Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Wraparounds all the way down
Part of a picture from an article on mid-50s Ford pickups in latest Collectible Auto mag.
This was clearly a factory advertising pic.
1. What's under the truck? A cat chasing a turtle? Seems like an odd implication for a car ad.** Normally cars are compared to fast predatory animals. Did the photographer simply fail to notice?
2. Daughter is learning that Dad loves the turkey more than her. Traumatic but necessary.
3. More importantly, note the parallel wipers. At that time all American cars had clap-hands wipers. Surprised me because I drove a '55 F-250 stake truck for work, and it definitely had the expected clap-hands. Detroit finally adopted parallel wipers in '63 under Federal orders, but seems to have fallen back to clap-hands recently. (I haven't been paying attention to cars lately, so I'm not sure.)
The article doesn't mention the wipers, but the accompanying pics show that they were parallel from '53 to '55 on the F-100. In '56 Ford obeyed GM's Owned Conversation and adopted the wildly impractical idiotic wraparound windshield, and also surrendered to clap-hands wipers.
= = = = =
Wraparound windshields disappeared quickly on cars but persisted a LOT longer on trucks. Everyone but Chrysler got Owned in '55. In '61 GM gave up the wrap, and others meekly obeyed.
For once Chrysler had enough confidence to DISown the conversation, and only wrapped slightly on its cars from '55 to '61, when they returned to the faint curve of '54.
For unknown reasons Dodge pickup trucks outwrapped GM in '55. Dodge pickups unwrapped in '62, but the cab derived from the '55 superwraps continued on some Dodge big trucks until '76 when Dodge stopped making big trucks.
A similar wraparound wrapover happened at Ford. Their pickups returned to nearly flat by '61, but the wrapped cab continued on some big trucks until at least '81.
= = = = =
Addendum: The point I was intending to make here, before I got wrapped up in wraparounds, was that both Ford and Chrysler were innovating and improving the style and function and reliability of cars and trucks. GM was following their lead SLOWLY AND POORLY. But GM owned the national conversation about cars. Everybody, even allegedly anti-corporate VW-loving hippieshits like me, "knew" that GM was the leader in styling and engineering. It just WASN'T TRUE.
= = = = =
** Later footnote: There's one minor exception. In the era of gimmicky special editions, Plymouth offered a Snapper trim option on the Fury, with turtleshell vinyl roof and a cartoon decal of a turtle on the side.
Part of a picture from an article on mid-50s Ford pickups in latest Collectible Auto mag.
This was clearly a factory advertising pic.
1. What's under the truck? A cat chasing a turtle? Seems like an odd implication for a car ad.** Normally cars are compared to fast predatory animals. Did the photographer simply fail to notice?
2. Daughter is learning that Dad loves the turkey more than her. Traumatic but necessary.
3. More importantly, note the parallel wipers. At that time all American cars had clap-hands wipers. Surprised me because I drove a '55 F-250 stake truck for work, and it definitely had the expected clap-hands. Detroit finally adopted parallel wipers in '63 under Federal orders, but seems to have fallen back to clap-hands recently. (I haven't been paying attention to cars lately, so I'm not sure.)
The article doesn't mention the wipers, but the accompanying pics show that they were parallel from '53 to '55 on the F-100. In '56 Ford obeyed GM's Owned Conversation and adopted the wildly impractical idiotic wraparound windshield, and also surrendered to clap-hands wipers.
= = = = =
Wraparound windshields disappeared quickly on cars but persisted a LOT longer on trucks. Everyone but Chrysler got Owned in '55. In '61 GM gave up the wrap, and others meekly obeyed.
For once Chrysler had enough confidence to DISown the conversation, and only wrapped slightly on its cars from '55 to '61, when they returned to the faint curve of '54.
For unknown reasons Dodge pickup trucks outwrapped GM in '55. Dodge pickups unwrapped in '62, but the cab derived from the '55 superwraps continued on some Dodge big trucks until '76 when Dodge stopped making big trucks.
A similar wraparound wrapover happened at Ford. Their pickups returned to nearly flat by '61, but the wrapped cab continued on some big trucks until at least '81.
= = = = =
Addendum: The point I was intending to make here, before I got wrapped up in wraparounds, was that both Ford and Chrysler were innovating and improving the style and function and reliability of cars and trucks. GM was following their lead SLOWLY AND POORLY. But GM owned the national conversation about cars. Everybody, even allegedly anti-corporate VW-loving hippieshits like me, "knew" that GM was the leader in styling and engineering. It just WASN'T TRUE.
= = = = =
** Later footnote: There's one minor exception. In the era of gimmicky special editions, Plymouth offered a Snapper trim option on the Fury, with turtleshell vinyl roof and a cartoon decal of a turtle on the side.
Labels: Zero Problems
¶ 3:05 AM
