Tailfins a marketing monster; When We Were Young Final Edition

Very much taken with its graceful lines, [Harley Earl] incorporated all sorts of airplane metaphors into his first postwar models in 1948. The most obvious element was a "rudder-type styling" -- tailfins. We can't blame Earl for the excesses that followed. It was Chrysler stylist Virg...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEdmonton journal
Main Author Rita Lang Kleinfelder
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Edmonton, Alta Postmedia Network Inc 28.02.1999
Subjects
Automobile industry
Design
GNP
Gross National Product
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Summary:Very much taken with its graceful lines, [Harley Earl] incorporated all sorts of airplane metaphors into his first postwar models in 1948. The most obvious element was a "rudder-type styling" -- tailfins. We can't blame Earl for the excesses that followed. It was Chrysler stylist Virgil Exner, actually, who started the game of one- upmanship in 1957. In his book, Unsafe at any Speed (1965), [Ralph Nader] documented an accident between a motorcycle and a 1960 Chrysler 300F. When the motorcyclist hit the automobile's rear bumper, the force of the collision threw him forward. And he was impaled on the car's "razor- sharp" fin.
ISSN:0839-296X