A thrill of anticipation filled our living room as the
television screen went dark. With a crescendo of music, two lights
appeared, followed by two more. As the rest of the scene became
visible, the dramatically re-styled Lincoln for 1957 appeared.
A thrill of anticipation filled our living room as the television screen went dark. With a crescendo of music, two lights appeared, followed by two more. As the rest of the scene became visible, the dramatically re-styled Lincoln for 1957 appeared.
In the fall of 1956, my brother was six and I was nine. This wasn’t the first year we had eagerly awaited the revelation of the next year’s car styles. Family lore has it that my brother was the chief car fanatic, but he must have learned it somewhere. Anyway, my dad, my brother and I found a lot of entertainment in speculating about the next year’s cars.
Car dealers of the era would post provocative silhouettes in their showroom windows, to tease us and the rest of the public into speculating about the new models‚ thrilling innovations.
That 1957 Lincoln was a milestone of sorts. With the dual headlights, it promised better night vision, but the real impact was stylistic. After all, the Cadillac, its main rival along with the Chrysler Imperial in luxury cars, had started sprouting tail fins in 1948! The headlight innovation, accompanying a sleek, straight line body style and increased chrome, moved all auto manufacturers towards sleeker, longer and flashier designs … with dual headlights, of course.
The 1957 Chrysler Imperial, by contrast, shares the Lincoln’s straight-line design (no actual fins) but its most startling feature is a grille that makes it look like Darth Vader.
Maybe George Lucas was a youthful car fanatic as well.
Anyway, it’s hard to imagine kids today even noticing when new car designs appear. While brands and models have proliferated, designs have converged so that in any given year, most sedans look alike, as do SUVs, hatchbacks and sporty models.
I remember thinking that the first new BMW sports cars looked just like Miatas with gills, thanks to the air vents along their sides.
We’ve gotten away from the straight line styling, and most cars today are rounded in shape, even lumpy.
In 1956, however, my brother and I could identify a car silhouette, by brand and year, as it crested a hill.
In our youthful years, we had several long car trips in which to do so, and it seemed like a logical way to pass the time.
The manufacturers and dealers, with their dramatic TV ads and alluring showroom ads, were practicing an early form of the hype which now accompanies everything from movies to laxatives.
No more of that innocence that allowed us to thrill as the Lincoln headlights went on so many years ago.
I can still identify most cars from those years. I guess you could say I’ve carved out my own little niche of the trivia space.
Except I married a man who, a few years older and even more immersed in car lore, knows more models and more about them, than I ever knew existed.
And he knows about the innards as well, not just the silhouettes and distinguishing features of the trim.
But it’s comforting to live with an authority.
