The Fabulous Fifties

You don’t have to be a baby boomer to relish the cars of the 1950s. It was the decade of design, and of the designers who, among other things, put fins onto cars: Harley Ford of General Motors, Virgil Exner of Chrysler and Raymond Loewy of Studebaker. Dubbed the Father of Industrial Design, Loewy designed the visionary Avanti, the Golden and Silver Hawks, and the Starliner Coupé, called a work of art by the Museum of Modern Art.

But before cars grew fins, there were the rounded, homey designs of the early ‘50s. My grandmother had one of these, a 1953 two-tone, green-and-white Dodge sedan. Years later, I drove a ’53 faded-blue Plymouth, which reminded me of Grandma. One day I found the little boy across the street staring at the grill. “It has a nice expression,” he said.

One of my favorites was the 1951 shiny, black Pontiac my father brought home. I recall its chrome stripes and the amber Indian ornament on the hood. We lived on a 40-acre farm in Michigan then, and in the side pasture we mowed the grass so we could play baseball. Parking the Pontiac nearby, we turned the radio on loud and left the doors open so we could hear Ernie Harwell of the Detroit Tigers broadcast the game from Detroit.

As those of our generation know, it was easier to tell cars apart in the 1950s. There were Hudsons and DeSotos, Packards and Buicks. My father once had a bullet-nose Studebaker. Later, he drove a white Nash, which to me looked like an upside-down bathtub. I wished he would get a Chevy or Ford.

A friend in sixth grade, whose father worked for a Chevrolet dealership, brought me a picture of a 1959 Chevy Impala, coming out in the fall. It had those elegant, eye-brow fins. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Foreign cars slowly made their way onto American highways. Of the first to cross the Atlantic were Renaults. Then came Volkswagens, Fiats and Volvos. My senior year in high school, Dad came home with a Datsun, the forerunner of Nissans. It became my first car, and it took my bride and me from Portland, Maine, to Los Angeles, after we were married.

In a uniquely American way, cars are touchstones of culture. For us as individuals, families and a country, they tell stories about us and our past.

This month at the Stoneham Historical Society, we are celebrating the Fabulous Fifties. We are putting up an exhibit of ‘50s cars and pickup trucks, photos that friends and neighbors have sent in. Come by and see the exhibit on Sunday, May 15, from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, and share in the stories these old cars and trucks tell.

Note: Ben Jacques is a board member of the Stoneham Historical Society & Museum at 36 William Street.