{"id":1556,"date":"2007-06-17T19:51:50","date_gmt":"2007-06-18T00:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-future-aint-what-it-used-to-be\/"},"modified":"2007-06-17T19:51:50","modified_gmt":"2007-06-18T00:51:50","slug":"the-future-aint-what-it-used-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-future-aint-what-it-used-to-be","title":{"rendered":"The future ain’t what it used to be"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, I wrote about the Chrysler 300C<\/a>, which appealed to me because it resembled the Batmobile. Over at 2Blowhards, Donald Pettinger writes about the 1950s’ dream cars<\/a>, with a fantastic gallery of Cars of the Future:<\/p>\n

With no place to go trend-wise, stylists thrashed around in search a new trends or themes. One such theme was aviation or space, already successfully tested by Harley Earl at General Motors. I’m thinking of a series of futuristic scale models that yielded the famous 1948 Cadillac tail fins. The success of Cadillac led stylists to go pretty wild exploring that theme — wild to the point where dream cars (and to a lesser degree some production models) looked less and less like cars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, I wrote about the Chrysler 300C, which appealed to me because it resembled the Batmobile. Over at 2Blowhards, Donald Pettinger writes about the 1950s’ dream cars, with a fantastic gallery of Cars of the Future: With no place to go trend-wise, stylists thrashed around in search a new trends or themes. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The future ain’t what it used to be”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-design"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-p6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1288,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/but-plug","url_meta":{"origin":1556,"position":0},"title":"But, plug?","author":"Gil","date":"January 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a piece from Cato fellow Jerry Taylor on the hype for plug-in hybrid cars: Of course, if [plug-in hybrids] really were the wave of the future, there would be no need for ranting in Washington -- automobile manufacturers would be busy making them as we\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0speak. It\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s only when corporate\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0America\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (implicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (implicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-implicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17341,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-624-witold-rybczynski","url_meta":{"origin":1556,"position":1},"title":"Episode 624 – Witold Rybczynski","author":"Gil","date":"February 5, 2025","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 624: Witold Rybczynski \"As an architect, if you write about buildings, you don't just write about what they look like, but how they work, the plans, how they're built, how they function. But most books about cars focus on the styling, not all the other aspects, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/rybczynski2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/rybczynski2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/rybczynski2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/rybczynski2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/rybczynski2025comp.jpg?fit=1200%2C480&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2171,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/set-list","url_meta":{"origin":1556,"position":2},"title":"Set List","author":"Gil","date":"August 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Bruce put on a heck of a show last night, even though the awful NJ traffic left us with a 9:30pm start, rather than the unofficial 8:30 start (the tickets are for a 7:30pm start; hah!). My two observations about the band: Nils Lofgren may be shorter than Seth Green\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"bruce springsteen\"","block_context":{"text":"bruce springsteen","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/bruce-springsteen"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1662,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/ixplode","url_meta":{"origin":1556,"position":3},"title":"IXPLODE","author":"Gil","date":"September 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We all have a history with ugly cars. My college buddy Toure told me that, when he was a little kid, he and his friends would run up to a neighbor's Pinto, smack the bumper with a wiffle-ball bat, then run away, expecting the car to explode. Also, my first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Design"","block_context":{"text":"Design","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/design"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":956,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cadzilla-vs-cancer-and-diabetes","url_meta":{"origin":1556,"position":4},"title":"Cadzilla vs. Cancer (and Diabetes)","author":"Gil","date":"May 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"My dad has a tendency to give me \"presents.\" These generally consist of things he has no use for (see: massage chair, undersized bicycle, wobbly office chair). A few years ago, this present consisted of his old Cadillac, a 1986 black Fleetwood Brougham that I promptly nicknamed Cadzilla. It still\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1352,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/decade-dance","url_meta":{"origin":1556,"position":5},"title":"Decade dance","author":"Gil","date":"February 15, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This morning's dumb lede comes to us from the New York Times. Reporting on Chrysler's announcement of 13,000 job cuts, Micheline Maynard writes: Every decade provides a new lesson for the American automobile industry. In the 1980s, automakers underestimated their Japanese competitors, thinking they would never build anything but small\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}