And where was it all leading? Well, combine this kind of thinking with a decade of post-war affluence and at the end of the 1950s you find Detroit bursting out in full futuristic bloom: radically bent and painted metal, glass going every which way, three-tone paint, and fins galore.

Cadillac (1959).

Buick (1960).

Chrysler (1960).

The design dreams of freedom in metal and glass had come true. (Of course, you needed cheap gas to push so many tons of future swoop around, but that's another story.) And so dominant was Detroit then that the dream spread over the world--for a time. Even Mercedes around 1960 sprouted baby fins, though of the highly repressed kind you'd expect from the Germans.

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Magellan's Log VII

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