I was sitting in traffic this week and looked at the cars surrounding me. One word came to mind. Ugly.
There were all sorts of hatchbacks ranging from tiny to huge and a few squatty sedans leftover from the rental car lots. There were lots of Mom cars – boxy vans that would hold a baseball team. There were trucks approaching the size of school busses, some so high off the ground you’d need a firetruck ladder to board. I saw one Tesla and talk about ugly. It looked like some nerdy kid put it together with an erector set.
There was a time, though, when cars were hot – beautiful concoctions of steel and chrome and glistening in bright cheerful colors. Cars were once sources of pride, not prudence. They were hot.
We had Pontiac GTOs, and spiffy Ford Mustangs. We had Chevelle Super Sports and Ford LTD’s. We had Cadillacs that stretched a city block. There were Corvettes that were so hot they made you sweat just to see them. We had Dodge Chargers with big Hemis and sleek Plymouth Barracudas begging for a drag race. We had Jaguar XKE’s and British MGs. But one car stands out among all the rest. The 1956 Chevrolet Impala.
This was the gold standard of hot cars – great colors, lots of rag tops and enough chrome to blind a pedestrian if the sun was right. It was sleek, it was sexy. No bucket seats were allowed so your date could snuggle up close.
The Impala didn’t follow trends – it set the trends. Following the 56 model, the 1957 and 58 models were sheer automotive beauties.
Yet there I sat, surrounded by plainness, hoping that maybe one great car from the past would rumble in, shake with torque and then peel out when the light changed.
