1950s car culture

Car culture of the 1950s was the result of the postwar United States' changing neighborhoods due to suburbanization, along with the development and release of stylish, powerful new models from automakers. Many cars that have come to be regarded as classics were introduced during the 1950s after several model-deprived years. Among the most recognized is the Chevrolet Corvette, introduced in 1953. As a result of buyers’ enthusiasm for the car in 1953, the manufacturer gave the 1955 model even more power.

American culture was greatly changed by World War II (1939–1945). People were tired of the long years of deprivation when manufacturing was focused on the war effort. Returning troops needed housing, so suburbs of detached houses were constructed near major metropolitan areas. The people who lived in these sprawling neighborhoods needed transportation to work, school, and shopping areas, so the demand for automobiles increased dramatically. In the postwar years, more people could afford to buy cars as well. These factors and other societal changes led to the car culture associated with the 1950s.

Background

The American identity has been one of expansion. Settlements spread from the coasts to the internal plains and mountains of North America. Exploration and the so-called taming of the wilderness were central features of American history.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the American auto industry began building and selling Ford Model Ts, Oldsmobile Model Rs, and other vehicles. Ford sold more than 15 million Model Ts alone between 1908 and 1927. While the prices of automobiles steadily fell through the first few decades, the machines remained out of reach for much of the population. In addition, most people had nowhere to go, because their concerns were mostly close to home, and roads were mostly unpaved and poor.

The American car culture took off toward the middle of the century, simultaneously benefitting from and leading to more street paving, roadway construction, and greater infrastructure related to auto travel. People who could afford cars were so in love with their vehicles that they preferred to eat in them when they dined out. During the 1920s, restaurants began employing car hops to deliver food orders to automobiles. During the 1930s, the federal government eyed the nation’s highway system and declared it inadequate. In 1939, the Bureau of Public Roads made recommendations for an Interstate System to Congress. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 authorized the system, and work began several years later. The 1950s saw massive public investment in and construction of interstate highways under the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, which forever altered the American landscape and American society.

Production and sales of consumer vehicles were affected by two significant events: the Great Depression and World War II. The former began in 1929 and left very few people with the financial means to buy or even keep their cars because of high rates of unemployment. However, the New Deal programs of the 1930s restored some vitality to the economy, and in 1941, the United States entered World War II, setting off a rapid period of economic recovery and growth. Most adult males were involved in the war effort, and American manufacturing switched from producing automobiles and home goods to building tanks, planes, and weapons.

Several years during the war passed with no new models or civilian automobile manufacturing. Even those with cars were often stuck without wheels, literally, due to rubber shortages as well as gas rationing. Although World War II ended in 1945, auto production facilities took several years to transition from wartime manufacturing, and relatively few cars were built.

Major manufacturers began introducing new models in the late 1940s, and the automobile industry in the 1950s expanded on this trend. These sparkling cars were curvier and had new features and systems. General Motors held its first Motorama in 1949, showing off new vehicles and concept cars at what became an annual event. The trend at the time was toward the skies. Cars produced over the next decade sported ever-bigger fins and tails that were reminiscent of airplanes or rocket ships.

The next step in rebuilding the automobile market was the introduction of sports cars. Chevrolet’s first Corvette, the 1953 model similar to the British Jaguar XK-120 roadster, was so popular that Chevrolet revved up production in 1954. Ford responded with the 1955 V-8 Thunderbird, while Chevy countered with its 1955 V-8 Corvette. Chrysler’s C-300, another 1955 model, was a fast car with luxury features and the most powerful American car introduced that year. The decade was marked by style and a thundering herd of horsepower under the hood.

Overview

The 1950s American car culture was marked by mobility, changing mores, and rock and roll music. Cars and music were intertwined, with entertainers crooning about their cars, and cars announcing to the world that the entertainers had achieved success. Rock and roll songs like “Rocket 88” (1951), about an Oldsmobile; “Maybellene,” about a lady driving a Cadillac; “Beep Beep” (1958); “Cadillac Baby” (1950); “Buick 59” (1954); and “You Can’t Catch Me” (1956) spoke to young people. When a singer like Elvis Presley became famous, the first purchase made with the big check was often a car. Presley, whose song “Baby, Let’s Play House” mentions a pink Cadillac, famously owned a hundred Cadillacs. He had his second Cadillac, a 1955 Fleetwood Series 60, painted a custom shade of pink.

In harmony with the music of the road was the development of the highway system. While early auto travel was bumpy and muddy, new interstates were smoothly paved. The landscape was blasted, carved, and reshaped to create gentle curves that lent themselves to speed. While an earlier generation may have enjoyed a family road trip with many stops along the way, the post-war vacation was not about the journey but was about the destination. Families wanted to get where they were headed as quickly as possible, and interstates did this efficiently.

American culture was growing more relaxed, which allowed people—especially teenagers with cars—more freedom to socialize with their friends. Postwar teens in the middle class had more mobility and spending power than in previous generations. They also had more leisure time. This often involved driving around to destinations such as the movie drive-in or drive-up restaurants.

Driving became so integral to American life that people enjoyed spending lots of time in their cars. They ate in their cars and watched movies in them. This affinity for the auto aided salesman Ray Kroc in building a burger empire when he helped Maurice and Richard McDonald, the owners of a small hamburger and milkshake restaurant, develop a franchise that morphed into international fast food giant McDonald's. The business opportunity transformed the dining culture of the United States and much of the world. Fast-food restaurants expanded rapidly along highways in the Midwest, where many suburbs had plenty of people but no restaurants. The expanding interstate highway system, fast food restaurants, and ever-growing numbers of people and families with cars far away from urban areas fed one another. As these suburban communities grew, the population centers of many metropolitan areas shifted away from emptying urban neighborhoods, and throughout the postwar decades, white residents continued to flock to the suburbs in what became known as "white flight."

Bibliography

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