Glamour Road: Color, Fashion, Style, and the Midcentury Automobile

by Tom Dolle, Jeff Stork

Overview

How midcentury modern design and the changing roles of women in a male-dominated society influenced American postwar automotive design.

This highly visual book will appeal to automotive history buffs, classic car enthusiasts, and anyone interested in midcentury fashion and design.

• Explore how glamour, fashion, design, and styling became the focus of automotive marketing in the postwar years.
• The dramatic photography, elegant fashion, and use of color and materials in midcentury automotive marketing created a groundswell of desire for new cars.
• Much of the marketing imagery of the period hasn’t been published since it first came out, and this book features more than 400 photos, illustrations, auto brochures, and advertisements.

With the expansion of the suburbs after WWII, women suddenly needed cars of their own. By adopting the fashion industry’s yearly model changes, as well as hiring many designers and stylists from the fashion industry, the automobile industry made a direct appeal to the rising sophistication and influence of women. Glamour Road takes the reader on a journey, detailing how women and fashion directly influenced the traditionally male-dominated auto industry in the mid-twentieth century.

Jeff Stork curates a large private automobile collection in Palm Springs, California, and Tom Dolle is an award-winning graphic designer and the creative director at Destination PSP, a product design company in Palm Springs, California. Together, Jeff and Tom produced the Cul de Sac Experience, which has become one of the most talked-about, photographed, and documented events for Modernism Week, celebrating classic cars as an integral part of modernist design.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780764363900
Publisher:	Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.
Publication date:	03/28/2022
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	402,063
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 12.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Jeff Stork is a classic car historian, writer, and researcher. He spent his career in the automobile industry, with over 20 years of marketing experience with the Big Three. He curates a large private automobile collection in Palm Springs, California.

Tom Dolle is an award-winning graphic designer with 30 years as a design studio owner in New York and 20 years as an adjunct professor in Pratt Institute’s Graduate Communication Design program. He is the creative director at Destination PSP, a product design company in Palm Springs, California.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD by Susan Skarsgard...................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................10

CHAPTER 1 DRIVING TOWARDS TOMORROW..........................................................14

Postwar America Undergoes a Major Social Realignment

CHAPTER 2 KAISER FRAZER LEADS THE WAY..........................................................28

Fashion and Styling Help a Struggling Company Get Noticed

CHAPTER 3 MODERN LIVING.........................................................................................48

Lincoln is Inspired by a Pivotal 1949 Design Show in Detroit

CHAPTER 4 DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND............................................ 72

Cadillac Doubles Down on Traditional American Luxury

CHAPTER 5 THE IMPERIAL COLLECTION.................................................................... 94

Co-Marketing with Fashion Brands Connects to the Female Market

CHAPTER 6 READY TO WEAR..........................................................................................112

Popular-Priced Cars use Color and Fashion to Boost Sales

CHAPTER 7 A WOMAN’S PLACE...................................................................................148

The Industry Struggles to Adapt to Women’s Needs

CHAPTER 8 DESIGNING WOMEN................................................................................162

The Glass Ceiling Cracks as Women Become a Voice in the Industry

CHAPTER 9 STRIKE A POSE............................................................................................178

New Technologies Lead to Widespread use of Photography

CHAPTER 10 BIKINIS AND BUCKET SEATS.................................................................190

The Youth Market of the 1960s Changes Everything

CHAPTER 11 BUICK GOES ALL OUT..............................................................................210

“The Magazine for the In Crowd” Blows Minds—and Budgets

CHAPTER 12 TURN, TURN, TURN...................................................................................234

Mary Wells, Pop Art, Op Art and Psychedelia end the Sixties

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..........................................................................................................252