Our first video, from the YouTube channel America Revisited (2026), argues that the country’s car culture is dying off with the Baby Boomers. The video goes on to suggest that car culture was about “freedom in a specific form affordable to a specific people in a specific moment that history handed to one generation and then quietly closed the door.”
The video points to a handful of factors that spurred the end of car culture. They range from the escalating costs of car ownership to the emergence of a “digital world that offers identity, community and status through a phone screen rather than a vehicle in a driveway.” The video concludes that “the psychological need that the car once fulfilled didn’t disappear — it just found a new address.”
Another factor in the decline of car culture is that younger generations have been “told since childhood that the internal-combustion engine is a threat to the planet’s future. Loving a loud V8 unironically now requires consciously ignoring a conversation that’s impossible to avoid.” That doesn’t make passion for cars “impossible but it adds friction that didn’t simply exist before.”
The video acknowledges that one can point to examples of car culture still being popular with young people, such as with off-roading. However, “none of those subcultures have the scale, the mainstream dominance or the economic economic infrastructure that Boomer car culture had at its peak.”
What do the super rich drive in Monaco?
The YouTube channel Monaco Luxurious (2026) apparently does nothing more than post videos of super-rich people getting in and out of their cars in the French Riviera micro-state of Monaco. I find these videos strangely fascinating.
Part of what’s curious is how so many of the people in these videos appear to be obsessed with how they look to others. It’s all about presentation — the clothes, the facelift, the car. One can get the impression that a goodly proportion of the folks who drive up in a Ferrari don’t care about the car’s roadworthiness. They just want to be seen in something ultra expensive and exotic.
This helps explain why the design of high-priced cars has gotten so overamped in recent years. It’s not about beauty or mechanical brilliance — it’s about spectacle. My car stands out more than your car.
In other words, the whole point of driving an exotic car is to engage in what sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1994) referred to as “conspicuous consumption.” Michael Mayerfield Bell noted that this can become a competition whereby “one tries to keep up with the Joneses, the Joneses are trying to keep up with the neighbor on the other side, and up the line to Liberace, the Rockefellers. . . and Bill Gates” (2004, 47).
What I find ironic is that these folks are so wealthy they could do pretty much anything with their life. Yet they instead fixate on how they look in comparison to other rich people. In a very real sense they have traded authenticity for conformity.
Reconsidering the 1957 Nash Ambassador
I recently clicked into a YouTube video of a 1957 Nash Ambassador that was for sale, so now my feed is regularly bestowed with more, more, more 1957 Nashes. In a way that’s irritating, but I have to admit that this car is starting to grow on me.
For one thing, this is easily the best looking of the 1952-57 big Nashes. The front-end styling was now relatively normal, with newly outboard dual headlights and fully open wheel cutouts. That allowed the front tread to be increased a meaningful 2.5 inches. According to an American Motors promotional film for dealers, the new Nash had a tighter turning circle than previous models that sported more enclosed front wheels (Osborn Tramain, 2024).
This was Nash’s last year. Production dropped to just over 10,000 units. That was a big fall from 1952, when more than 91,000 big Nashes left the factory.
Also see ‘How far should AMC have gone to save the Hudson, Nash and Rambler brands?’
The overriding problem with the Nash may have been that it had the oldest body in the full-sized, premium-priced field. That was at a time when dramatically lower, longer, wider designs were sweeping the industry. The Nash was the antithesis of the sleek new Chrysler or the boxier but space-aged Mercury.
The Nash was arguably a better family car in many ways. It had a taller body that didn’t require contortions to squeeze yourself under a fashionably low roofline. The AMC also had useful innovations such as unit-body construction, which meant that it didn’t suffer from the squeaks and rattles of body-on-frame cars, and arguably the most advanced air-conditioning in a U.S. car. Beyond all that, the car’s basic design was now its sixth year, so it wasn’t plagued by the quality glitches of many “all new” Big Three offerings.
So while the Nash may have looked old hat by 1957, it was arguably a particularly good value. Perhaps if Nash marketing had done a better job of articulating the car”s advantages it might have sold better. Or perhaps it was way ahead of its time.
NOTES:
Production figures and specifications are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006) and Gunnell (2002).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- America Revisited; 2026. “You Understand Why Car Culture Died With the Baby Boomers.” Posted May 15 on YouTube.
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, IL.
- Bell, Michael Mayerfeld. 2004. An invitation to environmental sociology. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Monaco Luxurious; 2026. “Monaco Ladies Best Supercar Arrivals and Billionaire Luxury Lifestyle.” Posted May 7 on YouTube.
- Osborn Tramain; 2024. “1957 Nash Ambassador New Car Sales Demo Slide Show.” Posted on Dec. 17 on YouTube.
- Veblen, Thorstein. 1994. The theory of the leisure class. New York: Dover Publications Inc.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES
- oldcarbrochures.org: Nash Ambassador (1957)
You had me until the claim that the 1957 Nash was “easily the best looking of the 1952-57 big Nashes”. It looks like Russian stylists tried to imitate the ‘Forward look’ as viewed through funhouse mirrors. If Nash wasn’t already dead, this car would have killed it. Yes, the bigger wheel cutouts were a move in the right direction.
I suppose one could argue that the 1952-54 Nash front ends were relatively normal looking, albeit rather pudgy. However, I’m just not a big fan of the enclosed front wheels.
One thing I didn’t mention was that I thought the 1957’s side trim looked a whole lot better than in 1956. That contributed to an overall presentation that was cleaner and more normal (re: less scary).
All that said, I grant you that the 1957 Nash was hardly award winning. However, within the context of being a utilitarian family car, I thought it was okay — particularly compared to the sci-fi extravagance of some of the competition. Recall, this was the year Ford bestowed us with the Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.
There are some exotic and also class car spotting videos from London… tried to look for one to post but you can just do a search. This example has classic cars but I won’t vouch for it being the best of the bunch.
https://youtu.be/nMtUDEz0M4Y?si=KVg-nu08r2YbITkt
We watched the movie Grand Prix and then those Monaco car spotting videos started popping up in our You Tube suggestions. It is sort of mesmerizing to watch. I call them “poodle people” (no offense to actual poodles.)
At least the cars in the British video were interesting. “Poodle people” is an apt term for those shown in the Monaco video.
The enclosed front wheels of the early ’50s Nashes and the “eyes too close together:” look of the mid ’50s models sabotoged what were decent, if unconventional, automobiles that were advanced over the Big 3 in some respects. The ’57 improved on them styling wise and the very good new AMC V8 helped their cause. Still, on looks alone, it’d be a ’57 Dodge or DeSoto for me, not knowing of the quality issues that lay in store (I’ve had 6 ForwardLook Mopars).
Yeah, from a purely styling standpoint I would tilt toward the DeSoto. However, from a utilitarian standpoint the Nash may have often been been a better value for those who wanted a roomy, relatively reliable car that didn’t squeak and rattle. That the Nash didn’t find more buyers strikes me as saying something about both the tenor of the times and AMC’s marketing weaknesses. VW would subsequently show that you can’t effectively fight prevailing trends in the U.S. auto industry by soft pedaling how one’s product is different.