CaptainMyCaptain graciously shared the following transcripts from his files, dated late 1956, Detroit, MI. This was in response to our story, “1959 Cadillac epitomized what was wrong with U.S. car styling.”
I.
“Have you seen what those bastards over at Chrysler have done?” Albert Clawson barked, lighting one cigar off the glowing stub of another. He chewed on it like it was a hot dog.
Of course, everyone else around the mahogany table had seen exactly what Chrysler had done — probably even before Al had — but none dared to be the first to respond.
“Who the hell does Exner think he is? Fins on every single car they make. Grilles that look like teenagers with braces. By God, I won’t stand for that upstart trying to steal the Leadership of Style title from us without a fight. We’re the damn company that put ’Merica on wheels!” Al was on a rage-fed roll.
“Actually, that was Henry Ford,” Marvin Bell from accounting muttered.
“What’d you say, Bell?” Al snapped.
“Nothing, sir. Just clearing my throat,” Bell replied quickly. A gloom settled over the oak-paneled boardroom.
II.
Al grabbed the phone in front of him and barked at his secretary. “Skylark! Get two or three boys from Design up here in ten minutes with sketch pads, pens, and drawings for the ’59 Caddys. And have Electra down the hall bring more Scotch and ice. Tell her to walk out slowly when she leaves.” He winked at the suits as he hung up. “Call your wives and tell ’em you’ll be late. We’re not leaving till this is solved.”
The Design boys had never even set foot on that floor of the building, much less inside The Room.
“Tack those drawings on the wall and get your pens out,” Al barked.
“Right into the paneling?” Tim, recently promoted from Buick, asked nervously.
“Unless you’ve got a roll of corkboard up your butt!” Al shot back. “DO IT!”
Once the drawings were nailed up, Al demanded more.
“More what?” the young designers asked.
“More of everything. More chrome. More fin. More of what ’Merica strives to be,” he thundered.
“What if we line the grille with fifteen tiny silver bullets?” Tim asked.
“More!” Al roared.
“Thirty?”
“Make it sixty — and slap ’em on the backend, too.”
III.
Now the suits were getting into the spirit. Clark from Personnel, fresh off a Disneyland vacation, piped up. “How about two exhaust pods on the rear, one on each side of the sixty bullets?”
Marvin from accounting finally contributed: “What about spears down the sides, like air intakes?”
Tim and his fellow stylists could barely sketch fast enough. Scotch kept pouring.
“Make the fins taller!” Al shouted. “TALLER!”
Hours later, Al picked up the phone again. “Have Invicta call out for food. And tell Electra to bring in more Scotch.”
Electra appeared with a silver tray, three fresh bottles of the good stuff, and new buckets of ice. As she sashayed out, Al bellowed, “Make that rear end more bulbous!”
Pete from Purchasing, worried about his silence, blurted, “We’re heading into the space age—toss some rockets on there!”
“Damn good idea, Pete!” Al proclaimed. The stylists drew a red rocket on each tail fin.
“More!” Al roared. Suddenly there were two on each fin.
IV.
By midnight, everyone was drunk. Some slept in their offices, a few with their secretaries. But pinned to the paneling of the executive suite was the outline of what would become the most outrageous design Detroit ever dared.
— CaptainMyCaptain
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That was great! Gave me a good start to my Monday!
Thanks for sharing the story of how the ’59 Cadillac might have unfolded..
Steve has a knack for digging into both the famous and the forgotten corners of the car world. His mix of research, charts, and sharp opinion makes his Friday newsletter something I look forward to every week.
I’m a car nut too, though my blog takes a different road. Instead of horsepower and spec sheets, I tell stories about cars from the human side—what they meant to folks and how they fit into everyday life. Most of my tales are set in Fort Stockton, Texas, where the dust blows harder than the truth, though sometimes the stories wander farther afield (like the one above).
If that sounds like your kind of thing, drop by CaptainMyCaptain.blog. There’s a new story every morning, and if you’d rather not risk forgetting, subscriptions are free. After all: every car is a story.