The view of automobiles changes radically with the end of WW2

Life Magazine, Dec 7th, 1942, Vol 13, #23, pg. 21
Life Magazine, October 31st, 1955, Vol 39, #18

In the General Motors wartime ad, we do not see a car but rather a man working on an airplane engine. I looked through two entire wartime years of life magazine and failed to find an ad where an automobile was actually pictured. This says something about the position of automobiles in society during the war. They were neglected in the face of war production. This would later be responsible for creating the pent-up demand that fueled the spectacular auto boom after the war. During World War Two carmakers were still advertising their brands- they just weren’t showcasing their cars. The postwar implication of this is clear. Because they contributed substantially to the war effort, the automakers name became associated with a sense of patriotism in American industrialism represented in the flags and stripes in the ad. After the war ended you could buy a sense of that pride by buying a huge American car with a powerful engine (the father’s Dodge 440 in Blue Sky Dream).

The carpet advert from 1955 illustrates some features of the new postwar society and the automobile’s role in it. In this ad, the car ceases to be an extension of the heroicised, masculine wartime image but instead has become a delicate and stylish art object, representing a hip, modern, design-conscious “lifestyle” -certainly something to impress the neighbors. The minimalist style of the house shows the influence of European design that was brought back from the war. In fact, the origins of the Ford Thunderbird pictured here lie in Europe as well. In Paris, Ford executives saw a Jaguar xk120 sports car and vowed to imitate it when they returned to America. The change in values represented in the postwar image can be seen in relation to Riesman’s “other-directed” person, who spends a large part of their life trying to look good (and "very today!") in the eyes of others. The way the second image depicts the Thunderbird as part of the house shows the new position of consumer goods in representing extensions of one’s personality, hinting at Riesman’s other idea of the beginning of classlessness where social status is determined by taste, not wealth. The popularity of the sportscar is also an indication of the importance of the idea of leisure in the postwar climate.