The 1957 Detroit Auto Show
Like a real auto show, the carson the floor
and suspended in the aircatch your eye as you enter this gallery. The museum based its
"1957 Auto Show" exhibit on photographs of real auto shows of the 1950s. A
Chevrolet Corvette and a Plymouth Fury symbolize "Selling with Style" in an era
when stylists had seemingly unlimited control over the amount of chrome and the size of
Harley Earl developed the Corvette for General
Motors' 1953 Motor Rama and guided its evolution to this classic 1957 model. Earl joined
GM 1927 and developed the first design studio in the automotive industry. He put fins on
the Cadillac in 1949 and developed Motor Rama Auto Shows to display concept cars.
"Show and Sell," a video program in the gallery, features a musical production
from the 1956 Motor Rama.
Virgil Exner, a protégé of Harley Earl, was
chief designer for Chrysler from 1949 to 1963. Exner gave the Plymouth with its
"forward look" with huge tail-fin styling. As a result, Plymouth rose from 8th
in sales in 1956 to the third-best selling car in 1957.
Visitors can learn more about automotive design by designing their own concept cars on
two touch-screen computers in the gallery. This is a "must do" for kids of all
ages. As visitors leave the gallery, they can flip the levers and pull the handle of a
fifties' voting machine to "Vote for
the Car of Your Choice" (image) just like people did
in the real auto shows.
The 1957 Auto Show gallery ends with the facade
of a Redstone rocket (made in Michigan). From the P-38 aircraft that influenced Harley
Earl's first Cadillac tail-fins, to the first Michigan-produced rockets of the space
program, aviation influenced car design in the 1950s. Engineers from Chrysler helped
produce the first rockets.
(See more historic vehicles on A
Michigan Auto Tour!)