Wheels through time
Cars at this weekend's Atlantic Nationals represent changes in design vinspired by decades of pop culture
Take a walk down Main Street tomorrow or around Centennial Park this weekend and you will see well over 1,000 restored antique cars, street rods, race cars and one-of-a-kind customs.
The Atlantic Nationals auto festival begins today with participants-only cruises and continues through the weekend. On Friday, Main Street will be filled with show cars in the blocked off area between Lutz and Botsford Streets. Centennial Park will become a veritable showcase of classic and custom cars all day Saturday and Sunday.
The outdoor street party on Main Street will run from 6 p.m. to midnight on Friday with live music by the GTO's, Eddie Chase & Graffiti and other performers. Admission to the street party is free of charge.
Centennial Park will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday. The park will be filled with cars. There will also be vendor sites, a swap meet, live music on the bandstand and drive-through judging of automobiles. There will also be a display of model cars, radio-controlled cars, and model boat regatta in Centennial Park.
This year's guest celebrity is Chip Foose, a custom car designer, artist and host of the TV show Overhaulin'.
Overall, it will be a celebration of life on four wheels.
But these vehicles are more than just eye candy or art on wheels. Look closely and you can see how North America's love affair with the automobile has evolved over the better part of a century. Take a step back and you can see how music, movies, the spirit of adventure, the quest for freedom, the need for speed and the lust for luxury have transformed themselves into designs that became a part of our daily lives.
"There's something about certain cars that make people remember where they were when they came up. There's definitely a connection between cars and music," says Malcolm Gunn, an automotive historian and writer in Moncton.
Cars have been a part of people's everyday lives since the early part of the 20th century and evolved over several decades to the point where much of our society and daily lives evolve around them. When Henry Ford put his Model T into production and made it affordable for the average family, it kicked off a pop culture revolution that continues to this day. The horse and buggy was shoved aside as North America turned to gas-powered transportation.
As soon as they had a market, automobile manufacturers got into the spirit of competition, loading up their vehicles with more powerful engines, suspension systems and luxurious touches. By the 1920s and '30s, the era we often associate with gangsters and high-rollers followed by the Great Depression, cars grew in size and luxury.
"By the 1930s you had huge cars with sofa-like seating in the rear and acres of leg room. You could squeeze two people in the front and as many people as you could into the back seat, with no seat belts," says Gunn. These big luxurious cars had lots of chrome, big sweeping fenders, running boards and the infamous rumble seats.
"They had big fenders and big engines, but they weren't necessarily big on power."
The Great Depression put car companies out of business as many people couldn't afford to eat, let alone drive a car. That changed dramatically during the Second World War as many car plants were re-tooled to build military vehicles.
When the boys came marching home after the war, they wanted to live big. The postwar era spawned the golden age of the automobile, the 1950s, when cars turned into big boats.
"The 1950s was definitely an age of excess, with the big fins and tons of chrome and all the designers tried to make their cars look like jet aircraft, because it was the 'jet age.'"
The golden era of the car was especially powerful in the big cities. The car allowed people to move out of the cities and into the suburbs to pursue the dream of the good life. It also marked the beginning of the television age, which gave automakers a new way to spread their message. TV commercials allowed manufacturers to sell a whole new wave of luxury goods -- from washing machines and ovens to hi-fi sets and cars -- to consumers with disposable income.
Around this time, automakers actually hired designers and "stylists" to come up with new looks for cars as life in the suburbs grew at a frantic pace. More roads were being built and North Americans fell in love with their freedom. The 1950s are often associated with drive-in theatres, drive-in restaurants (as opposed to drive-through windows that we have today) and parking by the lake. It's not hard to see why there was also a population explosion in North America around this time. Just listen to the classic Meat Loaf song Paradise by the Dashboard Light.
The spirit of adventure was also inspired by Jack Kerouac's novel, On The Road.
Gunn says the excessive size of some of these cars is legendary.
"We used to have a 1957 Dodge that our dad would take us to the beach, and we could use the trunk as a change room. There was acres of room in there."
For several years in the 1950s, the North American automakers lived on this success and excess in design. Bigger was better, but Gunn says the most popular sellers were still the stripped-down six-cylinder machines.
As the Baby Boomers started coming of age in the 1960s, they didn't want to drive the old man's sedan. The explosive growth in the economy meant more teenagers were working part time jobs and able to buy their own cars. At the same time there was an explosion in pop culture with bands like the Beatles, the Beach Boys and many others helping to change North America.
"Music had a real influence around this time. Everybody wanted that California lifestyle, the fast cars and fast lifestyle that the automobile represented."
It was around this time that Ford introduced the Mustang, which has become one of the true timeless classics of the automotive world.
The 1960s also inspired the era of living dangerously with the big-block racing machines and modifications that could yield unbridled horsepower in what would become known as the Muscle Car. Music and movies celebrated the famous cars like the Pontiac GTO, the Corvette, the Camaro, the Firebird, the Challenger, the Barracuda, the Dart and many others. Gas was cheap and horsepower was easy to find, but government legislation, emission control standards, safety standards and insurance regulations all conspired to bring it under control.
And then came the gas crunches.
The so-called "oil crisis" of the early 1970s resulted in fuel rationing, high prices, long lineups and stories of people fighting for gas. This era is usually blamed for killing the muscle cars and opening the door for Japanese imports to gain a foothold in the North American market. Suddenly, people were trading their gas-guzzling Fords, Chevs and Chryslers for Datsuns and Toyotas.
"They were fuel-efficient and fun to drive."
The North American automakers responded quickly by offering up lines of smaller, four-cylinder cars like the Vega, Pinto, Gremlin, Pacer and Valiant. Even the Mustang and Camaro were offered in four-cylinder versions.
The music of the 1970s was closely linked with life on four wheels. Custom cars were all the rage and so were vans. The quirky 1975 song Convoy by C. W. McCall touched off a love affair with the Citizens Band radio (the forerunner of today's Internet chat rooms) and it seemed everybody had a 40-channel transceiver in their car so they could repeat the popular phrase "Ten-four Rubber Duck to anybody else on the air."
The era of disco music also included the popularity of the van. Everywhere you looked, people had Dodge and Ford vans customized to the nines with shag carpeting, a bed, bar and stereo system complete with eight-track player.
You still see custom vans around these days, tricked out with Yosemite Sam mudflaps and bumper stickers that read "If this van is rockin' don't bother knockin'."
By the 1980s, designs were changing to sleeker, more efficient cars. The Mustang, Corvette and Camaro all went through major design changes. There were also some landmark designs, like the stainless steel DeLorean made famous when it became a time machine in the Back to the Future movies. Flying cars, like those featured in futuristic movies like Blade Runner and the Fifth Element, always hold a bit of mystique for fans of auto design. And movies like the Mel Gibson classic The Road Warrior make us wonder what would happen if the supply of gasoline actually dried up.
So who knows what the future of car design will hold. Today's designs and the ad campaigns surrounding them paint an exciting picture of exploration and freedom for their prospective owners while promising better performance and above all gas mileage.
"I think shows like the Atlantic Nationals really play into the spirit of nostalgia," says Gunn. "People will always like to see the car that grandpa drove and hear the stories around the cars. These shows have a way of connecting people who maintain them and the people that admire them. The people who own these cars are doing a service by preserving them and they give a sense of how design has evolved."
More Life & Times
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
