Glamour Road

How midcentury modern design and the changing roles of women in a male-dominated society influenced American postwar automotive design. This highly visual book explores the seldom-told story of how glamour, fashion, design, and styling became the main focus of automotive marketing from the postwar 1940s through the 1970s.

With the expansion of the American suburbs after WWII, women suddenly needed cars of their own. By adopting the fashion industry's yearly model changes, as well as hiring many designers and stylists from the fashion industry, the automobile industry made a direct appeal to the rising sophistication and influence of women. By perfecting the fashion-centric concept of planned obsolescence, it became the dominant economic engine of American postwar prosperity.

The dramatic photography, elegant fashion, and use of colour and materials in midcentury automotive marketing created a groundswell of demand for new cars. Much of the marketing imagery of the period hasn't been published since it first came out, and this book features some of the best.

About the Authors

Tom Dolle is an award-winning graphic designer with 30 years as a design studio owner in New York and 20 years as an adjunct professor in Pratt Institute's Graduate Communication Design program. He is the creative director at Destination PSP, a product design company in Palm Springs, California.

Jeff Stork is a classic car historian, writer, and researcher. He spent his career in the automobile industry, with over 20 years of marketing experience with the Big Three. He curates a large private automobile collection in Palm Springs, California.