Too Big? Too Powerful?

Are American cars too big, too long, too wide and too powerful? Last week, as the last of the new 1955 models came out (see above), there was a country-wide argument about Detroit's latest marvels.

Ever since war's end, when automen started the great horsepower race in earnest, there have been complaints that safety was neglected for speed and power. Any further boost in either horsepower or size, cried New York Traffic Commissioner T. T. Wiley, would be "sheer madness." Auto makers have "gone on a horsepower jag . . . as insidious as dope." Added Denver's Traffic Engineer Jack Bruce: "We're running 300-h.p. cars on 50-h.p. streets." But despite the highway toll, the cold fact is that safety on the road is greater now than it was before World War II. In 1937, when horsepower was pushing the 60s, there were 39,643 traffic fatalities in the U.S., or 13.3 deaths for every 10,000 passenger vehicles on the road. In 1941, as horsepower crept higher, there were about the same number of deaths, but with more cars on the highways the ratio dropped to 11.6 per 10,000 autos in use. The 1953 fatality figure was actually lower (38,300) than in 1937. And there were fewer than seven deaths per 10,000 vehicles, or about half the 1937 ratio. Said Director John W. Maloof of the Georgia Citizen's Council: "A fast take-off and extra power can save people's lives in an emergency. We just have to teach drivers how to save it for emergencies."

"One Happy Man." A louder complaint about the 1955 cars concerns their size. In Seattle, curbside meter parking spaces laid out at a uniform 20 ft. in 1941, last week were being changed to 22 ft. to accommodate the new models. "If the cars were cut, in half," said Traffic Engineer Emris E. Lewarch, "I'd be one happy man." All over the U.S. home owners with garages built 20 years ago complained that they could no longer close their garage doors on the new monsters. "The new Cadillac is a swell car," said a Los Angeles supersalesman of a smaller brand, "but will you have enough money left over to buy a new garage to fit it?" Some people cut sections out of their garage walls, let bumpers protrude. Complained a Chicago motorist: "My garage fits so close, it's like the skin on a grape."

But the private garage owners' complaints were as nothing compared to those of the commercial garages. Everywhere garage attendants were playing all the angles to wedge the long, broad cars of today into spaces designed for the cars of yesterday. Some of the bigger cars could no longer navigate the narrow ramps to upper floors. In downtown Los Angeles, the May Co. garage, built 28 years ago to hold 675 cars, had to be redesigned, now holds only 450. Seattle's Olympic Garage was built in 1930 to hold 500 cars. Present capacity: 400. Cracked Foreman Al Abrahamson, who spends his days worming in and out of the close-packed autos: "If the cars don't get smaller, the only solution will be to can the present crew and start advertising for emaciated men, specially designed to be garage attendants." In a big San Francisco Shell garage, attendants were getting used to jockeying the cars into position, then pushing them by hand into their parking spaces. Otherwise, they would not be able to open the door and get out once the cars were jammed in.

Things to Come. How long and wide will the car of the future be? A hint of possible things to come was given in Chicago last week, when Ford's Lincoln-Mercury Division showed off its experimental Futura, a car with an Italian Ghia body on a special Lincoln chassis. The two-seater, shark-finned Futura has a plastic-canopied compartment where driver and passenger sit in air-conditioned comfort sealed off from the noise and dirt of the world, pick up outside noises through a microphone. A full 19 ft. overall, the Futura is almost a foot longer than most standard models on the road, and almost six inches wider (7 ft.). While the Futura is strictly an experimental model, Lincoln Boss Benson Ford gave a preview of what to expect in his next-year models. Said he: "The 1956 Lincolns will be a good deal longer than the present ones. They have to be to come even with Cadillac and the other big cars. You've got to be long to compete."

From the sales results of the past year, when Chrysler Corp. tried to sell shorter cars and lost half its share of the market (TIME, Aug. 16), that would seem to be true. But hard as it is for most motorists to believe, the trend to longer and wider cars has been more apparent than real since the war. The big stretch-out came in the '30s, when trunk room was added to accommodate a traveling America. Car bodies have since been stretched to the bumper line, and out to where the running boards once reached. But in many models, overall length and width have actually been shrinking. Chevrolet and Ford, for example, are both an inch shorter overall than they were in 1947; the Buick Special is an inch shorter, and the Roadmaster more than an inch; Pontiac is a full 4 in. shorter; Oldsmobile, Lincoln and Packard have all shrunk. Said General Motors' Chief Designer Harley Earl: "The American passenger car has been on a diet since 1946, and it will continue to be on a diet for a few years to come. The general trend is to lower, narrower and shorter cars."

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