Coming of Age in the Car Culture

When we were coming of age in the 1950s and ’60s, we were judged by what we drove. You either had a really cool ride or you had the old family sedan that had been a second car, which was an excellent way to spend life alone. No one wanted to be seen in an old Chevy wagon or a Ford Custom. 

These were not first cars that impressed anyone back in the day.   

We all remember the songs of the era – Little GTO, Mustang Sally, Little Deuce Coupe, Fun-Fun-Fun, 409, Rocket 88, Drive My Car, Little Old Lady from Pasadena, Drag City, Little Cobra, Hot Rod Lincoln, and a host of others. These songs inspired us to go cruising. There was nothing quite like “profiling” in front of store windows – watching yourself go by.  

We were revving up our engines and sounding real mean, beholding the roar of an all-American V-8. That’s what we wanted and that was what we were going to have.  

It was a terrific time to be alive. As a nation and a society, we were on the rise and headed for the Moon. A newly elected President Kennedy spoke of the future with great passion and we were ready to embrace it. If you were in high school or on the way to college, the future was yours to hold.  

We dreamed of owning a Mustang, GTO, Camaro, Barracuda, Chevelle SS, or Roadrunner. In truth, what we got was a VW Beetle, Fiat 600, or a Renault Dauphine. Even if we could afford a sporty car, the parents wanted us in something sizable and safe – an urban battle wagon. 

Visionaries in the car business like Lee Iacocca of Ford and John DeLorean and Jim Wangers of Pontiac went after it with conviction because they themselves loved automobiles. They were both marketing types and automotive engineers. What they envisioned brought car buyers into the showrooms. They understood how to put the keys in buyers’ hands. 

Wangers and Delorean slipped GTO in under the radar as a LeMans model to get it quietly past GM brass. GTO was a smashing success for 1964. It became a standalone model for ’65. Everybody wanted one and The Beach Boys were there to help sell it. 

Lee Iacocca stepped in as Ford Division General Manager and Vice President when Robert McNamara left the company to join the Kennedy Administration, which opened the door for Iacocca to pursue hot cars and the Total Performance program. Ford’s stodgy image handed off to a legacy of high-performance Galaxies and Falcons followed by the white-hot new Mustang in 1964. Mustang’s introduction what the hottest thing since the Model T. 

For a whole lot of us, the VW Beetle, known officially as the Type 1, became our first car despite visions of a hot sporty car. It was what our parents could afford and it would get us to college or a trade school. In fact, the Beetle became a cult ride for the masses embraced by millions everywhere. Nothing could surpass its great success. 

Ford came after the VW Bug in 1969 with the affordable 1970 Maverick for just $1,995.00 – less than the VW’s base sticker price. The result was more than half a million Mavericks sold that first model year, launched on the Mustang’s fifth anniversary. Iacocca’s marketing genius was to follow baby boomer trends and it worked. It kept Ford in the black for years to come. Boomers bought compacts and subcompacts, then, moved on to the minivan in the 1980s. 

The rest is history. 

It seems we’re the last generation to truly embrace personal transportation though motorists still want their own space for the commute to work and school. Public transportation is for the birds. Whatever the vision 60 years later, we can sleep well knowing we came of age at an incredible time in American history. If you’re lucky, you still have that first car in the garage.