Experts weigh in on American cars that defined the decades and culture.

ROCK ’N’ ROLL OWES ITS EXISTENCE TO OLDSMOBILE. In 1949, General Motors delivered the model 88 to showrooms. At the same time, the manufacturer debuted lightweight, overhead cam V8 engines for both the Cadillac and Oldsmobile lines. The numbers don’t look so staggering from a modern vantage: 135 horsepower, 0 to 60 in the 13-second range. Yet the impression of the car in American minds at the time said otherwise. Its appeal prompted Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats to release “Rocket 88,” a single bursting with power that in three brief verses conveyed a lifestyle of motion.

“The legend of the Rocket 88 – we were off to the races,” says John Kraman, director of company relations and television personality with Mecum Auctions.

Literally. The Olds 88 instantly became a NASCAR winner. It shared with the ’49 Ford an aspect of restless modernity, as if eager to thrust Americans into a new age. What followed would be a swirl of sound, of excess, of the perception of freedom, of glorious neon and routine commutes, of youth captured in a phrase that first emerged in the 1950s: car culture.

Somewhere in the mix of traits woven into the fabric of the population – individualism, a willingness to reinvent ourselves, conspicuous consumption – the automobile seeped into our lives. Car culture is layered, certainly, but the presence became a constant. In music and film, Americans celebrated the automobile and its meaning in the postwar decades. “Hot Rod Lincoln,” “Little GTO,” “Get Your Kicks On Route 66” and other hits powered the airwaves. Burt Reynolds’ Pontiac Firebird Trans Am and Steve McQueen’s Ford Mustang starred equally on the big screen. We remember shows like Dukes of Hazzard or Starsky and Hutch not for any specific plot, but for the cars they piloted.

AMERICA WAS ALREADY A NATION DEFINED BY AUTOMOBILITY. Vast spaces and accessible vehicles like Ford’s Model T and Model A had ensured a mutual relationship, and both would come to identify their era.

It’s possible to see the spirit and circumstance of a time in vehicles from a particular decade. Cars and trucks tell stories, after all. One can imagine the confidence of postwar America in the bold chrome of the 1950s or feel the blow suffered from the oil crisis in the anemic power plants of cars constructed through much of the ’70s. However, Chris Bock, head judge for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, treats glib reading of the past with caveats.

“Automobile design doesn’t necessarily follow the mood of the times,” he explains. “Some of the most luxurious cars ever built in the U.S. were built in the depths of the Great Depression.”

There was the revolutionary Cord 810 and 812, with front wheel drive and pop-up headlights. And the Auburn Speedster – “It was low and rakish, about as sexy as it got,” says Leslie Kendall, chief historian for the Petersen Automotive Museum.

One of the cars that experts point to as most representative from a decade of bread lines is the elegant Duesenberg Model J. It was a car of status, one that could improve upon the image of those who owned one – Clark Gable, Mae West and other elites.

Keep in mind that people revered the stars, particularly those projected from Hollywood. In 1930, 80 million Americans visited a cinema each week. And as University of Dayton professor Michelle Pautz noted in a 2002 study on movie attendance, “during the Great Depression… a higher percentage of the population went to the cinema each week than during the times of economic expansion and great prosperity the U.S. has seen since.”

“It represents the peak of that era,” Kraman says of the Duesenberg. “Anybody who wants a spectrum of American automotive history wants a Duesenberg in their collection.”

The industry had progressed through the 1920s. As Kraman points out, however, the ’30s was a decade of both innovation and stylistic flourishes that led to annual changes that fed conspicuous consumption.

This energy even energized the notoriously stodgy Henry Ford. “People had a hell of a time talking him into a new direction,” Bock notes. “The ’32 Ford, that’s [son] Edsel [Ford]’s influence.”

If any other vehicle best represents the decade, it’s the 1932 Ford Model 18. It was the first affordable V8 powered car and set a new baseline for performance. Outlaw Clyde Barrow famously penned Ford a personal letter praising the Ford V8 as his favorite getaway car. It also came in different trim levels, yet it was still familiar in appearance – headlights mounted on the fenders, running boards down each side.

The emblematic cars to the period sit at either end of a spectrum, one emerging from the ’20s, an affordable everyday car, the other aspirational. But both pointed in the same direction.

“During the 1930s it went from an amalgamation of parts – headlights, running boards – to a unified whole,” Kendall observes. “By the end of the decade, you had more full-bodied cars.”

As the nation entered the ’40s, Packard and Cadillac introduced a useful new feature: air conditioning. But all of that creativity came to a sudden halt on Dec. 7, 1941. Although a few 1942 models rolled off the assembly lines before production was switched over to support military needs, the most original and iconic vehicle of the 1940s was the Jeep.

T HERE ARE SUGGESTIONS THAT AMERICANS ARE LOSING THEIR AFFECTION FOR THE AUTOMOBILE AND THE OPEN ROAD. According to a report by Doug Short of the investment research firm Advisor Perspectives, when population growth is taken into account, the annual number of miles driven per person reached its peak in 2005 and then began a steady decline.

Some of this results from the growth in home offices, some from economic downturns. It may also be generational. Mark Lizewski of the Automobile Club of America Museum told the Washington Post in 2015 that smartphones are replacing the emotional meaning once reserved for cars. “Instead of Ford versus Chevy, it’s Apple versus Android, and instead of customizing their ride, they customize their phones… You express yourself through your phone, whereas lately, cars have become more like appliances.”

New emissions and safety standards put in place starting in the early 1970s, the oil crisis of the same time period, as well as growing concerns over the significant contribution of fossil fuels to the dire pace of global warming affect car culture.

“U.S. car companies don’t move outside of their comfort zone until there are regulatory changes,” says Tom Matano of the Academy of Art University of San Francisco.

Matano served as a designer for both BMW and Mazda, but in 1974 he was working for General Motors. He believes auto executives panicked, making sudden and rash changes that led to fiascos like Chevrolet’s Vega.

“There was a revolution in quality,” Bock points out. “The imports were so much more well built. They did it right, did it carefully. It took Detroit a long time to catch on, but the American manufacturers have come around.”

The American cars of the ’70s and ’80s that truly represent the two decades are more likely to be seen at Concours d’Lemons than on display in a valued collection. Models such as the Pacer, Gremlin, Granada, LeBaron or Taurus dot the landscape, most of them hasty responses to sudden demand for less expense in a sputtering economy. And the vehicles that marked the culture were often not American at all.

“We could talk about the Civic, the Corolla, the Golf,” Kendall says. “Or minivans, for good or bad – I’m not judging.”

There were gains made from the popularity of foreign models, according to Matano. Japanese manufacturers were more efficient in the assembly process. And in the wake of the energy crisis, aerodynamics began to guide design. One of the first cars from Detroit’s manufacturers built with aerodynamics in mind was Chrysler’s aptly named Air Flow in the 1930s. “It went over like a wicker bed pan,” Kendall notes. “But it showed people were thinking about it.” In the ’80s, Ford’s Taurus and Thunderbird were tapered specifically to reduce the blunt force of air.

“From a styling standpoint it was a huge influence,” Mecum’s Kraman says of the Taurus. “That’s an important car.”

There were American phenomena on the road during the period. The Buick Grand Nationals of the ’80s, capped by the single-year production of the GNX model in 1987, brought a renewed emphasis on power to family cars. And the GNX looked forward.

“Buick was the most unlikely manufacturer of a performance car,” Kraman observes. “There were computer controls, intercooling – it was a landmark car.” Another was Pontiac’s vividly decorated Firebird Trans Ams in the ’70s, even though in terms of engine output it was a shell of its former self. The black Trans Am with the golden screaming eagle decal gleaming from its hood with disco-era extravagance remains iconic.

Indeed, more Trans Ams sold in 1979 than any other year in the model’s history. “It was down on power, but there were design elements,” Kraman points out. “If you go to Mecum auctions, Trans Ams are white hot.”

The collector car market is strong in general. Since the onset of the pandemic, auction houses have been reporting record sales figures. When the new edition of the Bronco was announced, Ford had to put people on a waiting list. Tesla sales jumped almost 38 percent in 2021.

Perhaps reports of a looming breakup between Americans and the automobile are premature.

“There hasn’t been enough time,” Kendall says of judgments on the current status of car culture. “You have to see where these things fit in history.”

AT THIS YEAR’S PEBBLE BEACH CONCOURS D’ELEGANCE, Lincoln is a featured marque. The Concours has assembled a selection that will be arranged in chronological order. Bock describes it as an opportunity to walk through the evolution of style. The 1956 model gave us the Continental spare tire kit. The 1960 could hardly fit in most garages. By 1962, the Continental was sleeker and a foot shorter – an elegant car for Camelot.

When people imagine American car culture at its peak, they look back at the ’50s and ’60s. The two periods were distinct, with Jet Age touches on one hand and more compact, more muscular examples on the other.

Yet there were other influences at work. Soldiers who served in Europe during World War II encountered two-seater British sports cars. GM decided to capitalize on that and in 1953 introduced the Corvette.

“It was not a great car,” Kraman admits of the initial version. “But it set the stage for a phenomenon – and I mean a phenomenon. It has stood the test of time.”

There are many icons from the decade. Fins, cool colors, advancements in technology and, most of all, size define the decade. “U.S. manufacturers never cared about length or weight,” Matano says. The oversight would hurt them later. But not during the nation’s postwar boom.

Iconic rides? The Ford Thunderbird, the 1957 Chevy Bel Air – there are many possibilities. The 1932 Ford returned to the road, reimagined as customized hot rods with a new type of rebellious youth culture developing around them. So cool are many of these that Concours d’Elegance includes them as a featured class this year.

But if one car says happy days, it’s one that came at the tail end of the decade. “The 1959 Cadillac was the most outrageous thing you can imagine,” says Bock. Decked with towering fins, tail lights like twin dots of jet exhaust, the distinct “look at me” styling all around, it shouted success like few other cars before or since. And it’s much loved by collectors today.

For car owners at the time, it quickly fell out of fashion – too gaudy a behemoth for the time that followed.

“It was the first year for the 390 [cubic inch engine],” Kraman explains. “The ride quality was superb. For crazy excess – chrome, size, image – that’s the car. All these years later, we’ve put that car on a pedestal.”

Within a few years, all of that glorious chrome opulence was a memory. During the 1950s and into the ’60s, trim imports trickled into the market, like the Volkswagen. These were tidy, but well engineered and suited to youth and urbanity. American manufacturers took note and scaled down, more rational models like the Plymouth Valiant, Ford Falcon and Studebaker Lark appeared, followed by muscle cars like the lauded Pontiac GTO.

But Kraman argues that two cars define the decade, admitting that one is open for debate. The latter, the 1963 Corvette split window coupe, was a one-year design that resonated. “It’s the first time ever an American car was on the level of the finest styling in the world,” Kraman says. At the time, Italian and English designers were treating cars as art. “If you look at the lines, with its fender peaks, that car still today is fresh and modern.”

Everyone agrees on the influence of the other. The 1964-and-a-half Ford Mustang was youth culture brought to the showroom floor. Baby boomers would influence television, music, civil rights, politics, marketing – every aspect of life. The Mustangs have followed them.

In the car chronology, the decade came to a close in 1970. If there’s a vehicle that tells the story of the transition to where we are today, it’s a back-to-back offering from Chrysler: 1969’s Dodge Daytona, followed a year later by the Plymouth Roadrunner Superbird.

“They had one foot in the past and one in the future,” Kendall says. The sculpted nose and tall rear wing were a nod to aerodynamics. But it was heavy, with asphalt-wrenching torque. “[Detroit] was not over that – yet.”