Yesterday's Tomorrows

"Visioneers" imagined the car of the future

Americans have always been a mobile people. The vastness of the land, a flair for tinkering, and our belief that “moving on” can lead to greater opportunities combined historically to encourage enthusiasm for vehicles and innovation in transportation. The following excerpts are from “Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future,” the book that accompanies the traveling exhibit, which tours Nebraska this year.

By Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan

In the 1950s and early ‘60s the car of tomorrow enjoyed its greatest popularity and exerted its broadest influence on American popular culture.

In this period Detroit car manufacturers encouraged their styling departments to look further into the future than ever before and, instead of keeping such visions secret, widely publicized them. Futuristic vehicles were most commonly called “dream cars,” although they were also known as laboratory cars, show cars, parade cars, and idea cars. Some of these unique creations were fully operable, others were full-sized mock-ups, and some existed only as models, usually in 3/8 scale.

The most futuristic vehicles came from the Ford Motor Company’s Advanced Styling staff, called “visioneers.”

These individuals, according to a 1957 Ford promotional brochure, made “a business of letting their imaginations run free” and had the responsibility of interpreting “from the predictions of economists, sociologists and scientists the environment in which you and your children will be living at specific periods in the future—and from these predictions to visualize and design the vehicles you and they will be needing.”

Designers began by making rough sketches or airbrush renderings. If a particular design seemed promising, they produced a small model, usually made of clay, and next produced either a 3/8-scale model or, if they planned to construct an actual mock-up,full-sized drawings. Finally, if the mock-up received approval by management, a working prototype was built.

Part of what made Ford’s cars of tomorrow so visionary was that, unlike their competitors, the company was more willing to show the future merely in illustrations and models, avoiding the constraints of creating a working vehicle.

Manufacturers in the 1950s and early ‘60s went to great effort to publicize their visions. In 1952 Harley Earl unveiled “Motorama,” an auto extravaganza featuring contemporary and futuristic products from General Motors that traveled around the country, receiving large audiences. The annual Mororama, inspired by Earl’s acquaintance with Hollywood movie mogul Cecil B. DeMille, offered a view of the future which was very advanced technically but quite traditional socially.

At the conclusion of the 1955 Motorama, for instance, two theme cars appeared on elevated ramps at the back of the stage, “piloted by Mr. and Mrs. Tomorrow.” A company account of the animated display captures the era’s ideals of marriage and domesticity:

“As nearly as cars can, they themselves had sex. The feminine car with its soft, sensuous shapes done in pastel colors was deftly guided into the driveway of the Frigidaire Home by provocative Mrs. Tomorrow, just returned from shopping. Alighting and stepping to the rear of the car, which looked most like the business end of a helicopter, she gracefully pulled out a drawer-like, grocery-laden trunk compartment that produced its own landing gear and was easily wheeled inside the house.”

Mr. Tomorrow then arrived in his car, distinguished by “its angular lines and bold brown coloring.” Then, in a sequence that symbolized contemporary priorities regarding leisure, work and family, Mr. Tomorrow opened a side compartment of this car and removed first his golf bag, then his briefcase, and finally a box of flowers for his wife!

Aerospace motifs, alternate energy sources and the concept of automatic driving formed the themes for cars in this period. Auto designers had been enamored of airplanes since the war, and by the 1950s had added rockets as source materials for the car of tomorrow.

Car shapes and design motifs also reflected the aerospace influence: Fins masquerading as vertical stabilizers, taillights looking like rocket exhaust tubes, and front ends resembling fighter plane nose cones. Many of these features were not at all functional and worked against true streamlining and safe driving.

The interest in developing cars powered by alternative energy source is somewhat surprising, given the low price of gasoline and relative lack of concern over future energy supplies in the 1950s and early ‘60s. Automotive designers speculated about and experimented with gas turbines, fuel cells combined with electric propulsion, and even compressed air. Both Chrysler and General Motors actually built and tested gas turbine cars, and Ford conducted studies of air-levitation vehicles.

Paradoxically, Americans in the 1950s had just become aware of the process of automation in industry and were pondering nervously the effect it would have on people’s jobs and happiness in the future. Yet in their kitchens and in the fighter plane-like cockpits of their cars they found the vision of a highly automated, electrically powered future congenial.

The gadgets of domesticity helped put behind memories of the war and Depression. Americans were also adopting more relaxed standards regarding the use of leisure time. Social scientists predicted that Americans would be working less in the future, and Detroit offered an automotive vision appropriate for the easy-going, recreational ethic. Driving would become less active and more passive, like that benchmark of passivity, watching television.

Contemplating these futuristic confections, viewers could easily imagine moving comfortably and automatically into tomorrow. Yet just around the corner, the automobile was to come under fierce attack. Critics were increasingly decrying the traffic congestion caused by cars and the poor fuel economy and lack of safety of American vehicles.

Reproduced from “Yesterday’s Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future,” by Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan. Copyright © 1984 by the Smithsonian Institution.