GreatAmericanCar.com
Photo by Stephen Sessa
This site is a supplement to my primary car web site: Great American Cars. net.
The photo above is a replica of the classic Cobra sports car. The car in this photo was built in this garage in the mountains of West Virginia from a Factory Five roadster kit. It is featured in my primary American cars web site, which I launched in the fall of 2014. http://www.greatamericancars.net I have been so busy making a living and building other Great American web sites that I haven't worked on the cars site in over three years. When I tried to update that site, I ran into one of the issues that makes me crazy about computers and web site technology: my software has changed so much, that I can't edit that site. I will have to rebuild it from the ground up. So for now … I am building this new site to put new content online.
CARS are a great subject for friendly debate. All car lovers have strong opinions. Here is an interesting debate: What is the coolest sports car ever? Some would say the 1955 Corvette, or the 1965 Stingray. Some would say Aston Martin DB5, a classic James Bond special. There are others of course. In the mid 1960's I drove an old Austin Healey, that I was totally in love with, but I would have to say the Cobra was way cooler than the Healey. The Cobra actually started as an English car, but it got its muscle in the American Version. Factory Five is the very cool car company in Wareham, Massachusetts that builds the MK4 Roadster (photo above) as a kit car. They don't call it a Cobra for legal reasons.
What is this site about? Publisher's Note
I was a kid in the 1950's, and I had the wonderful experience of growing up in a country that no one doubted was the greatest country in the history of the world. We knew we had the best of everything. I could feel it everywhere. The world was turning modern and we were leading the way. The self confidence, the hubris, the power, the futuristic styling …. it was all reflected in the chromium grill of a shining turquoise 1957 Chevy.
I love these cars because I love the America I grew up in, and they remind me of that wonderful confident feeling a kid can have.
One of the things I find really comforting when I go to a car show is apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way. I am not sure if other guys would describe the feeling the way I do, but I think they would agree with me.
Think about America in the 20th Century. The Wright Brothers accomplished what mankind had dreamed of for millennia. Henry Ford figured out how to build cars in an assembly line, and in my view, he was perhaps the greatest industrialist of all time because he also figured out that the way to prosper was to pay your factory workers well enough that they can buy the products you produce. And America then discovered the freedom of the open road. Only in this country could an average guy sit behind the wheel of his car and journey from the farmland to the mountains to the desert to the ocean or wherever he wanted to go.
Phil Dickinson
I was a kid in the 1950's, and I had the wonderful experience of growing up in a country that no one doubted was the greatest country in the history of the world. We knew we had the best of everything. I could feel it everywhere. The world was turning modern and we were leading the way. The self confidence, the hubris, the power, the futuristic styling …. it was all reflected in the chromium grill of a shining turquoise 1957 Chevy.
I love these cars because I love the America I grew up in, and they remind me of that wonderful confident feeling a kid can have.
One of the things I find really comforting when I go to a car show is apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way. I am not sure if other guys would describe the feeling the way I do, but I think they would agree with me.
Think about America in the 20th Century. The Wright Brothers accomplished what mankind had dreamed of for millennia. Henry Ford figured out how to build cars in an assembly line, and in my view, he was perhaps the greatest industrialist of all time because he also figured out that the way to prosper was to pay your factory workers well enough that they can buy the products you produce. And America then discovered the freedom of the open road. Only in this country could an average guy sit behind the wheel of his car and journey from the farmland to the mountains to the desert to the ocean or wherever he wanted to go.
Phil Dickinson
Photo by JH Peterson
When I was a kid, our family car was a 1949 Ford Convertible, almost identical to the 1951 model in the photo above. My friend Stephen photographed this car in West Virginia at a dealership belonging to a friend to collected cars. The photo is a little dishonest because the road is a photo I took in South Carolina. I put the car on that road in Photoshop because I like the background. The '49 Ford had one "bullet" in the grill instead of two. Not sure what other design differences there were. During World War II, Ford built airplanes, not cars, and when they got back to producing cars, the styling was mostly unchanged from the pre-war models with high hoods and distinct round fenders protruding from the side of the car. In 1949, they introduced a new modern look with a sleek no-fender shape. As the country entered the 1950's there was a new appetite for modernism. A design change for the 1952 Ford was a little more square, and it celebrated the Jet Age with a hood ornament that looked like a jet plane.
AN AMERICAN TRIBUTE WEB SITE
© 2019 Phil Dickinson
phil@oceancolor.com
131 Corporate Place, Middletown, RI 02842
401-847-2020
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This site is part of the American Tribute Online project. It is not a commercial site, and it is not associated with any museum or other organization. The purpose of the project is to celebrate our American heritage and provide an online resource for showcasing the America that we can all be proud of.
There is no paid advertising or listing on this site
There is no paid advertising or listing on this site