It's not
just fins and wings either... no love for all the other jet age iconography that made 50s Yankadelia so memorable? Every marque, no matter how humble were into it but it's only the Caddies and such that seem to have entered the collective memory. Personally speaking, I feel
no-one did fins quite like De Soto
Anyway, there are enough fins in here already so how about some other jet images... like the jet intake nozzle of the Studebaker Champion?
Buicks had fighter plane exhausts "Ventiports" down the fenders (even though they didn't actually do anything)
every tail-light was a rocket exhaust (this one's a Dodge Custom Royal)
(Olds Super 88)
T-Birds had jet intakes on the bumper
and jet exhaust rear lights
In fact, Ford might suck at mascots but they
really rocked at taillights!
Mercury's Monterey had an actual rocket right down the side!
It wasn't the exclusive preserve of upmarket stuff. Chevy's humble Delrey still managed twin intake nozzles per side
and Dodge's cooking Dart/Polara
Even steering wheels and gauges were given the jet nacelle treatments
and all that's before you even get to all the speed and flight imagery that took over the embelms and mascots fo the day.
Being American, and each model year representing a metric gazillion units sold, they could afford to change them up and keep them fresh, too. So the Tripower Chevys even had different birds.
'53 was a little squashed pigeon
By '55 it was a jetliner super eagle thing. The '56 version lost the long tail
And then by '57 it was rockets. Just rockets
By the end of the decade they'd moved round to the bodyside
Pontiac managed to combine aero touches with American Indian stuff before PC penetrated
Olds were happy to stick with jet planes, unadulterated by birds or feather headresses
Mercury were at the "is it a bird? Is it a plane? Tell you what, let's have both" thing
Buick were happy with planes...
...but felt that a jet nozzle or two couldn't hurt
Oddly, the "shoebox" Fords were supposed to have a giant chrome Eagle mascot but in one of the few bean-counter interventions of the day, it got swapped down to a peculiar perspex and chrome sphinx thing. One of the rare examples of bucking the trends
(in fact, like I said, Ford never really got the hang of good mascots...)
proof the accountants were largely muzzled in those days? Can you imagine the Buick Fasion-Aire Dynastar grille making it past economies today? hundreds of individual components all chromed and individually assembled? We shall not see its like again. Maybe that's a good thing
the Caddies had them both ends!
better stop there, this might go on for ever otherwise
