American Car Spotters Guide - 1959

In the very early days, while the small pioneer firms of Britain and the Continent were experimenting successfully with individual shapes that distinguished the motor car from any other invention, the Americans were showing a thoroughly conservative attitude by merely adapting the old horse-drawn vehicles to self-propulsion. They were rightly derided for their lack of imagination.

But the Americans did have imagination and were showing it in their assessment that the motor car was going to become the transport of the people. So, ahead of anybody else, they applied the principles of mass production to the manufacture of motor cars, and quickly made themselves the world's largest and most efficient makers of the new machines.

With their success in achieving volume came new attitudes to design. In the 1920s, the American car makers were the heralds of simplicity. A car was an engine, four wheels, brakes (sort of) and a minimum of human protection. It was simple, cheap and, by the standards of the day, remarkably reliable. It sold by the million. In 1929 came the death of Wall Street and, in its wake, the Great Depression. Suddenly the car ceased to be the right of the masses (it didn't return to that status for another 20 years) but the plaything of the dwindling ranks of the rich

Competition among car makers was fierce and they vied with each other to make something that was newer, more powerful, more desirable than anything else. It was the grand age of American car design, with even the cheapest models verging on elegance, the age when America produced its greatest classics. The war called a halt to the evolution of design and, with the notable exception of Studebaker, the four years after VP day were just a continuation of the thinking of 1939. It was 1949 that switched America to what man believed to be its worst decade of car design. The bodies took on the modern "coming-or-going" look which one, and only one, manufacturer seemed to be able to handle with grace, and that was the originator of it all.

The bulk of American cars rapidly became all bulk, with ornate chromium decoration, bulbous panels and obscenely bulging windows. Horsepower was poured on horsepower, and springs became softer and brakes less and less effective. Only the engines themselves and automatic transmissions seemed to improve. The Dollar Grin, gargantuan tail fins and acres of chrome proved too much, even for the Americans. Ten years of this was enough. Suddenly, in late 1959, some of the makers began to lose their obsessions with bulk and ornament, and the glimmerings of sane simplicity were seen.

Total passenger car sales for 1959 amounted to 5,591,243, Pontiac produced their 7-millionth vehicle and Chrysler reorganized their car sales division by forming the Plymouth-DeSoto Division, the Chrysler-Imperial Division and the Dodge Division. Following the lead of the smaller 'independents', who during the 1950s had introduced small cars with varying degrees of success (Hudson Jet, Kaiser Henry J, Nash Rambler, Studebaker Lark, Willys Aero) and the increasing impact of 'imports' (mainly Volkswagen) on the home market, the 'big three' had decided that the time was ripe to start competing in this field and late in 1959 introduced what became generally known as the 'compacts'.

General Motors launched their Chevrolet Corvair, Ford their Falcon and Chrysler their Plymouth Valiant. They were introduced as 1960 models. It meant that from now on the two main types of American cars were 'compact' and 'regular' models (during the next decade to be joined by the 'intermediates'). Cadillac offered Cruise-Control automatic acceleration, maintaining a pre-set speed whether going uphill or downhill.

Also see: 1959 Automobile Ads Published in the USA