What happened in 1960?

"traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn" (el-peasant) 04/04/2015 at 16:46 • Filed to: None

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The year was 1959. New cars were at the epitome of 1950s styling: acres of chrome and tail fins to rival a 747.

Suddenly, the year was 1960. About 80% of new cars were beiged. Fins were rapidly cut short, and chrome was reduced significantly. By 1962, that turned to 100%.

The Eldo still looks great, but what happened so quickly? I recall reading something about people realizing the pedestrian-related dangers of tail fins. Yeah well um... Just watch where you’re walking!

Here’s the car that I think epitomizes early 60s monotony: The Ford Falcon. Not that I have anything against it.

Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 04/04/2015 at 16:51

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I found this on Autoblog.

6) A trend fades...

After that '59 winged wonder, designers knew they had taken the tail-fin trend as far as they could, at least in terms of size, height, "wingspan," etc. Earle had retired

in the late '50s, and by 1960 " Bill Mitchell's philosophy was "to go with a cleaner look, with less chrome than we'd seen in the '50s. He and others started to simplify car design at that point," Leestma noted.

Plus, tail fins were never a cheap proposition from a manufacturing standpoint, even from the beginning. "The process was very labor-intensive," Leestma pointed out. "They required a lot of hand-welding — so the larger the fin, the more labor-intensive they were to produce.

Beyond that, designers came to the conclusion that the public had had enough of the ever-expanding tail fin, and carmakers began looking to new designs. So, as mentioned earlier, the trend waned, and there was nary a fin to be seen after '65.

"But, Leestma effused, "it sure was a fun era while it lasted."

traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn > Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis 04/04/2015 at 16:53

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So, labor costs and declining popularity. Makes sense.

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 04/04/2015 at 16:54

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People stopped wanting them. Tastes and trends changed, as they always have.

V8Demon - Prefers Autos for drag racing. Fite me! > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 04/04/2015 at 17:01

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Eldorado doesn't need fins....

Last of the RWDs. Slab side elegance!

ranwhenparked > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 04/04/2015 at 17:11

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The style got played out, tastes change. The fin look had been around since the '40s, and they had been getting bigger and more elaborate each year, while cars in general kept getting more and more elaborate. Eventually, customers started to get tired of the excess and began gravitating toward more restrained designs. Car magazine critics had always hated the fins, along with a certain segment of the general population, and it was around 1958 or so when that attitude started to go more mainstream. It's no coincidence that Rambler and the Studebaker Lark wound up becoming huge hits during that same period.

By the 1970s, things cycled back around and customers wanted more ostentatious cars again, but that passed too and the restrained look came back in in the '80s. 1940s-sized small tailfins continued on some cars, through to the 1999 Cadillac Deville and the 2014 Hindustan Ambassador.

VonBelmont > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 04/04/2015 at 17:13

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It's the same reason everything became squares in 1977 and circly in 1992 (and then back to massaged squares in 2003)-changes in consumer tastes and popular mindset. Cars were also more like smartphones, changing yearly and seen as status symbols. Dump those finned things, hello squares!

In the '50s, everyone was excited for the future and ready to beat the Reds-holy shitsnacks we won the war, we got supersonic jets, atomic bombs, we're gonna go to space, and we're just the best damn nation on earth (SUCK IT SOVIETS!). Then Sputnik beat us, JFK shot us, and we realized that maybe we should've been nicer to those black people. Wasn't "separate but equal" good enough? God those '50s cars are ugly!

In the '70s-SHIT! We're running out of oil, we should be nicer to women, the Reds still hate us, and computers are a thing now. The future's gonna suck!

In the '90s-holy crap guys the end of the world's coming but look how far we've come! We've got radical 3d graphics, totally 100% with that civil rights thing, we can communicate with anyone on the planet in seconds, and soon we'll all be either dead or in the future!

In the '00s-shit we're out of oil again, those silly turban people hate our way of life, and now the gays want in too?! Aren't civil unions enough? Man the future sucks!

That's basically my guess.

MultiplaOrgasms > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 04/04/2015 at 17:15

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Each decade has had it's own unique styling trends, so naturally the fins had to go away at some point. 1920s design had a very opulent presence, the 1930s had the soft, rounded streamliner look, the 1940s saw the move to the fully integrated "pontoon" bodystyle, the 50s had chrome and fins, 60s were clean and simplistic, the 70s saw square designs, the 1980s were aerodynamic, the 90s were once again becoming more rounded and so on and so forth. It's basically evolution.

lone_liberal > traderQAMobileTestAutomationMobileBoostOn 04/04/2015 at 17:17

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You're comparing it to the wrong car. Of course when you compare a big luxury car to an economy car the styling of the economy car is going to come up short. What happened was the Lincoln Continental. After this the finned cars looked old.