Getting a jump on Postwar Design

RL Chilton

From an article in Life Magazine:

In August 1947 LIFE magazine shared with its readers a whole new world of car design taking shape in postwar Europe. “It is exciting in Europe,” LIFE wrote of the creative ferment on display at car shows in places like Paris and Rome, “but only promising in the States.”

The magazine then went on to discuss the ways in which European designers were outpacing their American cousins—a state of affairs largely unfamiliar to carmakers and consumers, alike.

Once again in a few favored places throughout the world [LIFE proclaimed] a man can ogle a new, well-turned fender and sniff the heady redolence that a new automobile’s paint, metal and upholstery distill. After six carless war years and two years of uninspired “face-lifting” some really new cars are on display. Mostly they are European. The top Continental cars shown in Paris and Rome last month were lavish, beautiful and original in design. Although far out of reach for most of the people who viewed them, they nevertheless might well be an inspiration to U.S. manufacturers. So far in America only five real postwar cars have appeared: the Hudson, Packard, Studebaker, Kaiser and Frazer. The long-awaited new cars of the Big Three, GM, Chrysler and Ford, are still subjects of nationwide curiosity.

Hudson, Packard, Studebaker, Kaiser and Frazer because they had to.  The big three eventually followed, because they didn't want to give up too big a piece of the pie. 

Link:  http://life.time.com/culture/postwar-european-auto-design-cars-with-real-curves/#1