Stephen
Childs
Studebakers, Hudsons, and
Packards: Old Cars as Symbolic Mediators Between Past and Present
Nostalgia: “a longing for things,
persons, or situations that are not present” American Heritage Dictionary
The notion of nostalgia is not
foreign to us, in spite of the ever accelerating rate at which we race into the
future. A smell, a sound, a particular location, or one of a thousand other
things can trigger a psychological, emotional response. In most cases, the
response will be immediate, perhaps momentarily intense, but generally fleeting
in nature.There will be other instances, however, when the response is not
simple, but cloaked in multiple layers of meaning, and thus more difficult to
understand. Nor will it be
idiosyncratic. Instead, it will be shared by numbers of people, and thus be a
social expression, though perhaps harbored in the subconscious.
This paper will propose that some
nostalgic, or past focused, reactions, are so culturally meaningful as to
deserve closer scrutiny; indeed, they are collective, and they are complex, and
ought not to be summarily dismissed. Such events, I suggest, are the symbolic
equivalent of Turner’s “milk tree” (l967), Myerhoff’s “peyote hunt” (l979) and
Geertz’s “Balinese cockfight” (l973).The focus here is on old car shows,
particularly those that showcase cars from the l950s. The automobiles of this
period will be examined as assemblages of social, cognitive, and psychological
meaning which, if understood, can provide clearer understanding of our world
view, not only as that relates to the automotive culture, but as automotive
culture and design symbolize the transition from a passionate and optimistic
past to a present in which technological complexity functions as a shroud for
human emotion.
Of symbols, Barbara Myerhoff
writes that “It is the special purpose of symbols . . . to encompass
incompatible, irresolvable sets of referents; and the special task of symbols
is the prevention of the clear, undisguised recognition of the unsatisfactory
arrangements which exist in the lives of men” (l979:110). This statement
clearly reflects the influence of Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz, both of
whom see symbols as functioning to overcome oppositions, and to objectify, and
thus better manage cognitively, contradictions in our lives. It’s the position
here that old automobiles, particularly those from the early 1950s, while
representing property items, period art, and whatever else, most importantly
are symbols of a past which allow us to cope a little better with the
dissatisfaction we currently feel with the technological web we have
constructed for ourselves. Before we examine more closely the symbolic import
of old automobiles, let us return to nostalgia, the more obvious, if not banal,
psychological response to old automobiles.
At an old car show I attended in
northern New York state, I was looking over a ‘55 Studebaker hardtop coupe when
I became aware of two men, both middle-aged, standing a short distance from me.
After they had gazed at the car for a few moments, one of the men, glancing
about, perhaps to see the whereabouts of his son, said in a low, almost
reverential voice to his sidekick, “You remember that girl, her name was Gina,
Gina Putney, from over around Heuvelton? Whoo whee!” Whether this line was
prompted by the Studebaker’s eye-catching grille and elegant lines, or those of
Gina, is impossible to say. But it is precisely this intersection of emotion,
technology, and time that triggers for the participant at one of these shows a
sense of peaceful disengagement. And with that sense, the participant becomes
changed.
This sense of detachment and the
historical circumstances which make it so critical, has been studied by Barbara
Myerhoff (l979), an anthropologist who has lived with the Huichol Indians in
central Mexico. The Huichol used to be nomadic desert dwellers. They hunted
deer, enjoyed a cultural autonomy, and lived in what was essentially an
unencumbered state. However, with Spanish intrusion their lives were changed.
Most significant was the fact that they were forced to retreat into mountainous
areas, where it became necessary for them to take up farming. As
agriculturalists, they sorely missed the freedom, the vitality, and the
excitement of their previous lifestyle, and the past is fondly recalled in myth
and legend. Being cognitively trapped, so to speak, between a past they
glorified and a present-day set of circumstances they found depressingly
mundane, they attained the equivalent of a spiritual retreat by using peyote in
a ritualized setting. In this way they were able, if only for a short time, to
escape the present and slip into recollections of the past, a time perceived as
infinitely more exciting and fulfilling:
Peyote produces experiences which are only uniform
in being consistently pleasant, it brings to each one who takes it something
unpredictable, irregular, spontaneous, and unstructured, though still within safeguards
and limits. It permits an experience which is not completely routinized,
neither is it dangerous or likely to lead to individual or social disruption.
Peyote constitutes that part of human life which is private, beautiful, and
unique. (Myerhoff l979:l09)
Returning to the old car show,
what can be said of this past, this period in automobile history that evokes
such nostalgia? How is the automotive technology of the 1950s “located” within
the larger historical weave of the decade? What was going on during these
years, and are the automotive artifacts of the time reflective of historical,
psychological, or cognitive processes, or all three? Is the fantasized
experience of driving an old Studebaker similar to a Peyote experience? Before addressing at least a few of these
questions, let’s inventory briefly some significant events of the decade.1
In 1950, President Truman
authorized the United States to build the first hydrogen bomb. Stalin and Mao
tse Tung signed a mutual defense pact, and Joseph McCarthy kicked off his
crusade against communism. The same year witnessed the first Motorama show
debuting at the New York Waldorf. Chevrolet offered their new fully automatic
Powerflite transmission, which would be followed the next year by Ford’s Ford-O-Matic.
In this year, 334 Volkswagen Beetles were sold in the entire United States. In
1952, the first contraceptive pill was introduced. In 1953, the Soviets
admitted to having the H-bomb, and Chrysler introduced their first automatic
transmission. The year 1954 saw spinner hubcaps becoming the most popular
automobile accessory in America. The first McDonald’s was launched. President
Eisenhower revealed plans for a new Interstate Highway system. More ominously,
the 2nd hydrogen bomb was exploded at
Bikini Atoll. As if to calm a jittery nation, Elvis sang “It’s All Right,” but
the accelerated tempo, and urgency in his voice, seemed to belie the optimism
of the lyrics. In 1955 United States production attained a post-war high, and
The Big Three auto producers, Ford, Chevrolet, and Chrysler, dominated about
97% of the automobile market. The first Disneyland opened in California, and
Alan Freed coined the term “Rock and Roll.”
In 1957 storm clouds were
approaching. The USSR moved ahead in the space race with the satellite called
“Sputnik.” Jack Kerouac gave voice to vague but nonetheless real concerns in
his book On the Road. Highway deaths were on the rise, and the earliest
breathalyzers were tested. It was in this year that U.S. automobiles may have
realized their apex of excessiveness, in terms of both style and horsepower.
The epitome was Plymouth’s 2-door hardtop, the Fury, conspicuously overpowered
at 285 horsepower, with more glass and taller tail fins than any of its
competitors.
By l959, the dance of the decade
had all but ended. Tail fins on Fords and Mercurys had practically disappeared.
Chevrolet, in a stylistic “last gasp,” introduced its controversial “batwing”
fins, but these disappeared a year later. Most tellingly, compact automobiles
were showing their faces. The Ford Falcon was introduced, and Chevrolet
unveiled their Corvair. The curtain was dropped and lights were lowered on the
decade when the troubadour, shy and bespectacled, sang the last song. Buddy
Holly died in a plane crash on March 2, l959.
How can this decade be
characterized? Given the above, what themes might be inferred? Throughout the
decade there is an unmistakable emphasis on sexuality, power and wealth, all of
which intersect with masculinity. Woodrow Wilson called the American car of the
‘50s “a picture of the arrogance of wealth;” Quentin Wilson referred to them in
one instance as “bordellos” on wheels (Wilson l997:43,41). The exterior styling
of the automobiles was equally extravagant. Quentin Wilson has described the
grille designs of the period as “looking like rocket-launchers with 38D cups,”
and, in another descriptive passage, as “all jets and Jane Russell” (Wilson
l997:42,43). The message of power was in the body styling, fashioned in large
part after that of fighter planes of the period. Just prior to the ‘50s, Harvey
Earl of the GM design staff visited an air base near Detroit where he was
allowed to view, from a distance, a P-38 fighter (Wilson 1997:90). From this,
Detroit legend has it, the earliest tail fins evolved. Similar influences
resulted in the “jet pod” tail lights of the ’54 Corvette, the rocket motif of
Studebaker grilles, and a similar rocket design logo on the trunk of the Hudson
Hornet.
A final note relating to
masculinity—the vast majority of the cars of the ‘50s were equipped with
standard transmissions, in spite of the fact that automatics were being offered
as optional equipment. By comparison, only 8.7 % of today’s automobiles have
standard transmissions (New York Times). The significance of this is
summed up eloquently by Clotaire Rapaille in a recent issue of the Chronicle
of Higher Education (29 June 2001), where he explains his preference for
standard transmissions:
Cars had a very masculine dimension for a long
time, but now they’re supposed to be neutered. . . . Something about the manual
dimension is a little like riding a horse. You need to have contact with the
car; you need to feel it. And I don’t care much about the sexual analogies, but
it’s more sensuous, more life-oriented, in many ways. I understand all the
rationales—that when you’re on the highway, there’s a lot of stop and go. But
it still doesn’t change that there is a pleasure of driving, and a
dimension—almost a sexiness—in the way that you drive. Not sexy in a
provocative way; it is just life—you’re alive. (B4)
Old cars represent a mediating
resolution between a relatively minimalist technological past, and an
overwhelming, if not terrifying, “hi-tech” technological present. The liminal
location of 1950s cars along this continuum becomes visible at the presentation
of the cars themselves at the show. When the visitors arrive, the hoods of the
old cars have been lifted, revealing what are, by today’s standards, a small
engine block, a simplistic fuel advancement, and an electrical circuitry both
simple and visible. When the pilgrim visitor approaches and looks under the
hood, present-day automotive technology with its fuel injection and
computerized electrical wizardry is turned back a half century, at least for a
few moments. The mystification of the machine ceases to be.
For the novice, who may not be
fully aware of either the ritual, or the sacra, there are shamans nearby
willing to guide the respectful on-looker into the elegant simplicity of the
under-the-hood anatomy of the ‘51 Buick Special, a ‘54 Packard Clipper, or a
‘58 Chevy Malibu. Their brief, or occasionally not-so-brief lecture, will be
summed up with a sentence hardly descriptive of modern automobiles—“Yes sir,
they made ‘em simple enough then so that if you had the tools, you could work
on them.”
Mastery of man over machine is
made further apparent under open-sided tents and in display barns, where old
car parts are spread out on tarpaulins on the floor or on low tables. The fact
that these proud cars have been disassembled, and their parts reverentially
placed on display, in a manner somewhat suggestive of Freud’s patricidal feast,
indicates in symbolic terms man’s mastery over the machines of the period.
Returning to the example of the
Huichol, and as noted previously, peyote was the mediating symbol between the
Deer, which represented a free, virile, hunting past, and the Maize, which
symbolized a present characterized by sedentary monotony. It was the entire
peyote complex, including the pilgrimage into the desert and the hallucinogenic
experience itself which allowed respite from the present day circumstances.
Finally then, the question—can a
1956 Studebaker Hawk, with a 275 HP Packard V8 engine, capable of doing 60 mph
in 7.5 seconds, be equated, symbolically speaking, with the peyote experience?
I would suggest yes. While the domains of the two differ, one being
psychotropic and the other stylistic, their capabilities are parallel. Peyote
symbolizes the past hunting life; it is at one and the same time wild, like the
deer, and at the same time it relates to the agricultural present in that it is
a plant. Its utility as a symbol resides in its bridging capacity.
The Studebaker is also a
resolution between past and present, and serves a similar bridging function.
While still an automobile, just as the peyote is still a plant, it nonetheless
possesses sufficient characteristics to exemplify a more simple, independent,
and what I referred to above as technologically “minimalist,” past. It still
evokes a sense of adventure, and is reminiscent of a time when men maintained a
significantly larger degree of control over their technological environment
than they now do.
Should you attend a car show
sometime down the road, you’ll be able to spot them, men of all ages, but
especially those in their 50’s and 60’s. With hairstyles vaguely (and often
sparsely) reminiscent of Carl Perkins, they’ll likely be wearing jeans,
sporting shades, and chewing gum, not looking as cool as they would like, but
probably feeling better than they have in a long time. They’ll be roaming,
looking, and sometimes carefully scrutinizing the cars that carried them in
their youth, and that are now artifacts of memory. These are the ones who
attain detachment, a momentary sense of being in control. Only the Huichol
could really understand this, they and the other 8.7%. 1 The historical highlights of the decade which follow
in the next seven paragraphs are drawn from Quentin Wilson’s Classic
American Cars (l997).
Stephen Childs
Anthropology Program
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, GA 31698
WORKS CITED
Geertz, Clifford. The
Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, l973.
Myerhoff, Barbara G. “The
Deer-Maize-Peyote Symbol Complex Among the Huichol Indians of Mexico.” Reader
in Comparative Religion. 4th ed. Ed.
William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt. New York: Harper and Row, l979. 105-111.
Rapaille, Clotaire.
“Deconstruct This: The Demise of the Manual Transmission.” Chronicle of
Higher Education 29 June 2001: B4.
Turner, Victor. The Forest
of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell UP, l967.
Wilson, Quentin. Classic
American Cars. New York: DK Publishing, l997.