythologisers and the car’s significance to culture and ideology.

(Holden: 39)

PART II: EUROPE

If the American situation after the war was one of relative plenty, then the

European condition was one of desperation and depravation. In England, for example,

rationing instituted during wartime persisted in some isolated instances for more than ten

years after 1945; in the US, most rationing restrictions were eased by 1949.

As a result not just of the war, but also of a variety of factors in effect before the

war, European car design took a very different path from the US through the end of the

20th century. The main problems faced by the European manufacturers as a direct

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consequence of the war were a lack of distribution infrastructure—roads, bridges,

railroads and port facilities were extensively damaged or destroyed; factories converted

to wartime production, damaged or destroyed; sources of raw materials shut down—coal

in short supply, Middle Eastern Oil, central European steel, et c.; capital depleted both by

manufacturers and potential customers; lack of a skilled labor force, with casualty rates

being extremely high (this was in some part offset by the lack of employment available to

the able-bodied workforce); lack of the “pent-up demand” described in the US because of

the low priority of auto manufacturing, and traditional European emphasis on public

transportation; and a general lack of need due to petroleum rationing and high

unemployment.

These conditions in some small ways resemble those in the US before the war.

Thus this postwar period was one of the US stepping in to fill the role formerly occupied

by Europe on the world stage, and cars that befit the new station of their respective

countries reflected that. The US produced cars that only a wealthy and victorious nation

could; huge, unsafe, inefficient, powerful, inescapable statements of virility and growth.

European cars were of reduced stature, humble, and generally appropriate for a ravaged

continent.

The physical constraints on manufacture due to the war were strongly

complemented, and perhaps superceded, by factors, which had been in place prior to

1939. Many of the most popular postwar cars were projects initially instigated in the

period of 1935-1939, and because the conditions for which they were created to some

extent continued to exist after the war, these designs were able to enter production

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unchanged from their prewar production briefs and in some instances, such as those

profiled below, became iconic cars of tremendous stature and lasting influence.

The prime factor which dictated the shape and mindset of European car

manufacturers before the war was the dominant physical configuration of the population

centers. Space has long been a premium in Europe, unlike in the US. Small, narrow

roads and short driving distances created a need and desire for autos that would match

these conditions. This became the context in which all major European cars would be

developed and, later, the major obstacle to sales of American cars in Europe. Thus the

bias, which continues to this day, on handling and compact size appropriate for local

driving conditions versus a need for great size and straight-line power as sought by the

American consumer. Ironically, it is in Germany and to some extent, Italy, that the

closest parallels to conditions found in the US came to exist, and led the German auto

industry to create an industry that created cars most closely resembling those from

America. Germany’s Autobahn system of high-speed limited access highways resemble,

and were the inspiration for, the interstate highways in the US—a means of moving

military materials rapidly. Italy’s Autostrada also encouraged the development of V8

sedans similar in some respects to American cars. It is no accident that Chevrolet’s

immensely successful 350ci (cubic inch) engine of the early 1960s is mirrored in

displacement by Ferrari’s 5.7L V8, and that both continue in production some 40 years

after their creation, Ferrari still using it in all V8 models, and GM’s in models ranging

from trucks to the Corvette.

Even so, it was 30 years or more after the end of hostilities that these German and

Italian cars came to resemble their portly American brethren. While they bear an

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outward similarity to similar American cars, their missions are really quite different. Any

American consumer could aspire to owning a massive V8 Chrysler in 1955, while a large

European car was only accessibly to a very few.

This period spanning the years of 1948 through 1960 can be largely characterized

as a period of recovery, and the era of popularity of mass-produced cars. Cars during this

era can typically be distinguished by the following characteristics: they were very small,

inexpensive and cheap to operate; they were left virtually unchanged for decades at a

time; they enjoyed huge popularity; they attained iconic status (that is, they eventually

came to represent abstract ideas such as national identity or pride and often became better

known than the companies which produced them); designs originally conceived in the

1930s; they all had similar production briefs (very clear, and similar, missions and

explicitly stated ); and they were very rounded in shape.

An example of these elements can be found in the gestation of the Citroen 2CV

(fig. 14). In 1935, Citroen managing director Pierre-Joules Boulanger summoned the

head of his design office, Andre Lefebvre, creator of the innovative 7CV (or “Traction

Avant,” the first popular front-wheel-drive car). He told Lefebvre about his plans to

design an affordable utility car intended primarily for the French farmer: "Design me a

car to carry two people and 50 kilos of potatoes at 60 kmh, using no more than three litres

of fuel per 100 km," he instructed. "It must be capable of running on the worst roads, or

being driven by a debutante and must be totally comfortable.” (Setright 33) This, while

perhaps the most plainly stated, closely resembles the missions of the other epochal cars

of the postwar period in Europe.

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Because of the cultural and physical diversity of the European manufacturers and

their constituencies, this Era of Recovery and Popularity is most easily examined through

the lens of a small, representive and mostly familiar group of cars, which I consider

typical of this era: The French Citroen 2CV (“deux cheveaux”), 1948-1990 (4 million

sold worldwide); the VW KdF Type 32 (“Beetle”) (fig. 15), 1938-present (21 million as

of 2000); the Italian Fiat 500 (“Cinquecento” or “Topolino”) (fig. 16), 1936-1955 (3.87

million); and the English Morris Minor, 1948-1971 (1.58 million) (fig. 17).

The British BMC/Austin/Morris Mini, 1959 – 2000 (5.4 million) (fig. 18) and

Ford Consul/Zephyr/Zodiac line (1950-1962) (fig. 19) (1.1 million), are further examples

of similar cars which were developed toward the end of this period, partially as

replacements for early postwar models, and partly a result of the First Suez war. The

British Austin 7, 1923-1939 (fig. 20) (750,000) is a good example of a vehicle created out

of similar conditions resulting from WWI.

All of these vehicles were produced with very few changes for at least 15 years.

They all had tremendous, lasting influence, especially within the parent company. Both

the Austin 7 and VW KdF (“Beetle”) were produced in some form both before and after

WWII. (The KdF entered production in 1939, selling only a few hundred copies that year

before production halted until 1946, and Austin attempted to resume 7 production after

the war with the unsuccessful A30 1946—unlikely, considering the car’s initial design

dated to 1920 (Robson: 56), but an indication of the great popularity and sentiment

enjoyed by the car. Fiat continued to call very similar-looking (and very popular), if

mechanically dissimilar, “Cinquecentos” through 1977, selling more than 4,000,000 of all

versions (Buckley and Rees, 206-207). While Citroen has never produced a “new” 2CV,

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they have certainly considered it with a succession of “2CV” concept cars over recent

years, and speculation continues about the possibility of one of these making it into

current series production. The Mini was produced in its original configuration until

2000, overlapping the introduction all new “retro” Mini. The VW beetle is one of the all-

time great success stories. (The three best-selling car models of all time are the Toyota

Corolla, VW “Beetle” and Ford Model T; however, the Corolla underwent at least seven

major architecture changes, while the Beetle was fundamentally the same car through

2001). Parent company VW currently sells in excess of 50,000 New Beetles in the US,

and original Beetle manufacture continues in Mexico, now 64 years after the car debuted.

The greatest cultural factor influencing European car design in the 1940s and

1950s must be considered to be the after-effects of the war. Americans of the time drove

vehicles that celebrated their victory, cars which could be used in the local VE day

parade. Not only could Europeans not use such cars, the national mentalities of countries

rent by war would not permit the conception of such cars. These ruined countries

produced small, humble cars which in the 1940s befitted their reduced status and in the

1950s reflected depressed economic conditions, continued lack of presence on the world

stage and the looming threat of the Soviet Union. It is interesting to note that Germany,

perhaps the most humbled and confused country of all the major car manufacturing

countries, produced the most rounded and humble vehicle, the VW Beetle. France,

which had been occupied, but resisted, produced the similarly rounded but somewhat

jaunty and distinctly French 2CV. Britain, which felt itself to be the real savior of

Europe, produced the sporting, but still rounded, Mini. Italy, which had been complicit

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in the war, resumed production of the Topolino, nearly as rounded as the instigator’s

Beetle.

Thus, we can see a direct correlation between the roundness of the vehicle and the

perceived degree of responsibility for the conflict, and the level of damage to the national

psyche of the country which created the car. When America experienced a profound

national depression in the 1970s and 80s, the uniquely American fixation on beauty

meant that our attitude was reflected in the creation of uniquely ugly cars. In Europe,

with a very different idea of humility, it meant that the more repressive the government,

or more damaged the country, the more likely they were to produce a highly rounded car.

Germany, France and Italy were by far the most physically and emotionally damaged of

the carmaking countries, and their cars are the most rounded. Britain’s damage was more

psychological than physical, but the loss of national status dealt a great blow to national

pride, and Britain’s postwar cars are far more rounded than prewar cars. Defining

roundness as a number represented by (number of separate curves), I arrive at the

following order:

(The lower the number, the fewer continuous or compound curves the vehicle

has.)

Make Roundness

VW "Beetle" 2

Citroen 2CV 2

Fiat “Topolino” 3

Morris Minor 4

Ford Consul 5

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BMC, et al., Mini 6

Austin 7 8

Why did the European expression of anguish become roundness, while the American

became ugliness? As well as suiting production briefs which called for maximum

interior volume in a small package, roundness was also a subtle expression of engineering

and design prowess. The departure from the angular shapes of the preceding era

indicated an ability to think of fresh designs. These new round shapes acted in contrast to

prewar shapes. They also bespoke the mechanical ability needed to engineer and produce

such large, complex shapes. An example of this is the Italian Lancia Aprilia (fig. 21), of

which approximately 20,000 were produced from 1937 through 1950, excluding war

years. Designer Vincenzo Lancia asked his team to create a car that was “bold,

unconventional, streamlined, spacious, lively, stable, small, modestly-engined [sic] and

competitively-priced.” (Setright: 39). Not only are these instructions remarkably similar

to those of other designers of the cars here profiled, but the result is also quite similar.

The roundness of the Era of Popularity was another expression of commonality, of shared

humanity and an attempt to mend national rifts and cross political boundaries, to say

through driving “we are all the same.” The round cars were almost anthropomorphic and

often given pet names reflecting their near-human status, like “Beetle,” and “Topolino,”

or “little mouse.” Where American cars would be called things like “Fleetwood

Brougham d’Elegance” and the very Anglophonic “Crown Victoria,” British cars were

named “Mini” and “Minor,” and the French just called their best-selling car “2CV.” (The

Morris Minor was originally called “Mosquito” during development; not normally a

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“pet” name, but a British fighter of the war had been called “Mosquito,” and the name

engendered great sentiment among the British.)

There is also an ancient European tradition of roundness signifying security and

safety. The Venus of Willendorf (fig. 22), the primordial symbol of roundness and

security in the European tradition, was found less than 100 miles from the German

border. Is it any wonder, then, that when the people cried out for commonality that

designers turned to the oldest common shapes and forms to which they had access. “To

design a car,” says J. L. K. Setright,

It is desirable to be a master of metallurgy, electricity, production

engineering, mathematics, polymer technology, aerodynamics, marketing

and men. Yet, however desirable all these abilities may be, none of them

is essential […] A car is not a thing, it is an aggregation of things, a

compound complex of numerous, mutually-supporting components that

are infuriating because they are also mutually interfering. The man who

can see how to eliminate these incompatibilities, how to make each

component in such a way that does its various tasks as well as can be

while detracting from the performance of all the other components as little

as can be, can see how to design a car; and if he has not that sight, no

amount of formal tuition will ever illuminate his vision. (12-13)

Setright is suggesting what designers have long suspected but seldom

articulated—that there is more to the design process than either responding to the

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requests of the manufacturer or working around the requirements of materials. Of prewar

American racecar designer Henry Miller, he said that:

As a designer, Harry Armenius Miller must stand out as unique. Others

might be described as artists, craftsmen, scientists, or as simply inspired,

but Miller alone admitted to an inexplicable occult inspiration as the

source of his ideas, which seemed to come to him without any real

working out. (22)

These mysterious creative forces are the ones that drove American designers to

express in steel the needs of Americans, and the Europeans to look to the dreams of their

people. “Dreams,” says Mark Christensen, “even preposterous ones, became a staple of

American auto sales.” (44)

This is not to say that technical and other practical requirements did not play a

part in design. As previously indicated, driving conditions formed the template for the

cars; wide-open superhighways and suburbanization in America, and short trips in

congested conditions in Europe. But there were other factors in play.

Since the earliest years of car development, racing has been a prime proving and

advertising venue for manufacturers. Postwar America saw an explosive growth of

stock-car racing, featuring nearly stock cars and a powerfully influential “win on Sunday,

sell on Monday” philosophy (Wolfe: 171). Europe had a different tradition, much the

reverse of the American, where what were essentially racecars were adapted for street use

(“drive on Saturday, race on Sunday?”). As a result, “the reason mid-century European

cars have had a more lasting influence is their designers looked to European race cars for

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inspiration, while American designers snubbed function and looked to jets.”

(Christensen: 44)

Many of these adapted race cars followed the pattern of their humbler brethren:

For sports cars, they sold in relatively high numbers, and lasted for many years (the

sports car market in Europe has long been distinguished by vehicles which sell in very

small numbers (often under 100), and companies which lack the stability and resources to

stay in existence, or at least independent, for very long, while American sports cars often

come from major manufacturers and sell in great volume). These cars began to be

developed in greater numbers in the late 1950s and early 1960s as economic conditions

improved, and are a hallmark of the following years, an era of diversity.

Recovering economies, especially in Germany, meant that confidence began to

return and, very much like in the US at the same time, mature and exciting designs which

reflected this lifting of depression appeared. For the first time in 25 years, mainstream

European cars, mostly German models, began to find acceptance in the US. At first, it

was largely sport models such as the Jaguar E-Type (fig. 23) and BMW 2002 (fig. 24)

which, having been developed with the Autobahn in mind, were eminently capable of

tackling American interstates. Nationalism in the United States meant that, with the

exception of the VW Beetle, more pedestrian sedans would not find favor until the

collapse of the American industry in the 1970s and 1980s, and would then face stiff

competition from low-priced Japanese models. Ultimately, companies such as Mercedes-

Benz (Now DaimlerChrysler), BMW and VW would, along with numerous Japanese

companies throughout the 1990s, build factories in Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee,

entering all segments of the market with great success.

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American companies, notably Ford (which today owns Volvo, Land Rover and

Jaguar) and GM (which owns Opel, Saab and Vauxhall and part of Fiat) have tried to

recreate this success, with mixed results. The most notable failure in this area from Ford,

the American company most successful in Europe.

The Ford Contour (US)/Mondeo (Europe) (fig. 25) was created by Ford in 1993 at

a cost of $5,000,000,000 (the most expensive car in history) and was intended to be a true

“world car,” that is, one which could be sold globally with few changes and, more

importantly, would appeal to a diverse group of drivers over 5 continents. As a basis for

this, Ford attempted to include what it felt were vital characteristics of each group,

mainly “European” driving dynamics and American-style accessories. However, in

styling a car for European tastes, they discovered that Americans have little appetite for

European-style roundness. A success in Europe, it sold very poorly in the US, and

received harsh criticism for the very shape (it receives a “5” on my roundness scale, tying

with Ford of Europe’s successful Europe-only Consul of 1950-1962 and placing it

between the Morris Minor and the Mini) that enabled it to sell in Europe. Ford was

mystified, but there is a limited audience for rounded cars in the US. We either don’t

need them or don’t want them. The VW New Beetle (fig. 26), epitome of roundness, sold

very well for about 18 months in the US and now barely registers of new-car radar

(selling approximately 50,000 in 2002.) Everyone who was going to buy a rounded car,

did, and those who were not going to, never would.

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CONCLUSION:

The emotional vocabularies of Americans and Europeans are rooted in very

different histories, and these histories and mindsets are responsible for the cars the

respective cultures create. In general, the other side of the Atlantic does not want them.

Only the Japanese, whose car designs are a product of the second half of the 20th century,

have succeeded in crossing the borders.

The cars we drive arise solely from our desires. If we did not to want to have

them, if we did not create a market and somehow force that market to respond to our

demands, we would have remained a-horse. We realized this almost as soon as the car

was born. Nearly 100 years ago, Otto Julius Bierbaum said, “The meaning of the

automobile is freedom, self-possession, self-discipline and ease. In it the traveling coach

is revived in all its poetic plenitude, but in a form endlessly enriched by the former’s

exquisite potential for intensified and simultaneously expanded gratification." (Sachs: 8)

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ILLUSTRATIONS:

Fig. 1. 1947 Studebakers in Beadle: 81.

Fig. 2. 1953 Studebaker Commander Starliner hardtop in Beadle: 104.

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Fig. 3. 1949 Ford Custom Club Coupe from the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village

<http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/showroom/1949/ford.html>.

Fig. 4. 1956 Buick Century in Lewis: 43.

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Fig. 5. 42” tailfins on a 1959 Cadillac in Buckley: 103.

Fig. 6. 1968 Camaro RS from Worldwide Camaro Association <http://www.worldwidecamaro.com/> at

<http://65.18.159.167/photopost/data/516/294mvc006f.jpg>

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Fig. 7. 1966 Ford Mustang in Harvey: 31.

Fig. 8. Mid-1960s Oldsmobile Cutlass. Photo by the author.

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Fig. 9. 1975 AMC Pacer in Beadle: 190.

Fig. 10. Chrysler “K-Car,” here in LeBaron guise in Beadle: 219.

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Fig. 11. 1986 Ford Taurus in Beadle: 216.

Fig. 12. 1993 Chrysler LHS in Car and Driver (39): 1, 59.

Fig. 13. 2000 Chrysler PTCruiser in Beadle: 252.

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Fig. 14. 1949 Citroen 2CV in Harvey: 38.

Fig. 15. VW Beetles. Photo by the author.

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Fig. 16. 1938 Fiat 500 in Silk: 279.

Fig. 17. 1958 Morris Minor 1000 in Buckley: 213.

Fig. 18. c. 1968 BMC Mini. Photo by the author.

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Fig. 19. 1956 Ford Zodiac Mk. I

in Buckley: 140.

Fig. 20. C. 1938 Austin 7 in Boyne: 13.

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Fig, 21. C. 1936 Lancia Aprilia from Авторевю:

http://www.autoreview.ru/new_site/year2001/n24/lancia_hist/lancia_hist.htm

Fig. 22. The Venus of Willendorf from Witcombe, Christopher L. C. E.

Women in Prehistory: The Venus of Willendorf. <http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/willendorf.html>.

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Fig. 23. 1961 Jaguar E-Type in Porter, Phillip. Jaguar: The Complete Illustrated History, 3rd ed.

Somerset, UK: Foulis, 2000.

Fig. 24. C. 1970 BMW 2002 tii. Photo by the author.

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Fig. 25. 1999 Ford Contour in Heraud: 180.

Fig. 28. VW New Beetle in Robson: 473.

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APPENDIX A: CHARTS:

1. SPECIFICATIONS

Specifications

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

"Bee

tle"

2CV

Mini 7

"Top

olino

"Mino

r

Consu

l, et a

l.

Length (cm)Weight (kg)Horsepower (gross)

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2: PRODUCTION DATA

Production data

010203040506070

"Bee

tle"

2CV

Mini 7

"Top

olino

"Mino

r

Consu

l, et a

l.

Years in Production

Total Sales, millions(initial run)Today's value, US$,1000s.***

Figures do not include later production totals for VW New Beetle, BMW Mini, Fiat

Topolino 500D-L, and post 1962 Ford Consul and Zephyr models. These later models

share too little architecture to be considered the same model.

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3: SOURCE DATA AND FIGURES USED IN CHARTS.

Make Model Length

(cm)

Weight

(kg)

Horsepower

(gross)

Years in

Production

Total Sales, millions

(initial run)

Today's value, US$,

1000s.12

VW "Beetle" 3 406 731 25 61 21 5.50400

Citroen 2CV4 378 499 9 42 3.87 7.66700

BMC, et al., Mini 305 635 33 41 5.4 11.33200

Austin 7 269 363 11 16 0.75 9.61100

Fiat "Topolino"5 326 537 13 19 0.52 2.29000

Morris Minor 376 775 27.5 23 1.58 12.51967

Ford Consul, et al.6 391 1124 48 12 1.1 17.29059

All figures for earliest available year.

Production through 2000

1 Inflation Conversion Factors for Years 1700 to estimated 2012 http://www.cjr.org/resources/inflater.pdf 2 Converted to approx. US dollars for 2003 using Current Value of Old Money: http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html 3 Fewer than 400 KdF Wagens were sold before the onset of hostilities in 1939. Cost in the US at its introduction in 1955 was $1800. 4 Known as “Deux Cheveux” 5 Properly called 500 or “Cinquecento” 6 Includes Consul, Zephyr and Zodiac MK I and MK II

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