1950s American automobile advertising.

As a kid growing up in London I learned two important things when visiting my dentist, whom I always thought of as the Kensington Butcher:

• Avoid British dentistry at all costs. Just look at their teeth.
• Americans bought a new car annually.

The first realization was brought home forcefully as immigration to the States brought with it access to proper dental care. It is unusual to hear American dental professionals excoriate a predecessor’s efforts, yet I heard that in abundance about the Kensington Butcher’s work.

The second came from the National Geographic magazines on display in the KB’s waiting room, waiting time in which made my many hours in US Immigration Offices pleasurable by comparison. Those Geographic magazines, despite their small format, featured beautiful advertisements for American cars and the clear sense was that an annual upgrade to the latest model was quite the thing for the aspiring economic climber.

That thought saw acquisition, many years later, of an amusing book of 1950s US automobile advertising named Cruise-O-Matic, which shows Detroit’s many creations of that wonderfully prosperous Eisenhower era. Photography was still a nascent force in car ads, meaning that most of the illustrations were beautiful air brushed paintings, the better to show off the special appeal of that year’s model.

Here’s one of my favorites, for a 1950 Hudson:

If the exotically elongated lines of this magnificent sedan seem too much to believe, they are. The artist has taken considerable liberties with the vehicle’s proportions as this contemporary photograph shows:

Cruise-O-Matic remains available in a reprinted version and you can buy it here.