Essay About Way Cars And General Motors Corporation

The 50’s
Essay title: The 50’s
Another element that was present in the 1950’s was automobiles. Automobiles were
something that everyone once dreamed of owning. Now after the war. they could finally own
one. Automobiles of the 1940’s were dull and very plain. This was because designers were too
busy designing tanks, planes, etc for the ongoing war. The major event that took place that
changed the way cars looked and how they performed happened on October 14, 1947. This was
when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. From this point on everyone wanted to go faster.
People wanted automobiles with larger displacement engines. They also wanted sleek and
aerodynamic cars. This prompted General Motors Corporation to hold Motorama in 1949. This
was a giant exposition of concept cars that had an emphasis on power, style, convenience, and
features. These for features would be what many cars of the 1950’s would be based on.
One car that was a design evolution was the Chevrolet Corvette. The first Corvette was
built on June 30th, 1953 at the Flint, Michigan plant and continues to be produced today. In 1953
it featured an all fiberglass body with a chromed grill. The car had no side windows and no
outside door handles. Each 1953 Corvette was virtually hand built and all 1953 models were
white and had red interiors. This may have not been the most technologically advanced car but it
would pave the way for the true performance and sports car.
Concept cars also played a part in the 1950’s. They were designed to attract the publics
eye, introduce and gauge the publics reaction to new styling and engineering ideas, help attract
the public to the auto dealerships where they were displayed at, and to drive car crazy kids nuts.
The 1955 Lincoln Futura featured a plexiglass bubble top and a 300 horsepower V-8. In the
1960’s this car was sold to a car customizer in California and was converted into the first ever
Batmobile. The 1958 GM Firebird III was the most radical concept car of the 1950’s. It was
powered not by the normal combustion engine but by a gas turbine engine. It also featured a dual
cockpit design and was controlled by joystick controller instead of the normal steering wheel.
Another element that was seen in the 1950’s were the tail-fins present on most Cadillacs. The
first Cadillac that had the tail fin was introduced in October, 1947. These fins were supposed to
give cars a look of high-speed stability. The fins were inspired the P-38 war plane. The caddy tail
fins continued to grow until they reached there height in 1959 when they were almost as tail as
the car itself.
As the number of automobiles increased so did the number of road trips that people were
going on. All of the traveling motorists needed places to stay. This brought about the
development of the motel. Motel combines the words “motorist” and “hotel”. By the mid 1950’s
the smaller quaint motor lodges of the 30’s and 40’s no longer could compete with rising motel
corporations like Howard Johnson or Best Western. These corporations designed their motels to
be comfortable and practical for those staying in them. They also built them with a standard
design. The catchy facades of the older motels were no longer attracting the customers. Motels