Tail Fins Rising aka Our father who art in styling... Harley be thy Name!

October 9, 2006 9:58 PM

Tail Fins Rising aka 'Our father who art in styling... Harley be thy Name!'
posted by y2karl (19 comments total)

I strongly believe the decline of tailfins and the decline of America are strongly correlated. Thanks for this!
posted by keswick at 10:10 PM on October 9, 2006

Thanks y2. Working my way through this.
Harley link is broken.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 10:57 PM on October 9, 2006

1956 General Motors Motorama:Design for Dreaming
posted by hortense at 11:53 PM on October 9, 2006

Wow. I never realised there were so many flawed prototypes for The Homer.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:04 AM on October 10, 2006

The 1959 Cadillac Eldorado's tailfins were rockets to Mars, but I'd rather have a Flying Wombat, which had no fins at all.
posted by pracowity at 12:13 AM on October 10, 2006

Good spot, [b]pracowity[/b]. It's amazing how a car that old can still look 'futuristic' and radical. Although, those rear windows don't seem too practical.
posted by Keefa at 12:21 AM on October 10, 2006

The concept car of the first link, looks like a Studebaker Champion that got too fat.
posted by paulsc at 2:13 AM on October 10, 2006

Heh, the good old days where body panels were all metal and dents could be simply hammered out and bumpers could be re-chromed. Now everything is plastic and costs $750 to replace if a bird so much as looks at it wrong. (Of course those modern parts are probably 10 times lighter, equally strong, and much safer in a crash...)
posted by Rhomboid at 2:56 AM on October 10, 2006

Very nice.
posted by caddis at 4:52 AM on October 10, 2006

Back when cars had style, baby.
posted by jonmc at 6:03 AM on October 10, 2006

Details from the first link (Business Week from 1950) I found interesting:

"New model has twin fuel tanks in tailfins - one for alchohol, one for gasonline."

Never knew they had alcohol powered cars back then. Interesting place to carry you fuel load around in though.

also:

"Since the cost of an auto per lb. is traditionaly about the price of 1 lb. of butter..."

Anyone care to calculate if that still applies today?
posted by beno at 6:29 AM on October 10, 2006

gaso n line

nerd.
posted by beno at 6:32 AM on October 10, 2006

Cool Office.
posted by octothorpe at 6:34 AM on October 10, 2006

fixed link "The �Da Vinci of Detroit�
posted by hortense at 6:47 AM on October 10, 2006

> Back when cars had style, baby.

When we get personal spaceships, they are going to look like that, aren't they? Tell me they are.
posted by jfuller at 6:57 AM on October 10, 2006

I thought that those Buick commercials a few years ago where they were using Harley Earl's ghost to pimp some crappy mini-van were pretty embarrassing.
posted by octothorpe at 7:26 AM on October 10, 2006

""Since the cost of an auto per lb. is traditionaly about the price of 1 lb. of butter..."

Anyone care to calculate if that still applies today?"

Sure.

Butter runs about $2.59 per pound here.

A new Ford Five Hundred weighs 3815 pounds. If the butter/auto price per pound were equal, that would work out to $9880.95. Instead, the MSRP of the Ford Five Hundred is $24,830.

Ah, well.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:40 AM on October 10, 2006

Harley Earl had his moments, but I've always been a fan of Virgil Exner and especially the original Chrysler 300 "letter cars."

Pity I'll never be able to afford to restore my 1961 300-G convertible.
posted by rhythim at 4:49 PM on October 10, 2006

Awesome links! Ah, the days when America built good-looking cars. What happened to them?
posted by dg at 9:05 PM on October 11, 2006