Postwar Boom
'America's love affair with the automobile' - it's a phrase that has been much overused in the last half century. It's a stereotype. It's trite. It's hackneyed.
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And it's true.
At no time has it been more true than in the days after World War II. Americans had been deprived of new cars for 31/2 years, and they were hungry to buy. About 16.3 million Americans served in the U.S. armed forces. Their first wish was to get home. High among their other dreams was a new car.
Talk about pent-up demand!
The first postwar car to come from a U.S. maker was the 1947 Studebaker - with panoramic glass from B-post to B-post. It was designed by Raymond Loewy and Virgil Exner, and it propelled Studebaker to record sales.
But it paled in comparison to Ford Motor Co.'s first postwar car, the 1949 Ford. It was introduced in June 1948 and was an immediate sensation. It was the first big success in the regime of Henry Ford II, the Whiz Kids and the Ernest Breech-Lewis Crusoe team of former General Motors people.
'The 1949 Fords were as hard to get as tickets to South Pacific,' Automotive News wrote. 'As status symbols, they were about equal.'
Other makers followed with new iron, and the postwar boom was in full swing. It continued - with a few detours - into the 1970s.
