Driving home from school today, I was behind an inordinate number of cars with bolted-on aftermarket spoilers on cars that didn’t need them, fake exhaust pipes, fake air intake ports to glue to the hood, fake brake discs, etc. There’s a car in my apartment complex that has a big fake spoiler bolted on top of another big fake spoiler for a biplane effect, along with all of the other fake stuff.
These kinds of things always seemed kind of pointless to me if the car isn’t actually tuned to be raced, but then I realized it’s all about the look, just like tailfins, and suddenly wondered… were there aftermarket fake tailfins for cars back in the day? Tailfin-less cars could sprout a pair overnight, cars with meager fins could add an extra large pair to outdo the Caddies on the road, or perhaps someone could go nuts and add a half-dozen fins across the trunk.
I think the difference is that nobody ever really claimed that tail fins improved performance (well, some car makers did, but nobody ever believed them). But spoilers and fart cans and big ostentatious intakes actually do have a place in actual racing, which is the image the kids are going for (and of course the production cars having them is poseury just as much as the glue-on kind). Tail fins were never really desirable other than for the fact that it meant you had this years’ model.
Also, just more practically, keep in mind what cars looked like before tailfins. They generally had tapering rear ends and big curvy fenders. It would be really hard to attach fake fins to one, and plus you wouldn’t be fooling anyone once you did. The modern rectangular car shape essentially evolved with the tailfins. So it wasn’t until they had fallen out of favor that you had a fin-less car with a nice rectangular rear-end that you could easily glue a pair on, but of course by then you wouldn’t be caught dead with 'em.
The OP reminds me of a MAD magazine bit on cars. One guy had enormous tailfins that filled his garage – with a little Studebaker or whatever parked between them. The gag was (IIRC) that you could put these fins in your garage and park your econobox between them so that people would think you had an awesome car.
No idea about the aftermarket tailfins (put me in the doubt it category), but I’d like to point out the 1961 Chrysler Imperial which not only had ginormous tail fins (I think Chrysler had reached the largest tail fins of domestic manufacturers, bigger than Cadillac - and bigger than the 1959 Chevy Impala, since those tail-fins were horizontal), BUT also had Headlights on STALKS! <Crazy Guy>HEADLIGHTS ON STALKS ON A 1960s American SEDAN! NOT A TRUCK! A SEDAN!</crazy guy>
By 1960 Ford with it’s Falcon was more or less tailfin free, and looks like Studebaker with it’s compact Lark went finless a year earlier. While I have my 'Cars of the Fabulous ‘50s’ book open, I can see the 1959 Cadillacs were, as Klingons would say, ‘Impressive’, but the 1959 Plymouthsgave them a run for their money. Now imagine ordering something like those fins from the J.C. Whitney catalog for your 1953 Nash Rambler…
The answer to your question is YES…sort of. At the dawn of tailfins, before Virgil Exner’s gorgeous 1957 line made them a “must,” a few small bathtub shaped cars offered “fins” as after-market options. I disremember the year and model, but they were little more than chrome-plated wedges that perched at the end of the rounded decklid and helped gauge distance from fender to oncoming objects when backing up.
Cal Tech did a study at the time and proved that large tailfins improved stability in cars at speeds over 55 mph. They helped move the center of pressure backwards towards the decklid, improving traction. Ever drive a '59 or '60 Plymouth on the freeway? You can actually feel the fins holding the car straight as you turn. The notable exceptions here were the 1959 Chevy and Buick, whose canted fins actually made the car lighter at high speeds.
Too bad they disappeared. Check out a photo of the 1961 Thunderbird prototype…it had bigger, bolder fins than the '59 Cadillac, although they were removed shortly before the car went into production.
:dubious:
I seriously doubt that anyone could claim that the sleek, curved ‘muscle-car’ style (as first widely expressed by the 1963 Pontiac GTO, and characteristics of which permeated most US auto designs for the next decade (until the safety requirements of 1972/1973, and then the fuel crisis, lead to boxy, dull designs) would indicate Blandness prevailing. Now, if you want to claim that the rounded, jelly-bean design that most contemporary sedans have adopted since 1995 (due to it being a good trade-off between aerodynamics, ergonomics, and practicality) has lead to over 15 years of blandness, well…
Have you driven a car of that vintage since the “good old days”? I guess the tailfins must have held the turn, because the tires and suspension sure didn’t seem to do a very good job of it!
Have you driven a car of that vintage since the “good old days”? I guess the tailfins must have held the turn, because the tires and suspension sure didn’t seem to do a very good job of it!