Posted on 06/29/2021 10:41:08 AM PDT by ETL
https://i.ibb.co/JCKsJkD/1957-New-York-Car-Show-01.png
King Rose Archives
Fins were in as the car companies turned out to show their their new cars to a vibrant America that had a hankering for all things shiny, large and powerful.
Buicks, Cadillacs, Plymouths and the Ford Skyliner stole the show with no competition from the imports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4DnyPtZBmM
57 Chevy and Ford T-Bird are likely the most impactful from that show.
What about the Edsel? I hear that was the most talked-about car of 1957, but it doesn’t appear in the video.
The clip is only 1 min, 45 secs long.
We should be able to have cars that big and flashy and get 40 mpg as well!...............
American cars and American babes!
‘57 Chrysler 300C.
392 ci, 390 hp
Monstrous fins.
This show was held annually at what was the New York Coliseum on 59th Street and Columbus Circle. They used to have 2 shows every year, one with the new cars coming out, the other, in my opinion, much cooler, a rod & custom show. The R&C show, like damn near everything else that was once great about NYC, went the way of the pyramids. The new and future car show, known as the International Car Show, moved over to the Jacob Javis Center 30 or so years ago. The R&C show was spectacular. But I guess it wasn’t popular with the new generation of people that were replacing the older one.
MST3K made fun of that short.
You're probably right about that. It's a shame Ford really dropped the ball with the 2002-2005 attempt to reboot the Thunderbird. About the only positive thing that can be said for it is that it did pave the way for the retro-look of the 2005 fifth generation Mustangs, but apart from that, probably killed the Thunderbird name for a long time.
It seems like for engineers, marketers and upper management invested a lot of time, energy and money with the intent of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
I think the Edsel was introduced in 58.
1957 was the apparent ‘dawn’ of the quad headlamps, at least here in the US. First cars with them in production were (alphabetically) 1) Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, 2) Chrysler DeSoto Adventurer, 3) Lincoln Capri, 4) Mercury Turnpike Cruiser and 5) Nash Ambassador. Interestingly, these cars with 4 headlamps were only specifically legal in 37 States and illegal, by law, in South Dakota and Tennessee, until those laws were ‘adjusted’.
Such a myopic opinion....
What about that marvel of German engineering, the Trabant, which made its debut the same year?
I never could fathom why anyone would want to mess with a wildly successful product.
And yet they do it all the time and it's never an improvement. It always ruins it.
Why did the 2002-2005 T-bird reboot fail? I thought it was a good looking car.
I drive (for real) a 1957 Chevy Bel Air.
Built like a brick. Will out survive me and be on the road a 100 years from now.
As a pure, two seater its price point was above roadsters like the Miata and Pontiac Solstice. Performance levels weren't on par with pricier two seaters like the BMW Z3 and Z4 or anything close to the Dodge Viper.
Ford was gearing up for the intro of the 5th Generation Mustangs and didn't want a performance car that would outclass the Mustang (except maybe the very limited production Ford GT that came out about the same time).
Ford was never really clear about to whom the car was being marketed, cut corners that would have expanded the appeal and priced it beyond other cars that it would have otherwise competed with.
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