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Cruise-O-Matic, Automobile Advertising of the 1950's

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  • List Price: $18.95
  • Studio: Chronicle Books
  • Avg. Customer Rating: 4 Stars
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Product Details

Editorial Reviews

Product Description: The 1950s were the golden age of the American automobile, and the cars were faster, bigger, and more boldly styled than ever before. Sunday driving-Cleaver-style-in the regal family Ford, Edsel or Plymouth topped the list of national pastimes; and teenagers, behind the wheels of their daddies' thundering T-birds, had fun, fun, fun across America's highways. The economic prosperity of the country made for an "ultramatic" boom in car manufacturing, and the advertising industry followed suit. This reprint of a Chronicle Books classic collects the "masterpieces" of automobile advertising, culled from the pages of such popular periodicals as Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Look, and Holiday. Their colorful illustrations and catchy copy give these ads a "power-packed beauty" all their own, offering a fun look at 50s culture and values. So take a cruise down memory lane with this fond look back on a time when tail fins and chrome were the standard, and the American car was the true King of the Road.

Customer Reviews

 
A great overview of the 1950s
Reviewer: Terry G. Proctor (Livonia, NY), Date of review: March 24, 2008
Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars
This book takes you back to the flamboyant 1950s, the decade when the USA really took the lead as the world's greatest nation. It shows just how far this great country had advanced in automotive technology after 20 years of depression and war. The wraps were off as each individual carmaker tried to outshine their rivals in styling and performance. With gasoline at 25 cents a gallon anything was possible! It reminds you of the days when the USA alone set the standard for automotive excellence. Great reproductions of classic, colorful hand-drawn automotive advertisements. A great piece of nostalgia. As actor Henry Winkler as Fonzie said in the "Happy Days" TV show, "I wish it could be 1955 forever!" Amen.
Auto Advertising of the 50s
Reviewer: Malcolm K. Mcintyre , Date of review: May 07, 2007
Avg. Customer Rating: 4 Stars
Great slice of American history from a period of some of the flashiest cars ever made. Not much meat to it, but a great reference if you are an owner of 50's cars or just like seeing how life used to look and how Detroit approached the American public in a time when the U.S. was king of the auto world.
The book of big chrome
Reviewer: Robin Benson , Date of review: December 05, 2004
Avg. Customer Rating: 3 Stars

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Certainly a neat idea for a book: to see how Detroit created car sales with ads brimming with extravagant headlines, copy and visuals. I bought this book years ago and this is a timely reprint but I doubt I would have bought it now. This is because of the production, all the lovely ads have just been copied as whole originals without taking the trouble to separate the color graphics from the flat color headlines and copy. Doing it this way means that none of the photos or illustrations sparkle and frequently the ad copy is very light and not too readable.

Another reason I would probably not have bought it is because I have a copy of 'All-American Ads: 50s' by Jim Heimann (ISBN 3822811580) which has two hundred car ads from the Fifties over 188 pages (in a 926 page book) with much better production so that the images really look good, even on the pages with four ads.

It is unfortunate that the ads in 'Cruise-O-Matic' do not look as good as they should because they celebrate a particular American stylistic exuberance of the past.

Poor Quality Production
Reviewer: , Date of review: August 05, 2003
Avg. Customer Rating: 2 Stars

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

If you're looking for vintage car ads, pass this by. The reproduction quality is very poor. Many of the ads were cropped badly, and much of the text is not readable. It's obvious that many of these must be amateur scans of magazine ads and not the original source material. I'd love to see a professional-quality re-work of this subject matter.
Nifty 50s Reference
Reviewer: , Date of review: November 21, 2000
Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

This is a terrific resource for illustrators, writers or anyone interested in 50s cars, design or culture. The color reproductions of the car ads are a real treasure -- the layouts, typefaces, symbols, cultural themes and color schemes are invaluable sources of information about 50s social history, values and imagery. And if you love the cars, it's even better! Chronicle Books does a nice job with books like this -- and at a very good price.